J uly 9, 1997 • T he P ortland O bserver P agi A6 Family ties Get to our young before the courts do m M arian W right E delman Frieda Murray o f northeast Portland enjoys a July 4th picnic at Blue Lake Park with her family, including grandson. Gary and granddaughter-in-law, Cynthia. OPERATION FRONTLINE FACTS Operation Frontline is share Our Strength's (SOS) nutrition edu­ cation and food budgeting pro­ gram that connects chefs with people who are at risk of poor nutrition and hunger. Cooking & Nutrition: Operation Frontline chefs are trained by SOS and serve in teams as volunteer teachers. The six week cooking classes, which serve people who are struggling to feed their fami­ lies on limited incomes, are taught in nonprofit community centers. Each class focuses on a theme in­ cluding shopping smart and eating more fruits and vegetables. Chefs add their own creative touch with low cost, nutritious recipes they cre­ ate and demonstrate for participants, who are recruited by the community centers and leave each class with the ingredients to try the meal at home Operation Frontline classes are currently running in Baltimore, Boston. Burlington, Chicago, Dal­ las, Denver, Detroit, New Y ork City, Providence, Portland, Seattle and Washington DC. Over five thou­ sand people have participated in Operation Frontline classes since its start in the fall of 1993. The pro­ gram is scheduled toexpand to Phila­ delphia by spring 1997. Amid the public hysteria about “rising" juvenile crime rates and politicians’ please for harsher pen­ alties against young law-breakers. New York Supreme Court Justice Gloria Dabiri is starting to hear a different response to crime. “ I think more and more police officers and prosecutors are un­ derstanding that it will take more than punishment to address youth crime,” says Judge Dabiri, a mem­ ber of the Black Community Cru­ sade for Children’s (BCCC) Juve­ nile and Family Court Judges’ Leadership Council. “ I spoke at a National Prosecutors Association recently, and the title of the meet­ ing was C om bating Juvenile Crime through Prevention It's nice to see the district attorneys of major cities and others beginning to understand that it’s part of the job to address this issue before our children end up in court.” Still, the government’s response to juvenile crime tends to be “too punitive," Judge Dabiri notes, re­ flecting on much of the legislation Families Needed To Host Foreign High School Students Foreign high school students will he arriving into the local area for homestay programs for the 1997-98 school year and Pacific Intercul­ tural Exchange (P.LE.) urgently need local volunteer host families. P.l.E. is a non-profit educational organization. The students are all between the ages of 15 and 18 years. They bring their own spending money, have full medical insurance and are anxious to share their cultural experiences with their new American families. P.I.E.’s aca­ demic homestays range in length from one semester to a full academic year, while the students attend local high schools. P.LE. representatives match students with host families by finding common interests and lifestyles through an informal in-home meeting. Prospective host families are able to review student applications and select the “perfect match”. As there are no “typical” host families, P.LE. can fit a student into just about any situation, whether it be a single parent, a childless couple, a retired couple or a large family. For 1997-98, P.LE. has students from Spain, Germany, Brazil, China, Russia, Croatia, Poland, Finland, and other countries. P.LE. has sponsored more than 13,000 students from 18 countries since its founding in 1975. Families interested in learning more about hosting, should call Teresa Knapp at 1-800-894-7633 or our International Headquarters at 1-888- Pl E-USA 1. P.LE. thanks families for opening your hearts and homes! Educating Children: Kids Up Front, a partnership with Kraft Foods, is the children's com­ ponent of Operation Frontline that builds on the success of the adult program and helps children at risk of hunger make better food choices and improve their diets in the long­ term The program provides hands- on activities for children in Boston, Chicago, Seattle and Washington, DC. Fur more information call 202- 393-2925. Camille Elizabeth Culbertson June 2 1 ,9pm; Female 19 3/4 inches. Mbs & I4oz Mother: Lisa A Tumlinson-Culbertson Father: Timothy J. Culbertson All of Brush Prairie, WA floating around Congress. “We know the kinds of things that place kids at risk, but we aren’t addressing them. We know children need adult super­ vision, and that we need to address truancy, abuse, and neglect. We know that we need more after-school programs that build relationships between kids and adults." Judge Dabiri is right. Too many politicians focus on the immediate political reward for "getting tough” with young offenders. They ignore the long-term societal benefits from investing in ways to keep young people out of trouble, and turn them back into productive citizens when they do enter the court system. Now, Congress is under pressure to pass another “tough on crime” bill targeting young people. One piece of that bill already has passed in the House, the Juvenile Crime Control Act, which provides $500 million a year for states to punish young offenders, provides for try ing more children in adult courts, and devotes not a penny to prevention. Also awaiting passage is a second House bill that threatens to under- mine the Juvenile Justice and Delin­ quency Prevention Act o f 1974, which is the primary grant the fed­ eral government allocates to states to run juvenile courts, with such existing conditions as states must protect truants and runaways from unjustified incarceration, and juve­ nile delinquents from incarceration with adults. On the Senate side, yet another bill includes certain harm­ ful provisions similar to the two House bills. All three pieces of leg­ islation fail to invest adequately in preventing and emphasize trying children as adults and imprisoning children with adults. A comprehen­ sive bill, based to some degree on all three measures, is expected by mid­ summer. Something is wrong with the val­ ues o f a nation that would rather spend $30,000 to lock our children up after they get into trouble and won’t spend 3,000 to give them a Head Start. And something is wrong with us if we do not fight the criminalization of our youths and their need for positive alternatives to the streets: jobs, after-school pro- C h o r e W a rs “That shows that men might be from Mars, but women live in the real world,” commented E leanor Holm es Norton, the D.C. Del­ egate totheU.S. House of Representatives. To the Contrary is an all-w o m e n ’s news analysts show that airs weekly on 250 stations nationwide before an au­ dience of a million view­ ers. To the Contrary is a platform for the voices of women of all ethnic back­ grounds and political philosophies to speak out on the major issues of the day that affect women, children, and families. Men and women both think household chores are shared fairly, but women are less sanguine about the arrangement. Married men say household chores are shared fairly by a 71% to 16% margin. Sixty percent (60%) of married women agree, 32% do not. Meanwhile. 78% ol married men who say that chores are not split equally concede that their wives do more ol the chores. lender Gap on Question f Who Does Housework: Vho Has the Better Deal... Zien? or Women? It’s the nineties, but men nd women still have; difler- nt views on who does the louse work...and who has the letter deal overall. A Maricopa Research/To the Contrary poll found that 65% ot named men say they split house- lold chores equally with their pouses. but only 47% of married vomen agree. “I wonder what aundry day is like in the 18% ol louseholds where spouses disagree in this point,” quipped To the Con- rary host Bonnie Erbe. The survey also found that most women 52%) say men have a better deal in the overall relationship between men and vomen. However, most men (52%) »ay either that women have a better Jeal or that neither gender has an ;dge. Overall, women say that men have the edge by a4-to-l margin (52% to 13%) while men see it as a much closer call...35% to 24% (35% ol men think they have a better deal while Join a Night Out against crime, August 5. >■ j r - T a r ' ' 'J Mykila Denise Gay June 24, 1997; Female 19 1/2 inches, 6lbs & 6oz Mother: La Tonya Terrell Gay Father: Yachty NeHoma Gay i.