The Housing Authority of the city of Danville will participate in the summer food program.

Free meals will be made available to all children 18 years of age and younger, and to persons older than 18 who are enrolled in a state approved educational program for the mentally or physically handicapped.

Meals are made available to all eligible participants regardless to race, color, national origin, sex or age. Any person who believes that he or she has been discriminated against in any USDA-related activity should write immediately to the Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 20250-9410 or call (800) 795-3272.

The meals will be provided June 16 through Aug. 15, 2008, in the community room, Danville Housing Authority, 1607 Clyman Lane.

The Committee to Elect Darla Cruppenink for Vermilion County circuit clerk will hold a fundraiser from 3-7 p.m. June 8 at Kickapoo Landing in Kickapoo State Park.

A catered meal will be served along with music and a brief auction. The meal includes grilled chicken breast or catfish fillet, two sides, desert and a drink.

Donations requests are $20 per adult and $10 per child, 16 or younger. RSVP by Thursday, June 5 by calling 267-7116 or e-mail kurcrupp125@yahoon.com.

CRIS Senior Services offers a day camp for senior citizens age 60 and older.

The June day camps are: Tuesday, June 3 in the Audubon Barn at Forest Glen Preserve near Westville, June 10 at Kickapoo State Park, June 17 in the White Oak Barn at Kennekuk County Park and June 24 at Zamberletti Park in Westville (potluck).

Those interested in the day camp should meet the park between 9-9:30 a.m. or at CRIS Senior Center at 309 N. Franklin St. by 9 a.m. if they need a ride to the park. For more information, call 443-2999.

Danville Lions Club will hold an organizational meeting to start a second Lions Club in the city of Danville which will meet in the evenings.

The meeting will be at 7 p.m. Thursday, June 5 at the YMCA, 1111 N. Vermilion St.

For questions, call Bill Wallpe at 474-9210.

The Vermilion County Emergency Management Agency will test warning sirens at 10 a.m. Tuesday, June 3.

The test will be in Danville, Allerton, Alvin, Armstrong, Bismarck, Catlin, Fairmount, Georgetown, Henning, Hoopeston, Indianola, Oakwood, Potomac, Ridge Farm, Rossville, Sidell, Tilton and Westville.

The alert signal will sound at 10, followed by the attack signal at 10:02. No public participation is required, but residents should be familiar with the two different warning signals.

Donate blood on any Monday over the summer at the Danville Elks Blood Donor Center on Liberty Lane and receive coupons for a free food items from the following restaurants:

n June 2: Dairy Queen (one free sundae); and Jocko’s (small one-topping pizza).

n June 9: Royal Donut (two free donuts).

n June 16: Fazoli’s (one free spaghetti).

n June 23: Charlotte’s (one free cookie).

n June 30: Taco Bell (two free tacos).

n July 7: Weiner Works (one free chili dog); and Jocko’s (small one-topping pizza).

n July 14: Dairy Queen (one free pint of ice cream).

n July 28: McDonald’s (one free cheeseburger).

n Aug. 4, Lee’s Famous Recipe (two- or three-piece chicken dinner); and Jocko’s (small one-topping pizza).

n Aug. 11: Putt Zone (two free games of putt putt and two free games of cage batting).

n Aug. 18: Coupon to one of the above mentioned sponsors (while supplies last).

Walk-ins are always welcome. For questions, call 1 (800) 217 GIVE or 367-2202.

The Rock Church, 20 Poland Road, will offer its Hope Angel Food program. You may order regular box menu for $30.

The order dates are 1-4 p.m. Thursday, June 5 and 9-10:30 a.m. Saturday, June 7. The pickup day is June 21.

For further information, call 443-4559. You need to come in person and pre-pay your order. Cash and link cards are accepted.

The Community Church of God, 535 S. Bowman Ave., is offering the Angel Food Program. You may order a regular box menu for $30. The order dates are: 1-4 p.m. Thursday, June 5 and 9:30-11 a.m. Saturday, June 7.

You need to come in person and pre-pay your order at the church. Cash, money orders and Link cards are accepted. Parking is available in the lot behind the church. The date of pick up food is June 21. A $3 donation is accepted to assist with this ministry.

For further information, call the church office at 446-7289 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.

