FLORENCE, S.C. --

Circle Park Behavioral Health Services and its Chrysalis Center hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony to announce its new health and fitness room that was funded by a grant from Florences Women in Philanthropy and the Junior Welfare League.

Thelma Alexander, Chrysalis Center Director, said, We are excited to be establishing a health and fitness room and provide nutritional counseling for our residents. This will allow us to ensure an enhanced holistic approach to services that we can provide to our women and increase their opportunity for a successful recovery.The Women in Philanthropy and the Junior Welfare League share our mission to improve the quality of life of children and families in our community and it is a thrill to partner with them on this effort.

The Chrysalis Center is a unique, 16-bed, extended residential treatment facility that offers chemically dependent mothers the opportunity to receive intensive treatment services while continuing to have their childrenyounger than 11live with them. Research indicates that while undergoing treatment, women often replace their drug of choice with a food addiction and often demonstrate unhealthy weight gains, as much as60 pounds in the first year. Compounding the problem, children often model their eating behaviors after their parents and as their parents weight increases, so does theirs.

The Junior Welfare League of Florence and the Women in Philanthropy provide a powerful and highly personal approach to improving the quality of life through their volunteer support and efforts in the Florence community.Their grant funding insures that innovative and effective strategies are utilized to foster social, economic, educational, cultural improvement in our community. In order to address the serious health issue of mothers experiencing addiction issues, the Chrysalis Center received grant funding from these two civic organizations to establish a fitness and exercise room to be incorporated into the weekly treatment plan for the residents.

Beverly Hiller of The Eastern Carolina Community Foundations Women in Philanthropy shared that most of the groups grant funding is targeted toward the needs of women and children.

This is a wonderful opportunity to collaborate with Circle Park Behavioral Health Services and its Chrysalis Center to provide a unique and innovative addition to their services.This is one of the nine grants that we awarded this year and it is wonderful to have an opportunity to visually witness and experience the impact it will have on the lives of the women receiving services here."

The grants goals are for the Chrysalis Centers residents to exhibit a more consistent and disciplined approach to daily exercise, demonstrate improved nutritional habits, and model healthier lifestyle habits that will support their overall recovery efforts.This will be done by the establishment of an onsite health and fitness room that will include a variety of exercise equipment and machines that will be utilized regularly by the Chrysalis Centers residents to support the grants goals.Also, as part of this funding, the Chrysalis Center residents will receive a weekly group counseling session by a registered dietician to assist them in making healthy food choices and meal planning.

The Chrysalis Center is operated and managed by Circle Park Behavioral Health Services, the Florence County authority on alcohol and other drug abuse services. For more information on the services available at the Chrysalis Center, call 843-673-0660.

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Circle Park holds ribbon cutting for its new health and fitness room

Forced retirement is a fact of life for a growing number of baby boomers and can be just as traumatic as divorce or the loss of a family member. When you're suddenly facing retirement because your company has closed, given you a buyout or eliminated your job, myriad financial issues can have an immediate impact on your goals and dreams for the future.

According to a 2011 survey from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, 45% of retirees said they stopped working earlier than they expected. The three most common reasons were poor health (cited by 63%), corporate downsizing or closures (23%), and the need to care for a spouse or other family member (18%).

Christine Moriarty, CFP and the founder of MoneyPeace, recommends that you be defensive in case you have to retire early by following time-tested advice, especially if you're in your 50s. "Have enough money liquid at a local bank to cover your basic needs for at least six months," she says. "This way, you won't have to react to a circumstance and can adjust in a more structured way after the immediate crisis has passed."

Moriarty also suggests that boomers consider paying off their mortgage as soon as they can. "The lower your home loan, the more manageable it is in times of crisis."

Not only is this sound financial advice during a difficult financial transition, but a Consumer Reports survey published in 2010 found that about three-quarters of retired people who had paid off their large debts, including mortgages, had a high level of satisfaction with their lives.

Whatever the reason for a forced retirement, it stirs up a host of big questions and issues such as: Should I start receiving Social Security immediately? Live off my savings or take distributions from a retirement plan? Do I need to reshuffle my investments to make up for lost savings or shield myself from future losses?

Many forced retirees need to apply for Social Security right away in order to pay everyday bills, according to Andy Landis, author of "Social Security: The Inside Story." But any decision on whether to accept early Social Security benefits at a reduced rate or delay benefits for higher future payments does not have to be permanent. "For those who aspire to return to the workforce, the system and payment calculations don't penalize you; they actually adjust automatically for you," Landis says.

That means if you return to work and earn more income than you're allowed, your Social Security payments will automatically stop. Landis says when you reach your full retirement age, you'll be re-credited for any months in which payment was halted.

