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A big thank you
Editor:
THE BUS, is gone ... but all the items donated (over 10,000) have been organized, inventoried and are waiting to be packed into backpacks and distributed to the kids. OUR COMMUNITY gave an estimated $9,890.00 worth of school supplies, back packs, underwear and socks, with an additional $1,250 in cash this 2026 school year.
A BIG THANK YOU goes out to: donors, businesses, volunteers, leaders and parents (who are thinking ahead to the needs of their family). We salute you all! Donations continue to be collected through the month of August at these sights: Copper Country Angel Mission Store (Calumet), he Salvation Army (Hancock), Dollar General (Allouez), Incredible Bank (Calumet and Houghton), Auto-Pro Glass & Tire, (Houghton), Houghton Walmart, Faith Lutheran Church (Laurium),
Bethany Lutheran Church (Mohawk), Shepherd of the Sea (Copper Harbor), Holy Trinity (Chassell),
St. Peters & Paul (Houghton), Gloria Dei (Hancock) the Daily Mining Gazette and Houghton Radio Stations.
Monetary donations can be accepted at the CCAM website or mailed to CCAM, 433 5th St., Calumet, MI 49913 (please, note "Stuff the Buss" or Socks and Underwear)
DONATION CANS are available at The Mohawk Superette,, Allouez Amoco, Calumet BP, Toni’s Country Kitchen, Burget King (Calumet), Circle K (Calumet & Hancock), Auto-Pro Glass and Tire, Sharon Ave. Mobile and Houghton Amoco.
Among the items still needed are:
• Girls hipsters underwear (size 10-12)
• Lady's hipsters underwear (size 5-6-7-8-9)
• Men's boxers (size L-XL)
• Ladies socks
So far, 130 families have registered with a total of 355 backpacks to be filled.
Distribution of the backpacks will take place from 4-7 p.m. Friday Aug. 21 and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, at the Salvation Army in Hancock. Distribution at the Copper Country Angel Mission will held held from 4-7 p.m.on Friday, Aug. 28 and (4-7) and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29.
Thank you, again for your support of this wonderful program.
WHAT'S NEXT, you ask?
Coat the Copper Country is coming up, so get those coats cleaned, repaired and ready to move on to their next owner. Good, Clean, children's and men's coats are especially needed. Snow pants and waterproof gloves for the kids are always a plus. Coats and boots can be dropped off at
The Salvation Army 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. M-Th and the CCAM free store in Calumet 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
THANK YOU (again) to this COMMUNITY of caring people.
Carol Plichta
The Salvation Army, Hancock
The Same Shoulders
Editor:
A while back I wrote here about two snowballs. Anyone who grew up here knows how a snowball can grow: harmless at the top of a hill, unstoppable at the bottom. I said our governments are rolling two down the same hill -- the debt we borrow against the future, and the quiet cost of what we fail to invest in our children.
What I left out is where they land. They land on the same people. When a government borrows, it borrows from the future -- and the future is not an abstraction. It is a child alive today, with a name and an age. We spend the money now and hand them the bill later, a bill they didn't run up, while denying them the start to carry it. Two heavy snowballs, one dent, and it's their dent. We are taking from people who are not able to object. The future does not get a vote.
This debt comes due on our children and grandchildren -- the kids in our schools now, who will run the Copper Country after we're gone. How heavy it sits on them depends on how we raise them. A child we help today grows into someone who helps carry the load; a child we leave behind becomes one more the community must carry. And it falls hardest on the children with the least. Right here, kids don't have enough to eat, and volunteers send food home with them. It is hard to learn on an empty stomach -- and a hard thing to hand that same child, grown, the country's debts when we couldn't be bothered to feed them on a Saturday.
This is not charity but investment, and a well-studied one. Nobel-winning economist James Heckman measured what early help returns: for every dollar put in early, several come back -- in children who grow up healthier and need less help later. Not every program manages it -- a reason to run them well, not walk away. Set against borrowing for temporary stimulus, it is the durable value.
Steering is cheapest at the top of the hill; it never gets cheaper than today. And steering is not one heroic shove -- it is the patient, year-after-year work of raising children, which no one does alone. A community that raises its children is one that lasts. Both snowballs are still near the top. We can still reach them.
Let's steer.
Brendhan Givens
Houghton