Team Paparazzi has scheduled their final fundraiser before the June 21-22 Relay For Life event. The team is hosting a spaghetti dinner from 5-8 p.m. June 11 at the American Legion Post 210, located at the corner of Prospect Place and Jackson Street.

For a donation of $5 per person, you will be treated to salad, spaghetti, bread and dessert. Advanced ticket purchase is suggested, but not required. To purchase tickets, contact Missy Parson at 446-1504 or any Team Paparazzi member. Team Paparazzi is a group of 11 friends and family members who are participating in their third Relay for Life. The team has already raised more than $9000 for the 2008 Relay through various fundraising activities. Can they reach $10,000?

If you would like more information concerning this fundraiser, Team Paparazzi, or Relay For Life, call 355-8400, ext. 223 (daytime), 446-1504 (evening) or email at melisssa@cdg.ws.

Vermilion Heights Neighborhood Association will have a spring clean-up Saturday, May 31.

Participants should meet at 9 a.m. at Crosspoint Human Services, 210 Avenue C. The Vermilion County PRIDE trailer and dumpster will be set up.

Old Town Preservation Association will hold a rummage sale from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, May 31 at 219 W. North St., next to Illiana Genealogical & Historical Society parking lot.

A variety of old, new and in-between items will be sold.

St. Synagogue Church of God in Christ will have a rummage sale Friday and Saturday, May 30-31 at the church, 2605 E. Main St.

The sale will begin at 9 a.m. Friday and 8 a.m. Saturday.

CRIS Senior Services will sponsor a Starlite Ball from 6:30-9 p.m. June 4 and 18 at Harrison Park Clubhouse.

Bev Wolfe & Co. will play June 4 and Gene Trimble Band will play June 18.

 

Dominador E. Martin still has the well-worn punchhole binder passed on to him by his Tae Kwon Do master.
And he refers to the manual often, re-reading and gleaning techniques or lessons his master presented to him when he was just a kid searching for something to provide balance in his life.
Talking of the former master, John Saikley, a former YMCA instructor who died just before a scheduled class three years ago, Martin reaches for the book and leafs through it with a slow reverence. He finds an example and then sets the binder down again gently, like one would a museum piece.
“Spiritually, Tae Kwon Do has helped me think straight,” he said from a classroom last week before completing his daily routine in preparation for a night class, which he now teaches.
“He was strict at times, but that’s what I needed at that time in my life,” Martin said. “He taught me everything I know.”
Comfort zone
Martin had plenty of reasons to feel out of place when his family moved to Danville in 1990.
Martin was just 13 when his parents, who had emigrated from the Philippines in the late 1960s to attend medical school, took jobs at the Veterans Administration hospital and moved the family from Chicago’s western suburbs.
“You’ve heard of culture shock; this was city shock,” he said. “I couldn’t believe how small Danville was.”
Martin worked hard to fit in, but he was still searching for his life’s path after attending Schlarman High School and then transferring to Danville High School.