Your Social Security payments could increase as a result of inflationary adjustments, and if you resume working and paying into the system, your lifetime Social Security earnings could increase as well.

Knowing how and when to use various retirement savings is important when you're suddenly forced to retire. The options for those with retirement plans such as 401(k)s and 403(b)s can be dizzying and add to an already stressful and anxious time.

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Forced Into Retirement? Here's How to Cope

When he was 39, Mark Brandemuehl bought a home in Colorado properties with the intention he'd retire there.

But until the day comes when he leaves the workforce and enter retirement, he plans to rent out the properties and have them pay for themselves until he is ready to move in. With rock-bottom home prices and mortgage interest rates hovering around 4%, Brandemuehl, who is on the hunt for his third property, isnt the only one with this idea.

A 2011 survey by vacation rental booking site HomeAway.com shows 14% of vacation rental owners purchased their home to be used during retirement and are renting it out in the meantime. Some homeowners rent out their second home for a limited time each year while others seek longer terms with one-year or longer leases.

The National Association of Realtors reports rental income influenced 71% of second home buyers who purchased in 2011, nd 91 percent of them plan to rent their new purchase within 12 months.HomeAway.com members generate $28,000 annually by renting their home about 19 weeks a year, and half of the sites owners can cover 75% or more of their mortgage by renting to travelers.

Renting out a house until retirement rolls around offers many advantages. Real estate yields are usually much higher than the average stock market return, and buying a retirement home for the future can provide enough cash flow to pay for and even completely payoff the home by the time you move in, says Brandemuehl, who is also vice president of real estate site Movoto.com. Retirement and vacation destinations usually provide a reliable, gainfully employed stable of tenants; Brandemuehl's properties have been vacant less than six months total in the last seven years.

But being a landlord requires a lot of work and extensive planning. You could potentially become upside down on your investment or encounter heated or confrontational situations with tenants, says Mia Melle, a broker with property management firm RentToday.us.

You might also decide not to live where you bought the property, or the property could unexpectedly become vacant or misused. Higher-end homes, are harder to rent, according to Brandemuehl, so be prepared to advertising heavily.

Here are six expert tips to consider before buying a retirement home to rent:

Run the numbers. Renting out a second home can be a great opportunity if the rental income covers your mortgage, taxes, insurance, and provide an additional cushion for unexpected expenses, says Jean Allard, senior real estate specialist and vice president of Keystone Real Estate Group. But experts warn that you shouldnt buy a home unless you can afford the payment on your own in the event that there are vacancies. Ask a real estate agent how much your home could command in the vacation rental and long-term rental markets.

Be mindful of aging and rentability. Find a home with a single level so that stairs will not be an issue, Allard says. A retirement home should be ready to accommodate physical needs as they change. It should also need minimal work. Entry-level homes that are three bedrooms, two baths, around 1,300 square feet, and near (and not in) communities with Homeowners Associations tend to rent well, says Aimee Elizabeth, real estate investor and author of Poverty Sucks! How to Become a Self-Made Millionaire. You could buy a four bedroom, 2,000-square foot house that might cost you twice as much, but you wouldn't get twice the rent. You'd be lucky to get an extra $100 to $200 a month, she says.

Excerpt from:
Renting to Retirement: Six Factors to Consider

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Whither our youth I scraped in under the wire - well, a little more, actually - on the changes that will affect retirement in Canada. As did much of my generation.

That's small comfort to our children, many of whom are already suffering the after-effects of the financial crisis and recession, and who now also face retirement, interrupted.

Canada's Finance Minister unveiled a budget this week that will, in time, reset the age of retirement to 67 by hiking the age of eligibility for the Old Age Security benefit, worth more than $6,000 a year, from 65. That begins in 2023, and will be phased in, so it doesn't capture the Boomers.

It will, though, hit their kids, many of whom are already struggling with a youth unemployment rate of more than 14 per cent and, according to studies, face a hit to earnings because they graduated in a recession.

Thirty-two per cent of people between the ages of 25 and 54 will be relying on OAS and Canada Pension Plan and Quebec Pension Plan benefits as their prime source of income in retirement, according to a Harris Decima survey commissioned by Bank of Montreal's BMO Retirement Institute.

The change, along with others announced in Thursday's budget, is meant to help sustain the OAS program, which the government warns will cost $108-billion by 2030, compared with $38-billion in 2011.

As some observers note, retirement is still a long way away for many of those affected, and they could start planning immediately.

"At least for those still thinking about retiring at 65, they should be saving a higher percentage of their income now to raise a larger pool of private funds to draw down," said chief economist Avery Shenfeld of CIBC World Markets. "In practice, as opposed to theory, we dont expect that degree of rational planning to materially hit Canadas savings/consumption mix in the near term."

