Although the Louisville Metro United Way’s annual fundraising campaign doesn’t wrap up until February, it’s holding a pep rally tomorrow to spur giving. WFPL’s Elizabeth Kramer reports.
The rally starts at 7:45 a.m. on the Old Male High School campus on Brook Street.
United Way president and CEO Joe Tolan says it’s a way to re-energize the annual campaign, which has a goal to raise as much as last year’s campaign — $28.5 million.
“We probably need about $1 million or $1.2 million in order to get to last year’s total,” Tolan says. “And the conundrum this year is when it’s harder for many people to give or to give as much as they’ve given, we have a real spike in the need for services that has occurred and continues to this day.”
Tolan says the campaign has reached about 85 percent of its goal.
Tolan says the current campaign has been much harder than most because many companies participating in workplace giving activities have fewer employees and member agencies are seeking huge increases of need.
“If you look at things like emergency food, the jump in demand is in the neighborhood of 45 or 50 percent compared to a year or so ago,” he says. “And much of that demand is attributable to individuals and families who’ve never sought help before.”
Tolan says meeting the goal is even more important to member groups that also are coping with state budget cuts to social service agencies. He says this economic recession is causing member agencies to implement new strategies and pool more resources.
“All we have to do is look at what’s happening on state budgets, both Kentucky and Indiana, for the tightening of resources there,” he says. “And so realistically we have to look forward and say ‘OK, how do we do things differently than we’ve done them? How do we find efficiencies where we can?’”
United Way officials want to get 500 people to Tuesday’s rally so that it can cash in on a pledge by E.ON U.S. to donate $5,000 or $10 for every person who attends.
Former University of Louisville football coach Steve Kragthorpe said goodbye to the team and the town today in his final Monday afternoon press conference.
Kragthorpe says his family will leave Louisville Sunday and move back to Tulsa, where he coached just prior to coming to Louisville in 2007. Kragthorpe was fired Saturday after three seasons without a winning record. He says he doesn’t think three years is enough time to judge a coach’s abilities.
“It’s just the nature of college football now,” says Kragthorpe. “It’s filtered over from pro football. The good thing about college football is you get to have the relationships you get to make, and you get to be around the people you get to be around and the tough part about it is that patience doesn’t exist anymore.”
U of L says it will honor the two years remaining on Kragthorpe’s contract, in which he was paid one-point-two million dollars annually.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Bourbon for the Holidays
From hot toddies to eggnog, bourbon drinks are a part of the holiday festivities for many Kentuckians. But have you ever wondered about the history of Kentucky’s signature product? From bourbon distilleries to bourbon trivia to bourbon cocktails, join us on Monday for a discussion about the whiskey that was named for Bourbon County, Kentucky (or was it?). Join us on Monday with your questions.
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Fern Creek Elementary School was among the first in Louisville to hold an H1N1 vaccination clinic. The county-wide clinics started today for all public, private and parochial schools in Louisville.
Principal Cheryl Rigsby says Fern Creek Elementary has nearly 800 students, and about half of them returned permission slips to get an H1N1 shot or nasal mist.
“A lot of them that sent them back in that were not participating did not participate because they had chosen to get it at their own doctor’s office,” says Rigsby, “so I would say after all is said and done, most of our children will have received the vaccination.”
JCPS Health Services Director Bonnie Ciarroccki says they’ve received about 20-thousand permission slips, but that isn’t a reliable number to estimate how many children will be getting vaccinated. That’s because schools only have to turn in their numbers two days in advance of their clinic, and the clinics are going on for three weeks.
Churchill Downs will be the site of a three-day music festival next summer featuring more than 60 acts.
Officials say the event, called the HullabaLOU Music Festival , will be held July 23 through 25 and will be headlined by Bon Jovi, Kenny Chesney and the Dave Matthews band. 
It’s the first event organized by the newly created Churchill Downs Entertainment Group, which has hired Quint Davis as consulting producer. Davis, producer/director of the annual New Orleans Jazz Fest, says the Louisville festival will have an eclectic lineup
“Down in New Orleans, we’d say ‘if you don’t like nothin’ we have, you just don’t like nothin.’ There has to be someone’s favorite band on this festival somewhere,” Davis said.
Other artists confirmed for the festival include Sam Bush, Steppenwolf and the Black Crowes.
Churchill Downs has hosted large concerts in recent years to augment its horse racing income.
(Photo of the Dave Matthews Band from www.hullabaloufest.com)
The construction project at Churchill Downs that will bring permanent lighting to the track starts tomorrow. Track officials announced earlier this month that they had awarded the contract to Musco Lighting, and will host six night racing dates in 2010.
Musco Vice-President Jeff Rogers says his company paid special attention the historic nature of the track when designing the light setup.
“This facility is iconic in nature,” says Rogers. “We want to make sure the lighting does its job, it lights the track in order to have a spectacular event, but it doesn’t become something that’s an annoyance the other 365 days of the year.”
Musco provided the temporary lighting for the test-runs of night racing at Churchill earlier this year. It also has installed permanent lights at several college and NFL stadiums, as well as the Olympics, and dozens of other horse racing tracks throughout the world.
The Churchill Downs project is set for completion before the spring meet begins in April. The cost is more than three million dollars.
The fourteen member panel appointed to oversee the construction of two new Ohio River bridges could begin meeting soon.
The bi-state authority is scheduled to meet before the end of the year, but an exact date for the first meeting has not been set. The group will consider, among other issues, how to pay for the multi-billion dollar project. Authority member Joe Reagan is confident the group will come up with a solution that’s free of the political wrangling he says has hindered the bridges plan in the past.
“This project can be laid out in a very fact-based, decision making manner which is not driven by election cycles. In the past this project has always been subjected to either the two year congressional cycle or the four year gubernatorial cycle.”
Reagan, who’s also the president of Greater Louisville, Inc., says tolling is a possible funding option, but it’s one of many,and the authority will consider all options in future meetings. Some of those meetings, Reagan says, will be open for public input.
“Obviously this has to be done in a public and transparent manner,” he says. “And this is a great gift to the community to have this structure.”
The panel will continue meeting into 2010, with several public hearings planned.