And he wasn’t pleased with the person he was becoming, one who reacted angrily at times — enough to be suspended for a day as a junior when he hit a student who was making fun of him.
“I wanted to control my aggressions and just be comfortable,” he said.
Martin gravitated toward a career in computers, getting his associate’s degree from Danville Area Community College, but he was still missing the balance he sought in his life.
New outlook
Enter the Dragon.
Not literally, but the 1973 Bruce Lee movie that catapulted martial arts to newfound popularity in the U.S. Like millions of other kids, Martin was not only mesmerized by the flying kicks and acrobatic moves of Lee, but was attracted to the discipline he knew must lie behind such superhuman feats.
Martin wanted to know how.
“I thought, ‘I should be able to do that,’” he recalled. “Why couldn’t I do that?”
That’s when he signed up for Saikley’s class once a week.
“Before long it was a three days a week,” Martin said. “If he had class for an hour, I would stay longer and extend it. After a while I was kind of like his right-hand man.”
It was the body and mind concept that attracted Martin, but it was Saikley’s structure that kept Martin progressing through the belt-ranking system. He started in 1999 and received his first degree in 2003. He will be testing in June to become a fourth-degree black belt, with ninth-degree being highest.
“I’ve taken what he taught me and I’ve added a few things myself,” he said.
Teacher
Martin hadn’t even realized it himself, but that uncertain kid who had walked almost by accident into Saikley’s class had become confident and controlled.
His first test in leadership came just two days after the instructor’s death, when classmates gathered for their normal time and found out the bad news. They decided to hold the class anyway as a form of respect, and Martin found himself leading the way.
“I just took over without hesitation,” he said.
Martin hasn’t let go of the class, now passing on the tenants of Saikley’s binder along with the new techniques he continues to learn on his quest to the highest belt. As he progresses personally, he faces a growing list of challenges, including breaking boards and concrete, which he must complete to advance.
“At this stage there’s a little bit of everything,” he said. “At first I wasn’t very sure I could break boards, but it’s mind over matter. I don’t mind and the boards and concrete don’t matter. When the adrenaline is flowing it doesn’t hurt. When it wears off, it does.”
As for his teaching side, Martin keeps it simple, stressing the mind’s potential to affect the physical world.
“I like the art and beauty of Tae Kwon Do and the ‘dance’ of it,” he said. “That’s what it is, a dance. We do a lot of meditation and breathing exercises. I get a lot of satisfaction knowing I help people not only protect themselves but to feel good about themselves.”
Saikley taught Martin to never write a student off and to always strive for his full potential, a lesson Martin said he will use if he decides to open his own school in the future or travels back to his ancestral home to teach English or math and martial arts to children in the Phillipines.
“Being a teacher I’ve learned patience,” he said. “It’s not giving up on a student when things get really tough. It’s always mind over matter.”

