The Spark

Coming up on this week's edition of The Spark Weekly.

As the anticipation builds and the excitement mounts, the Harrisburg Havoc, Central Pennsylvania's sole all women-led tackle football team, is rallying the region's residents to come out and support their upcoming season.

Also on the program, the farm to hospital program, conceived by Dr. KimberLee Mudge, has emerged as a beacon of holistic healthcare in York County.

There are about 15,000 children in temporary foster care in Pennsylvania. Most of them will return to their family of origin.

It can be painful for kids to be separated from their parents or families and for younger children, it may be hard to understand what’s happening to them and around them.

A new children’s book called The Watchful Owl tells the story of a young fox that loses his parents and lives with another animal family.

It was written by Heather Paterno, an attorney who focuses on families and children’s issues and is a board member of Dauphin County’s Court Appointed Special Advocates for Children or CASA. The artwork in the The Watchful Owl also tells the story and will keep kids’ attention. It’s illustrated by artist P.D. Murray. Both Heather Paterno and P.D. Murray were with us on The Spark Wednesday.

Paterno surmised the story,"The story is just a parable of sort of what could happen to a child in the foster care system, sort of told through a family of animals, so that children can understand it. And essentially what happens to Fennec is he doesn't have a father who's around. His mother's working hard, raising the family. And tragically, something happens to her. She gets picked up by a hunter and the great owl, that's a watchful owl, has always circled around the woods and looked out for all of the the creatures in the woods. And he gathers the community together. And they come up with a plan to look out for Fennec and his siblings."

Fennec, the young fox is taken in by the deer family after he loses his mother. Paterno that's part of the story behind the story,"There is a lesson there. And really it is how a child can walk through the dependency system. This is a very common thing that we do. We have what's called family group conferences, where whenever a child is in care, obviously you want to keep them and the most natural place that you can. So that's why we look to family members. That's why we look to to community members. You never want to have to pick up a child and put them with strangers. Now this fox winds up being with strangers. But he also has two siblings that wind up living with family members. And it's very common. You'll see that a lot in the dependency system. They have these family group conferences and they bring in everybody. And how can we keep the child in their most natural environment of origin? And who are the supports? Who are the people that we can bring around to help assist this family?"

Murray's illustrations help tell the story, especially of Fennec, who is vulnerable,"He's small in most of the scenes. He's little in these environments of these dark woods and larger animals and such. You know, people talk a lot about the importance of representation of kids, how they look, skin color, gender, all of those things in books. But I think it's really critical to -- and Heather has done this wonderfully to capture the needs state of children and to have representation of that. So this does a wonderful job of preparing children or children that aren't in the foster system. Probably build some empathy out of reading a story like this."

Murray was asked what the takeaway is from The Watchful Owl,"I think it's a heartwarming story without being pollyannish. It really tells about the foster system when everything goes right, when there's a champion for a child."

Proceeds from sales of the book will go to Dauphin County's CASA. Paterno explained what CASA does,"These are volunteers, community volunteers who get trained in child abuse and the dependency system. And then they are appointed either one child or one sibling group, one family group. And they also help to advocate for the child's best interests through their entire court proceedings. And, what I can tell you in Dauphin County itself, we have over 350 children right now who are in foster care. That's a lot of kids. And while each child has what I was, which was a guardian ad litem, I can tell you, is guardians of litem or G-A-L, as we call them for short. They often have anywhere from 60 to it can be 110 children. So it's really tough to know what is going on with all of those children every day. Every moment of every day. What's going -on in school, what's going on in their home life, what's going on, with them psychologically and emotionally. Are they getting checked in and seen regularly? So having this outside volunteer come in and represent that one child or one family where they can devote all of their time, to helping, maybe they can find that one psychological report that was buried, that had that one nugget of information that was helpful. And that's what Dauphin County CASA does. They recruit and they train these advocates, to really make a difference in a child's life."

The Farm to Hospital program, conceived by Dr. KimberLee Mudge, has emerged as a beacon of holistic healthcare in York County. Addressing the root causes of illnesses through interventions such as diet and exercise, the initiative aims to combat food insecurity by supplying fresh, nutritious produce to UPMC Memorial patients, staff, visitors, and the wider community.

Partnering with York Fresh Food Farms (YFFF), a local non-profit committed to cultivating and distributing affordable produce, the UPMC Pinnacle Foundation has facilitated the employment of a farm manager and farmhands for daily operations. Through careful selection and seasonal rotation of crops, the YFFF team ensures a year-round supply of fresh food to both patients and the community. With ambitious goals in sight, the program seeks to establish and manage a year-round farm spanning 3-5 acres, yielding approximately 10,000 lbs. of fresh produce annually. Distribution efforts will extend to York City's food deserts, UPMC Food Services, and local food banks. Moreover, the initiative emphasizes the importance of nutritional education, tracking co-op participant data, and the establishment of a permanent produce stand, and critical to the program's success are major donors, including the Memorial Health Fund of the York County Community Foundation, the Powder Mill Foundation, and York Excavating Co.

In shifting the narrative from illness to wellness, the Farm to Hospital program underscores the significance of fresh food in combating prevalent health issues such as heart and renal diseases. Pairing dietary interventions with fitness, mindfulness, and spiritual healing, the initiative endeavors to foster a healthier community. The collaboration between UPMC Memorial, the UPMC Pinnacle Foundation, and York Fresh Food Farms signifies a concerted effort towards community wellness. Commencing with the creation of a walking trail on the hospital campus, repurposed from a former golf course, the initiative gained momentum during the COVID-19 pandemic as the community embraced outdoor activities.

Further enhancing the wellness campus, the installation of the Breast Cancer Garden of Hope at the trailhead offers emotional solace to visitors. Leveraging high tunnels for crop cultivation, the program ensures sustainable practices through drip irrigation, solar power utilization, and water conservation efforts. Future endeavors include educational programs aimed at empowering the community with knowledge on urban farming and nutrition. Volunteers will play a pivotal role in the program's success, receiving training and schedules to assist with harvest activities.

Three construction workers were killed while working on Interstate 83 in York County last week. The victims were sealing cracks in the highway in the early morning hours last Wednesday when a box truck collided with a construction vehicle and veered into the workers.

It brought attention to just how potentially dangerous construction zones can be for those working and motorists driving in them.

Nationally, there were 891 fatalities and almost 38,000 injured in work zones in 2022. Since 2010, work zone deaths have increased 52 percent.

Why are those tragic numbers going up and what can be done to make work zones safer for both workers and motorists?