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Retirement, Interrupted: A bleaker outlook for our kids

Missouri Assessment Program (MAP) testing begins in April and Gratz Brown Elementary students and teachers are gearing up for this yearly event. Students in grades 3-5 have been preparing by setting performance goals for these tests as well as the NWEA testing; and setting personal performance goals in relation to school work. Study Island software is used by students to review grade level curriculum which also familiarizes a student with the use of computers and software. Literacy by Design is another tool that is used to expose students to research-based instruction to help the student demonstrate mastery of communication arts objectives. The GBE Spartans have also participated in daily math Response to Intervention (RtI) lessons and Spartan Time communication arts lessons twice a week. Both the RtI and Spartan Time lessons are based on meeting students needs and allows instructors to design lessons at remedial levels, on grade levels and enrichment leels. All of the students took part in two mock MAP practice sessions in addition to practicing released test items. During the practice for testing, students used the SUPER and GREAT strategies along with other strategies. MAP testing will be held from April 3-5 and April 10-13 each day from9-11 a.m. at GBE. Students are encouraged to be on time and at school each of these days. Free breakfast will be offered to all students on those days to ensure they have the brain food needed for optimal performance. Incentives are offered to students who put forth their best effort during testing as well. A MAP assembly will be held on April 2 during which GBE teachers and the Moberly High School cheerleaders will perform. Letters will be displayed from parents who wrote good luck messages as well as banners that were signed by parents and others wishing the GBE Spartans good luck and encouraging them to do their best in the testing. Students at North Park and South Park Elementary have also made cards and banners to wish the GBE Spartans good luck and to encourage them to do their very best. With the support of friends and family and all of the hard work and preparation by the students and teachers the students are prepared and ready to do a fantastic job. Go GBE Spartans!

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MAP testing begins Tuesday in area schools

CNET editor Dong Ngo rounds up five external hard drives that make the best backup drives.

The last Saturday of March is World Backup Day, and you'll see a lot of storage vendors taking this occasion to pitch their products for backup purposes. I am about to do a similar thing, but from a very different point of view: yours.

None of the vendors goes as far as guaranteeing the integrity of storage on their products. At most, a vendor would give you a new product to replace the broken one, or in the currently unique case of IoSafe, offer to pay up to a certain amount toward data recovery. I, on the other hand, promise, if not guarantee, that if you follow my advice, your data will be safe.

The truth is that backing up is a personal matter that needs to be taken care of on a regular basis -- even daily, if possible. The key thing is to store copies of data in multiple places and never rely on just one medium for your important, irreplaceable data.

Note that commercial movies, music, and other purchasable digital content are replaceable. It's great that you can back everything up, but most of the time, the personal information that you really need to safeguard takes up very little storage space.

Up-to-date backups of your data are like insurance; you need it and at the same time hope to never have to resort to it.

The second thing to note is that even a brand-new hard drive can die at any time, without any warning. You can always lose your portable drive, and your online storage service can go out of business all of sudden. You need to act when everything is in working order -- which can give you a false sense of safety -- because otherwise, most of the time, it's just too late. And let me say this once more time: never use just one medium to keep your important, irreplaceable data.

Up-to-date backups of your data are like insurance; you need it and at the same time hope to never have to resort to it. There are many ways to keep your data safe and you can find out about different types of backups here.

To make it easier, in this roundup, however, I'll focus on external hard drives, which are the most popular, affordable, and easiest way to back up (and restore) data. Even better: you only have to pay for them once. Here are my choices for the top five external hard drives that are great ways to keep your data safe. They are formatted for Windows but can be easily reformatted to work with Macs. They are listed in order of seriousness, with the most casual -- and affordable -- drives on top.

WD 2TB My Passport Western Digital's 2TB My Passport is the world's first portable drive that offers 2TB of storage space. This is about as large as you can get from a 2.5-inch-based external hard drive given the current perpendicular recording technology. Despite this top capacity, the drive is very compact and is bus-powered. All you need is the included standard Micro-USB 3.0 cable for it to work. (The drive works with both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0.)

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Top 5 external drives: Backing up is a personal matter

If you're wondering how to achieve professional and personal success in your life, Stedman Graham says it can all depend on who you think you are. Here's an excerpt.

I Am Stedman Graham, and This Is Why I Care

When I was growing up as one of six black children, two of whom were disabled, in Whitesboro, NJ, a small black community surrounded by a predominately white one, the catch-phrase was, Nothing good ever comes out of Whitesboro.

With a race-based consciousness, every day I woke up thinking I couldn't make it because of the color of my skin. This was tied directly to my self esteem, it was tied to my belief systems, it was tied to what I thought my talent was, what skills I could develop, it was tied to my habits, to my vision, and to my hopes and dreams. I had a totally self-limiting consciousness.