When Cathy and Scott Simpson go on vacation, they make sure and pack everything they need to have a good time during their getaway.
And that does not include tennis rackets.
That’s because the couple already pretty much lives their lives with a racket in their hands.
“We’re both on the court about 30 hours a week, so we do need a break from time to time,” said Cathy from the clubhouse of the Danville Tennis Center, which sits adjacent to Washington Park on property owned by the city.
Scott, well-known in Danville tennis circles for more than a quarter-century, is a longtime manager and club pro at the tennis complex and coaches the Danville High School team, which has made it to state competition several times over his tenure, including this season.
He is a former high-school tennis star at DHS around 1970 and a four-year scholarship player at Western Illinois University, and currently manages a Champaign tennis center where he is the certified club pro.
Cathy has seen her court time go up after taking over Scott’s former management and club pro position at the Danville facility last year, leading to a life for the couple that is lived mostly between the white lines of a regulation court.
“At first I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this,” Cathy said of her hesitation to get into the business side of her favorite sport. “But this place is one of those things in Danville that’s a best-kept secret. I want it to do well.”
The Simpsons also were mulling a move to another state when the manager’s position opened up, but they just couldn’t quite get themselves to do it. The chance for them both to be involved in tennis professionally, and for Cathy to build on Scott’s work at the center, canceled the move.
Cathy said what makes the center unique is the support it gets from the community, which includes oversight from a local board of directors and close cooperation with District 118 school officials and the city. The center’s Wall of Fame is a veritable who’s who list of community movers and shakers. That official support, along with donations and fund-raising efforts from the general community, has allowed the center, built in 1960, to continue offering programs and indoor and outdoor court time at prices well below other facilities in the region.
“There is just nothing like this club,” she said. “Everybody is so close, and there is a great social element between the people here. We have a nice working relationship with everybody (the directors and elected officials), and it’s a nice setup for the community. We’ve tried to keep our prices down.”
Learning curve
Scott knew Cathy had potential as soon as she walked into the tennis center in 1990.
Tennis potential, that is.
A natural athlete, Cathy had been a standout sports player herself at Rossville High School, but had never tried tennis. You could hardly tell.
“Basketball was my sport and just being an athlete helped,” she said. “But I needed some lessons. A lot of people who play tennis grew up banging the ball around somewhere. I didn’t have that; I started out as a brand-new beginner.”
Scott was more than happy to help, and he watched in amazement as she quickly progressed in skill.
“She was very athletic as soon as she hit the court,” Scott remembered. “And she had the desire to get better and to be good.”
Cathy said the fact she hadn’t played before led to her somewhat quick success (it was a seven-year process of learning before she reached certification status) because she didn’t have as many bad habits to break from learning to play on the playground without instruction.
It also drummed up some of those same pent-up competitive feelings she used to get playing basketball.
Before long Cathy was hooked on the sport, and Scott was hooked on her. They’ve been married for eight years and have five children between them, all but one with a connection to tennis.
Cathy has since advanced several levels of play to become a certified U.S. Professional Tennis Association instructor.
Scott said her move up the ladder and pro certification is rare in such a short amount of time.
Same old
The tennis center had gone without a club pro for several years, and the effect on programs — other than lessons — had suffered, the couple said.
Getting more programs up and running and bringing more kids and new players in has been Cathy’s priority since taking over as manager last August.
“We’re continually trying to keep programs going,” she said. “Camps, leagues, cardio-tennis; everything we can think of to bring people in. Tennis is such a family experience. You can play with your kids or you can play with your spouse.”
One of the outreach programs the center will be offering is a USPTA-sponsored program that will supply rackets and balls to kids from the local Boys/Girls Club to use during a free weeklong camp.
“It’s a great way to introduce the sport and get these kids started,” she said.
She has had the benefit of Scott’s experience of running the center for around 25 years.
“It hasn’t been as stressful as I thought it would be,” Cathy said of the paperwork side of running a tennis business. “He really trained me well, and I’ve always got him to call if I have a problem with something.”
Scott said he’s been pleased with the direction his wife has taken the center, though she admits she has some tough sneakers to fill.
“She’s added a great touch and she’s turning it back around to the way it was,” he said. “She puts in a lot of hours. It’s great that we have this common interest like this. It’s not everything, but it is a passion we share.”
“I think we made the right decision,” Cathy said.

