text:
Lotsa Helping Hands How it Works Stories of Hope
Log In Join a Care Team Create a Community
Join a Care Team
Create a Community
How to Support the Troops in Your Community
Whether it's one of the big holidays that remind us of our armed services – Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veteran's Day – or anytime you are thinking of all those you serve on our behalf, finding ways to support the troops can be helpful for veterans and their families and can be unifying for the community as a whole. Coming together to work toward a common mission of serving those who serve is a great way to get the community involved and give back.
Whether you have a military presence in your community or not, you can support the troops in general by offering discounts, access, special military-only days, and promote recognition among businesses and nonprofit organizations. You can choose to do this on special holidays or all year round. You should also consider whether you want to extend your reach to active duty service members only or include families, retired military members and those who have previously served. This is a relatively simple way to show that you support the troops in your community and beyond.
You can also show your support by getting your group or organization involved in supporting the troops. Classrooms of students can write cards or notes to deployed service members. Civic groups and churches can gather to put together care packages of snacks, treats, books and magazines, small activities like puzzles and board games, and local favorites.
Specific Support
When military members are called on deployment, come home with life-altering injuries and illness, or give the ultimate sacrifice for their country, their families back at home face immeasurable responsibilities and concerns. Offering specific support to these service members and their families can bring unparalleled care and aid during these difficult times. Bringing meals, delivering groceries, maintaining and repairing vehicles, cleaning the house, or offering to do laundry are all simple tasks that can take the daily burden off troops and their families facing other obstacles. If medical bills or financial issues are a concern, coordinating a fundraiser is a great way to support them. Especially if service members are dealing with PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury, loss of limbs, or other impairments, daily life changes drastically. Help from the community helps families adjust. Coordinate people in your community to step in and help!
Making your community a place of support for troops begins with a culture of support. This is easiest for communities with military bases and populations nearby. It's natural for those communities to make connections with military service members and their families to learn about their general and specific needs. Building a culture of support can be difficult, but making connections locally or nationally is the first step. Holidays such as Memorial Day or Fourth of July when military service members are on the minds of the community are a good time to start building that culture of support lacking in your neighborhood.
If you don't already have a direct connection to a service member or military family, you might have to do a bit of research. Look for local support organizations, such as the USO. You may be able to volunteer with them directly or they may be able to point you to the people you need to support the troops in your area. If you do have a military base nearby, you can contact a command or ombudsmen. Let them know who you are and which organizations you are with, as well as your desire to support your local military community. They can let you know where and how you might be able to help.
Lotsa Helping Hands
Create a Care Team
© 2020 Lotsa Helping Hands, LLC


This one is a personal favourite of mine, if only for the non-existent confusion it doesn't cause.
"A checkered shirt." (I'll get to the spelling).
Checker (often in UK 'chequer') is the earliest known English word for a chessboard, and may have been what chess was called in English originally. (The word "chess", that we also get via French, was a later arrival). This suggests that a checkered pattern is one that resembles a chessboard.
Check is a word associated with chess and chesslike situations, and may have been adopted to describe a pattern of squares independently of checker or as a shortening of checker. Either way, both have survived to the present day.
The spelling chequered is often favoured in the UK as it follows the rule that words "borrowed" from French preserve French spelling, though in this case it is a late normalization, and part of a deliberate and rather infantile attempt by the British to differentiate themselves from the colonials. Don't even get me started.
If you really really wanted to be really really fussy, you could argue that checkered ought to be reserved for fabrics that really resemble a chessboard, whereas checked can be used for anything using a regular pattern of squares. I don't think it's necessary.


text:
Hall of Famer weighs in on 'fascinating' QB decision looming for Eagles
/ by Dave Zangaro
Kurt Warner has seen improvement from Jalen Hurts in 2021, but he's not sure it's enough.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback and NFL analyst was a guest on the most recent Takeoff with John Clark podcast episode and talked about Hurts and the looming decision the Eagles will have to make about their quarterback position.
"It's definitely going to be fascinating," Warner said.
Clark brought up the possibility of the Eagles' trading for an elite player like Russell Wilson and Deshaun Watson. While Warner has seen Hurts improve as a passer in Year 2, he didn't think twice.
If you have a chance to get an elite quarterback, you get an elite quarterback.
"As intriguing as Jalen Hurts is, you go out and get one of those guys," Warner said. "You go out and you get the guy that's proven in this league that he is a difference maker at that position. I think you have to do that if you feel like you're in the market to do that."
There are obviously some added layers to the Watson situation, which Warner mentioned. But his point was that there aren't many elite quarterbacks in the NFL and if you have a chance to land one, you have to do it.
"I would say that the more intriguing thing is if you're not in the market and you don't feel like those are possibilities, the more intriguing thing is, do we give Jalen another year?" Warner asked. "Do we go draft another quarterback? Is there somebody in the next echelon of quarterbacks that's available and do they give us a better opportunity to win than Jalen does?"
Warner used the Cleveland Browns as an example of a team caught in the middle. Baker Mayfield is a solid NFL quarterback but is he a championship-caliber quarterback? That's what it comes down to for Warner. He did admit that there are just 6-8 top tier quarterbacks in the NFL at any given moment, and the rest of the teams are either hoping their quarterback turns into one or that they can surround that player with enough talent to win.
In Philadelphia, Hurts has made strides. But will it be enough to keep him as the team's quarterback at least into the 2022 season? That's really the biggest question about this season for the Eagles.
"As I've watched him from last year to this year, I've seen improvements," Warner said. "I've seen him getting better inside the pocket, I see him making more of those plays on schedule. Those, to me, are all positives. I think it's really hard to say at this point in time what Jalen is going to be for the entirety of his career. It's too early to know.
"I know what I'm going to get from him, I know what he can do for me, you couple that with what they've done this year, especially these last six games or so running the football and allowing him to be a complementary big play maker for your team, he can win in the National Football League. Am I convinced yet that he can be that franchise guy, where if he's got to win games with his right arm by playing a position in the pocket? I'm not sure yet. I haven't seen enough of that growth in terms of seeing the defense, understanding where he needs to go, throwing the ball on time. All of that stuff that, to me, franchise quarterbacks have."
This season, Hurts has a 5-7 record. In 12 games, he's completed 60.1% of his passes for 2,435 yards with 13 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. In addition to his passing numbers, Hurts has also rushed for nearly 700 yards with 8 more touchdowns. He missed the win over the Jets before the bye week because of an ankle injury and his backup, Gardner Minshew, had an impressive performance.
Despite that showing from Minshew, head coach Nick Sirianni didn't waiver … Hurts is still his starting quarterback.
"I think the verdict is still out on Jalen Hurts," Warner said. "But the beautiful thing is he's making a lot of plays, putting up good numbers and they're winning football games while he's learning to play the position and you're seeing areas of growth along that journey as well."
Subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts:
Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher | RadioPublic | TuneIn | Art19 | Watch on YouTube

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl