Category: Art

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Walker County Kids Food Program Gets $5000 Grant

Gary Furr

Birmingham, AL, July 8, 2024The Alabama Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children is pleased to announce the presentation of a $5,000 grant to Backyard Blessings, a community-based nonprofit organization in Sumiton, Alabama. This grant is part of the Coalition’s ongoing commitment to supporting initiatives that improve the health and well-being of mothers and children across the state. Backyard Blessings is dedicated to combating food insecurity and providing essential resources to local families. Weekly, the organization distributes bags of food to needy children to ensure they have enough to eat over the weekend. During the 2023–2024 school year, Backyard Blessings served … Continue reading Walker County Kids Food Program Gets $5000 Grant

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$5,000 Grant to West Alabama Food Bank for Summer Feeding Program  

Gary Furr

Alabama Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children PRESS RELEASE   FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE    Alabama Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children Awards $5,000 Grant to West Alabama Food Bank for Summer Feeding Program   Birmingham, AL – July 8, 2024 The Alabama Coalition for Healthy Mothers and Children (ACHMC) has announced a pivotal $5,000 grant awarded to the West Alabama Food Bank, in partnership with the Sumter County School District Child Nutrition Program. This grant is dedicated to supporting the summer feeding program, filling a critical gap left by the Alabama legislature’s failure to fund such initiatives for 2024. The … Continue reading $5,000 Grant to West Alabama Food Bank for Summer Feeding Program  

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June 6, 1944

Gary Furr

In 1963, I was in the third grade. We moved from my hometown in North Carolina to Clarksville, Tennessee. We lived near Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Fort Campbell is home of the “Screaming Eagles” of the 101st Airborne –-the Army’s only Air Assault Division. World War II was still in living memory all around us, and we had books and toys to reflect it—plastic toy soldiers, cap guns, and I think I remember having a toy mortar, of all things. We re-enacted D-Day and Iwo Jima, Wake Island, Pearl Harbor and El Alamein. The 101st Airborne was famous: they were parachuted … Continue reading June 6, 1944

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Review of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

Gary Furr

The Anxious Generation:How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illnessby Jonathan Haidt (Penquin Press, March 26, 2024, 400 pages) In 2010 I led a group of pastors to the Holy Land. I noticed that whenever there was free time, at least half of the group sat in the commons area of our retreat center staring at their phones. While I had a cell phone, I had not yet transitioned to the usage levels I would later attain. I still did a great deal of my work on the computer and through email. It seemed odd … Continue reading Review of The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt

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Lament for a Friend

Gary Furr

Fifteen years ago. On Easter weekend, I realized that I lost one of my best friends fifteen years ago. Like all losses, it alternates from being like yesterday to feeling like an eternity. He died, far too soon, at age 60 of a recurrence of a deadly cancer. Brilliant thinker, courageous pastor, unflinching leader. Philip Wise was a mentor, and encouraged my ministry for more than twenty years. He debated a future Pope, spoke out for racial justice and was a great preacher and teacher. On this anniversary, I want to share this remembrance, written in the midst of his … Continue reading Lament for a Friend