To say Glen Cronkhite has changed his perspective over the years is an understatement.
“This 10 acres to me as a kid meant nothing but work,” he said from a farm and homestead a few miles north of Danville in a farmland-filled section of Vermilion County known as
8-mile Prairie.
His family had farmed the area for seven generations, but this Cronkhite was having no part of the
tradition.
There had to be a better way to spend one’s life than pulling weeds, feeding the animals and bailing hay in the hottest summer hours.
Cronkhite had a talent for computer programming and used it to help put as much distance between him and the family farm as possible.
“I saw this black dirt as icky and the world was calling. And then one day I had an epiphany,” he said. “I realized I worked for a machine. It really triggered this desire to live independently and ‘off the grid,’ so to speak.”
Three years ago he escaped the cold-metal grasp of that machine, purchased the farm and moved into his childhood home with wife Joyce.
“Now I have this uncontrollable urge to dig into the dirt,” he said of the change in venue. “This is my atonement.”
A plan
Cronkhite is not planning to live on the land or off the land.
His idea is to live for the land.
“We’re trying to take a niche of ecology and take it back to where it was,” he said.
The Cronkhites have gotten a good jump on things, adding chickens, a field to grow animal forage from and a large garden they hope will allow them to make organic farming a commercial success as well.
“My mom was very health-conscious, which has kind of led me over time to watch my body and watch what I’m putting into it,” he said. “And my body requires an outward look. The majority of all health issues are dietary.”
It’s taken the full three years just to get the farm organized the way he and his wife want it, but they are still able to produce a veritable cornucopia of fresh vegetables and have a regular supply of eggs.
Cronkhite said the land was practically “dead” when he moved there, sitting in the middle of high-acreage farming operations using chemicals on the crops all around him.
It’s taken some coaxing for the patch of land to come back to life as birds, insects and even earthworms start coming back to the oasis, and he has had to solve problems annually.
He said he and his wife are part of the growing trend of organic and sustainable farming, where chemical additives and high yields are replaced by natural growing methods and specialty crops.
“I recognize what we’ve done to this land and the peoples of this land,” he said. “I look at the degradation of this land and think something should be done. To have 10 acres in the middle of this is incredible.”
Many factors have led to the growing popularity of organic farming, including ecological concern, shrinking crop variety, higher food prices (much of it influence by the spike in corn prices) and questions over public food safety.
Growers are also finding there is profit in the step “back” to traditional agrarian practices.
The Cronkhites say their plans include growing specialty crops that can be sold to restaurant suppliers, something they’ve already found success with through a variety of snow peas they have grown successfully. They’ve also found some commercial success growing hay and selling it to animal-owning farmers who have found former land used for growing grazing plants has been devoted to corn or soybean. They’ve also had success with tomatoes and peppers and sell some of their produce at area farmers markets.
“There used to be 20 million organic farmers in this country and they did OK,” he said. “The system was diversified and you could have a breakdown in a particular spot and the system wouldn’t break.
Power
The biggest challenge in creating a totally self-sufficient farm is making it run more efficiently in the first place.
That means reducing waste as well as keeping the power inputs low.
Cronkhite has reconditioned many of the implements left on the farm, including a tractor and plow that are more than 60 years old.
Plans include adding wind power to pump water, and they have already built a greenhouse-like front porch that serves as a growing room as well as a nice place to sit and read. They plan to eventually get cattle to round out the ecological circle and produce fertilizer, and the forage material will be used to feed the cattle.
“These farms were complete entities of their own,” he said. “It was a complete community. Now it’s unsustainable because it’s all based on energy. We even dump millions of gallons of oil on the land every year. There is a cause and effect for everything, and everything we (humans) do is for the short term.”
Cronkhite has cannibalized what others might be considered trash to find a farm use, with even the sun room built with pieces picked out of construction-site trash. He recycles everything else through the county’s program.
“I’m using a lot of old technology but it works for what I’m doing,” he said. “It used to be that nothing went to waste. There was this balance that was constantly being done.”
Certified
Being a steward of the planet does not come without a lot of class work.
The Cronkhites are constantly reading books and gleaning information about natural farming, but they have shied away from officially being certified from the government or the myriad of organizations that have sprung up with the growth of the industry.
“I’m still trying to learn the ecology of this land,” he said, noting that only now the worms, birds and pollinating insects are returning to the site as they discover there is new life on the land.
“Everything around us is sterile,” he said.
The couple is doing all of the work while holding down jobs themselves, which has made the transformation a slow process.
Even planting a hedgerow, once a farmland staple, is considered almost a lost art because most were destroyed to expand and access farmland.
“What used to get passed down from generation to generation has been broken,” he said. He is still considering whether to become certified.
“You can still claim to be organic but not display the USDA organic seal,” he said. “Right now it’s really an honor system. Marketing has always been the big challenge for organics.”
The couple has created a 50-foot buffer field from surrounding, high-yield fields and have kept books and notes for inspection to prove they don’t use chemicals on their crops.
“We’re still challenged as to how to get things to grow just right,” he said. “We’ve tried all kinds of things and we’ve read all of the books.”
Stewards
There was a time when such an outlook wasn’t that unusual. Conservation wasn’t a topic of public conversation as much as it was a way of life for the American Indian as well as the American farmer.
“They lived in such harmony with the land and they didn’t hardly leave a trace they were even here,” Cronkhite said.
“Never have we had the power to kill off the species, and that’s what we’re doing. It’s made me ask, ‘How do I as an individual leave only my footprints behind?’ Hopefully, that will be our legacy.”

