Oak Ridge Today

Film shown Friday features families struggling after economic crisis

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A new nonprofit organization that helps homeless families in Anderson County will show a documentary on Friday that features families struggling after the Great Recession, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

The 7 p.m. screening of “American Winter,” an HBO documentary, has been organized by TORCH (Trinity Out-Reach Center of Hope). The film was produced during one winter in one American city, and it presents an “intimate snapshot of the state of the nation’s economy as it is playing out in millions of American families, and highlights the human consequences of the decline of the middle class and the fracturing of the American Dream,” a press release said. [Read more…]

Relay for Life of Oak Ridge hosts Hoops for Hope on Saturday

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Hoops for Hope

The Relay For Life of Oak Ridge is hosting its first Hoops for Hope 3 on 3 Basketball Tournament on Saturday, Aug. 24, at the Oak Ridge Civic Center. Registration will start at 8 a.m., and the first games will tip off at 8:30 a.m. Registration costs are $60 per team ($20 per participant) and will include a Relay For Life T-shirt.

Divisions include competitive teams, non-completive teams, and women’s categories. At the end of the tournament, there will be a three-point contest. Participants can enter for an additional $5 donation. There will be prizes for the winners. [Read more…]

Kiwanis Club meeting next week features ADFAC director

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Annie Cacheiro

Annie Cacheiro, right, executive director of Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties, or ADFAC, is pictured above with Liz Herbes, director of ADFAC’s social services program.

A meeting next week of the Kiwanis Club of Oak Ridge will feature Annie Cacheiro, executive director of Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties, or ADFAC.

The Tuesday, Aug. 27, meeting be in the Golden Oak Grill Buffet’s smaller meeting room. The program will start at noon.

Cacheiro will talk about ADFAC activities that include social services and affordable housing programs, as well as ADFAC’s efforts to help local, lower-income families by providing assistance that leads to self sufficiency, a press release said. Those programs include helping with basic needs, housing rehabilitation, and new home construction. For more information about ADFAC, visit the website at www.adfac.org. [Read more…]

UT-Battelle, ATLC home-building project receives labor award

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ORNL Volunteers and Horizon Award

Oak Ridge National Laboratory volunteers receive the Horizon Award from the Tennessee Labor Management Foundation. From left are Angela Gaylon, Dale McBee, Steve Jones, Mike Day, team captain Ann Weaver, and Jeff Reasor. (Submitted photo)

Team UT-Battelle’s all-volunteer project to build homes for Aid to Distressed Families of Appalachian Counties has earned the 2013 Horizon Award from the Tennessee Labor Management Foundation.

The award, which recognizes labor management partnerships that benefit the Tennessee community, will be presented to UT-Battelle and the Atomic Trades and Labor Council at the foundation’s summer conference in Nashville. UT-Battelle is the managing contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory. [Read more…]

Five-county Alzheimer’s Walk coming to Oak Ridge

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The five-county Alzheimer’s Tennessee Walk will be held on Saturday, Sept. 14, at the Oak Ridge Civic Center.

Participants will include volunteers and donors from Anderson, Campbell, Morgan, Roane, and Scott counties to support those living with Alzheimer’s disease and honor those who have lost their battle with it. Registration opens at 9 a.m. on the 14th, with opening ceremonies, door prizes, and pre-walk contests on the schedule for 10 a.m. and the ribbon-cutting and walk at 11 a.m. [Read more…]

Patterson named executive director of CONTACT Care Line

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Deborah Patterson

Deborah Patterson

CONTACT Care Line, a crisis line that has provided a listening ear to East Tennesseans for 40 years, has named Deborah Patterson as its new executive director, a press release said.

Patterson is a University of Tennessee alumna with experience in a variety of social service settings and a master’s degree in business administration. She takes the reins at CONTACT as the Oak Ridge-based organization works to build a Knoxville presence and expand services to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. [Read more…]

B&W Y-12, ATLC continue tradition, donate $15,000 to March of Dimes

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B&W Y-12 and ATLC Donate to March of Dimes

B&W Y-12 President and General Manager Chuck Spencer, left, March of Dimes Executive Director Susan Racek, and Atomic Trades and Labor Council President Steve Jones with a $15,000 donation to help improve the health of all babies. (Submitted photos)

Submitted

B&W Y-12 and Atomic Trades and Labor Council marked the 15th year of the Y-12 National Security Complex’s support of The March of Dimes Tennessee Chapter with a $15,000 donation to advance maternal and infant health in the East Tennessee Community.