A self-proclaimed “city girl” from Indianapolis all of her life, Jackie Berglund puts on her knee-high rubber boots like she’s been a farm wife for some time.
It’s become part of a routine she never dreamed of before moving with husband Devon to a 5-acre homestead and farm plot near Henning that has been in his family for several generations.
“When we got married he told me this is where we’re going to move,” she said.
Devon said he told her about his plans to start an organic farm on the second date, in fact, and was worried the revelation might send this city girl right back up Interstate 465 and out of his life.
“I wasn’t real sure how she would take it,” he recalled. “My family has always lived here.”
The two have taken it quite well, in fact, creating a veritable oasis the past five years that includes the addition of animals as well as crops.
They are purposely creating biodiversity, a concept lost long ago on the endless sea of corn and beans that surround them.
“My grandfather told me that when he grew up, the success of a farm was how many different things you could have to be self-sufficient,” Devon said.
Devon, who grew up on the Henning farm and raised cows and later draft horses with his father before living in Indianapolis through his teen years, had always planned to return to his farming roots and continued visiting during school breaks.
It was working in the draft horse industry, where the family had contact with many Amish farmers, that linked the romance contained in his grandfather’s stories to the idea Berglund could make such a farm a reality in the 21st Century.
“I’ve always had an interest in agriculture and I’ve always gardened,” he said. “I just didn’t believe the whole message that you have to raise more and get more. It’s a lie.”
Hard work
An unchallenged truth is that organic farming is tough work.
First the couple, who has three children, had to set up a plan to maximize their limited acreage. They had to include a large area for forage plants that would feed their livestock, build pens for the animals and figure out where garden plants would grow best. They added fencing and shored up several outbuildings to shelter the animals.
“What we’re trying to make is a food plane with different species interacting with people,” Devon said. “And that’s messy.”
But it’s getting better.
The couple says they are nowhere near where they would like to be to consider the project “completed,” and they admit there likely isn’t really a set stopping point.
For now they are able to grow enough vegetables and collect enough milk and eggs to feed themselves and to sell, and they are starting to diversify the operation to include wool-making and beef production from a starter stock of miniature cows called “Dexters” that are half the size of regular cows and ideal for such small plots of land.
Everywhere you walk there are chickens at your feet, ducks and geese crossing your path and an occasional goat you must keep from trying to eat your wallet.
There is also the chance with each step that you will end up in a fresh pile of manure, which for the Berglands is the veritable coin of the realm.
“This is why we got into it, because there’s a balance to nature,” Jackie explained.
“The big thing is, there just never seems to be enough time,” said Devon, who has a full-time job working on freight cars and spends a great majority of his “free” time working the farm with his family.
“We don’t even use a tractor,” he said. “Overhead debt kills the farmer and the housing industry, too, it seems. We still have a ton to do.”
Food chain
While reclaiming the land and reconnecting it and themselves with nature is a major goal of the family, there is also a somewhat selfish reason for the move to the farm: They are doing it to produce good, clean food for themselves.
Jackie, a former nurse who treated cancer patients, said the experience has led her to try to provide food without harmful chemicals.
“You just start thinking about what you put in your body,” she said. “We wanted a lifestyle where we could try to avoid toxic chemicals as much as possible. Out here when I make dinner, I know everything that goes into it. Our kids not only eat salads, they go outside and pick it themselves.”
The Berglunds have gone pesticide free and depend on natural pest and weed-control agents that include kelp and sea salt. They feed their animals natural vitamin supplements and control lice and other pests with a natural, all-purpose powder called Diatomaceous Earth.
“You can’t just go anywhere and get some of these things,” Devon said. “There’s a lot of waste just in the hundreds of catalogues we have. There’s so much information, but it’s in a lot of different places.
“People who eat well and get the right vitamins don’t get sick. That’s the way it is with plants and animals, you’ve just got to give them the right vitamins.”
The couple is learning much by trial and error because they say this way of farming all but disappeared once farms started becoming larger-production operations.
“You used to be able to call someone up to ask them a question if you were having a problem,” Devon said. “There’s no one left to ask. This knowledge has left. Every person in organics is relearning it themselves.”
Organization
The Berglunds are not alone in their quest for the perfect, chemical-free tomato.
In Illinois alone there are 131 certified organic operations that include 25,000 acres in crops and 1,700 devoted to cattle. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture counts some 8,000 such farms nationwide and says total acreage for organic production doubled from 2000 to 2005.
The recent Farm Bill, passed by Congress last week in a veto override of the president, includes several million dollars for research into organic and sustainable farming.
Organic farming, with public concerns over safe food, higher food prices and more land being used to fuel the corn boon, is not a secret or hippie fad anymore. More and more organics are becoming the best way to maintain variety.
But the Berglunds are part of a growing trend of organic farmers who are shunning the certification, which has such requirements as a 50-foot buffer from chemically sprayed farmland and other criteria to ensure plants and animals are being raised naturally.
It’s not that they don’t follow the rules and principles, they just don’t think, in the end, the government will likely look after consumers’ or smaller growers’ best interests.
Basically, they think they can produce a better “brand” than the federal government.
“We want people to know us and trust us,” Devon said. “We don’t want people to trust the government to make sure it’s safe. It’s the concept of local food for local people.”
The Berglunds have already seen benefits from their change in lifestyle.
They say they the children are healthier, and the farm plot they moved to is certainly in better ecological shape.
“When we moved here we noticed there weren’t very many birds or frogs,” Devon said. “There was virtually no animal life.”
But as the animals have mingled and interacted, and flowering plants have sought fertilization, the 5-acre plot is now teeming with life.
“We just have birds everywhere now,” he said.

Danville Christie Clinic Relay for Life Team will be having a rummage sale from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, May 31 at Farmers Chapel United Methodist Church, 414 Poland Road.

Clinic employees and Farmers Chapel members have donated a variety of items including furniture, an aquarium, miscellaneous items and clothes in all sizes. Luminaries and other items will also be sold. All money raised will be donated to the Vermilion County Relay for Life. For information or to make a donation, contact Robin Turner 442-8611 or 442-8328.

Eastern Illinois Special Olympics is looking for donations of used trophies and used baseball gloves for its program.

If you have any that you would like to donate, contact Carlton Kagawa at 2 E. Main St., Suite 200 H, Towne Centre, Danville, IL 61832 or call 446-0145.

Sunset Memorial Park announce that it now has its own Web site.

The Web site http://www.sunsetcemeterydanville.com features information regarding maps and sections of Sunset Memorial Park, cemetery rules and regulations, upcoming events, park history and marker information.

The Little Miss Vermilion County Fair and the Baby Contest are planned.

The Little Miss contest will be during the queen pageant on June 24. Registration will be from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. that day, and pageant will be at 7 p.m. (during the queen pageant).

The baby contest will be June 28, with registration from 1-3 p.m. and the contest at 4 p.m.

For more information, contact Vicki Cunningham at 260-8171 or e-mail vickih73@comcast.net.

The Danville Rifle and Pistol Club will host a fundraising event to honor the memory of Sgt. Myron Deckard June 22.

The Myron Deckard Memorial Fundraiser Shoot will generate funds to support a scholarship at Danville Area Community College.

The event’s hours are from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and will feature a shooting competition, a 50/50 drawing, and refreshments. The cost for participants in the competition will be $5.00 per stage and includes chances to win door prizes. A grand prize will also be awarded.

Those who plan to participate should bring centerfire pistols, a minimum of 50 rounds of ammunition, and eye and ear protection. Holsters are not required. One stage of the competition will be done with a pump shotgun, with the Rifle and Pistol Club providing the shotgun and shells. Range officers will be present to insure a safe event.

The family of Sgt. Deckard will be in attendance at the event. Sgt. Myron Deckard embodied the qualities that many admire. As a Vermilion County Sheriff’s Deputy, he was a stellar law enforcement officer, a good friend, and a proud family man. After his death while serving his community, friends and family of Sgt. Deckard gathered to celebrate his life and raise money in his honor. The proceeds of that initial event established The Sgt. Myron Deckard Scholarship to benefit students who are the dependent of a law enforcement officer who attend Danville Area Community College. Since that first event, the family and friends of Sgt. Deckard continue to honor his memory by raising additional funds for the scholarship.

The Danville Rifle and Pistol Club is located on County Road 2250, 4 miles north of the 1nterstate 74 Oakwood Exit.

For more information, contact Larry Pasquale at 443-2050.

Southside Church of the Nazarene in partnership with New Life Christian Center will present A Day in the Park with Celebrate Recovery to be held from 2-5 p.m. June 7 at Lincoln Park, corner of West English Street and North Logan Avenue.

This event is open to the public.

Registration is not required and there is no charge, so come join us for an afternoon of food and fun and be inspired by stories of victory over the struggle and pain of addictions.

For more information, call Ronnie Payne at 446-7876.

Aqua Illinois, Inc., along with the Lake Vermilion Water Quality Coalition, will be sponsoring the seventh annual Lake Vermilion Clean-Up Day from 8 a.m. until approximately noon May 30.

Over the past years, this project has helped to enhance the natural beauty and overall cleanliness of the lake. Lake Vermilion is one of Vermilion County's most vital natural resources.

The event will concentrate on two areas: debris in the lake (barrels, tires, runaway dock floats, etc.) and shoreline enhancement. If you are a resident living on the lake and would like debris (garbage or any other items that you would just like to get rid of) removed from your shoreline, have it bagged, boxed, or neatly piled for removal. Make these items plainly visible for removal,

Any organizations or individuals wishing to volunteer their services will be greatly appreciated. All participants are asked to meet at the Vermilion County Conservation District’s boat-trailer parking lot no later than 8 a.m. Participants should plan on wearing clothing appropriate for the job. Gloves will be provided. Donuts and refreshments will be provided before work begins and lunch will be served for all upon completion.

Contact David Cronk, production manager, Aqua Illinois, Inc, at 443-8541 ext. 123, if you wish to participate or have any questions.

Laura Lee Fellowship House presents “Jonathan and His Friends” at 6 p.m. June 7 in the annex at Laura Lee Fellowship House, 212 E. Williams St.

Activities include poetry night, camaraderie, conversation and coffee.