“B&W Y-12 and the ATLC have been incredible supporters of our work to help fund research and projects in East Tennessee communities,” said Susie Racek, executive director for March of Dimes East Tennessee Divisions. “They have been instrumental in supporting projects in the local hospital NICUs (neonatal intensive care units) and, in particular, funding and helping create the ‘Butterfly Room’ in East Tennessee Children’s Hospital, where families of premature babies who will not be going home can privately spend their last moments with the child.” [Read more…]

Organizers forming ‘human chain’ to move Briceville Library books Aug. 24

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Briceville Library Construction

Construction work at the new Briceville Public Library in July. (Photo courtesy Coal Creek Watershed Foundation)

After years of work, it’s almost moving day at the new Briceville Public Library.

Supporters are looking for about 150-175 people to form a “human chain” at 10 a.m. Aug. 24 to move about 1,100 books from the old library to the new one. The library is now housed in a 20-foot by 22-foot room at the Briceville Friendship Center. It will move into a new 2,000-square-foot building at 111 Slate Stone Road, next to Briceville School.

[Read more…]

OREPA commemorates Nagasaki bombing with peace lantern ceremony

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Ralph Hutchison

Ralph Hutchison

The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance will commemorate the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945, with a peace lantern ceremony this evening at Sequoyah Hills Park in Knoxville.

The ceremony begins at 8 p.m. and will include Buddhist drumming and chanting, traditional Japanese folk dancing, music, shadow puppets, and, at 8:45pm, the launching of peace lanterns, a press release said. [Read more…]

Basketball tournament to benefit Cancer Society

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Hoops for Hope

Information from WYSH Radio

On Saturday Aug. 24, a 3-on-3 basketball tournament will be held in Oak Ridge to benefit the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life of Oak Ridge. The tournament will be held at the Oak Ridge Civic Center with the first game to be played at 8:30 a.m.

There are three divisions: Competitive, Non-Competitive, and Women’s, and the registration fee is $60 per team ($20 per person). Each participant will receive a Relay for Life T-shirt.

There will also be a three-point contest at the conclusion of the 3-on-3 tournament and you can participate in that for a $5 donation entry fee. For more information or to reserve a spot for your team today, contact Kenneth Herring at (865) 310-2664.

Nonprofit lease termination could leave vacant space in central Oak Ridge

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Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic building

Oak Ridge officials have been asked to terminate the 50-year lease on the former Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic building on Badger Road, which would leave vacant space in central Oak Ridge. City officials haven’t decided what to do with the building.

A decision to terminate a 50-year lease agreement on a building once used by a national nonprofit organization to record audiobooks for the dyslexic and visually impaired could open up some office space in central Oak Ridge.

But city officials said they haven’t decided what to do with it yet.

Now partially empty, the split-level two-story building on Badger Road was once home to Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. Located on the south side of Alvin K. Bissell Park, it still houses the Oak Ridge Civic Music Association, which includes the Oak Ridge Symphony Orchestra and Oak Ridge Chorus. [Read more…]

Tuesday morning ceremony near Y-12 recalls Hiroshima bombing

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OREPA Protest at Y-12 National Security Complex

A Tuesday morning ceremony in front of the Y-12 National Security Complex will recall the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, near the end of World War II. Y-12 enriched uranium for the bomb. Pictured above are protesters at last year’s annual event.

A Tuesday morning ceremony near the Y-12 National Security Complex will recall the bombing of Hiroshima, Japan, on Aug. 6, 1945, during World War II, organizers said.

The annual event at the front of Y-12 includes a Names and Remembrance Ceremony. It’s sponsored by the Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance.

Organizers say they will “raise voices in solidarity with survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima who say, ‘Never Again!’” [Read more…]