Picture this; I was a young six-foot-six black man in a white community. What does everyone say? Basketball player. Label. So I was that. I lived the label. I was exposed to many good people, but I was also buying into what others said and how others acted, all instead of being in better tune with my own soul. My self-esteem was too low for me to appreciate life. I was an angry person. I was angry at the system and I felt a victim in my own right. It was almost as if I had a hole in my heart.

Then one day it hit me over my head. It was not about race. It was about me not knowing a process for becoming successful. I didnt know how successful people think and act. I'd been told it was about race. I suddenly realized that somebody had fed me a bill of goods, and I had bought into it. And if I bought into the notion that its about race, there was no way out, because I would be trying to solve what the problem wasn't.

If you feel you have no control over your life, you need to come to the same epiphany I did, that, 'Oh, I'm not alone. Millions of women buy into the fact that they can't make it because they're a woman. Im not alone. Where I came from, blacks and Native Americans buy into the fact that they can't make it because of the color of their skin. Thats their label. I'm not alone.

Folks who are entitled, who think that they are so because they're a certain race, that because they're white they're better than somebody else, they're labeled. They buy into that. Or you might be a person who bought into the fact that you can't make it because your mother or father said you're nothing, that youre never going to be anything, and you got labeled by that.

So, youve got all these labels. I realized that everybody's labeled, not just me. I'm not the only person around here with a label. And I realized that the secret to un-labeling yourself is not to let other people define you, it's to let you define yourself, if you know how.

One of the key things Im going to stress is your understanding of the difference between the internal world and the external one. This is all about you.

The rest is here:
'Your Passport to Success': Take back who you are

OTTAWA The federal government said Friday it will press companies to remove voluntarily a bacteria killer from some personal-care products after identifying triclosan as toxic to the environment.

And pending the results of "voluntary action," to include looking for a substitute ingredient, the government's newly published draft risk assessment says "risk management measures" may be proposed.

Consumer advocates welcomed Friday's development but said a ban should be the end game if toiletry manufacturers don't move on their own to remove triclosan from toothpastes, mouthwashes, body washes and anti-bacterial soaps.

If the federal government pursues a ban, it can expect a challenge from some key industry players such as Colgate-Palmolive, which argued Friday that Canada's draft assessment supports the continued use of triclosan in its gingivitis-fighting Colgate Total.

Health Canada has been probing the effects of triclosan on the body's endocrine system and whether the antibacterial agent contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance. Environment Canada has been studying the effect of the widely used chemical on the environment.

The government's draft risk assessment, published Friday, says current levels of triclosan in products such as some toothpastes, shampoo and soap do not pose a risk to human health and Canadians can continue to safely use these products.

Triclosan, however, can cause harm to the environment, the draft assessment says. When these personal-care items are rinsed and washed down the drain, the amount of triclosan released into the environment through wastewater treatment plants can affect plants and animals in lakes, streams and rivers, it says.

Adverse effects includes reduction in growth, reproduction and survival. Triclosan may also interfere with the action of thyroid hormones in amphibians.

The formal proposal to list the chemical as toxic to the environment under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act is now subject to consultations before the government publishes a final risk assessment and risk-management strategy, expected in the fall of 2013.

"We're looking primarily at this point developing voluntary controls with industry, but the alternatives are varied and those will be discussed as we move forward on the assessment and risk management," Robert Chenier, the director of the ecological assessment division at Environment Canada, said in an interview.

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Feds seek voluntary removal of toxin from personal-care products

by Austin Baird / Associated Press Associated Press

Rep. Alan Dick, R-Stony River, said students are getting a skewed idea of resource development, often from teachers who don't hail from Alaska and aren't familiar with the state's constitution. He said constituents district have complained that students are being taught exclusively that development is bad without learning of economic benefits and the other side of the story.

His bill, HB352, requires that curriculum conveying constitutional principles of resource use, development and conservation be developed "without regard to personal opinion."

"I want to empower citizens of Alaska so that if they feel there are things being taught in their districts that violate the constitution, they can go to their school boards," Dick said.

Rep. Paul Seaton, R-Homer, and a committee member, said during a hearing Friday that the bill would put a burden on school districts. He said the wording of the bill makes it so districts might be required to purchase books that don't exist, and that supplementary curriculum materials might be a better solution than limiting the types of books districts can buy.

"I'm worried about unintended consequences and whether this will be applied to individual school boards and districts and how it would affect them," Seaton said. "We need to hear from them."

An opportunity for public testimony was provided Friday, but no one from the public testified.

Betsy Beardsley, environmental justice program director of the Alaska Wilderness League, said in an interview that she wants to know more about the bill before it passes.

Tim Bristol, director of Trout Unlimited, said the legislation "isn't necessarily bad as long as the pro-development themes that teachers will be required to espouse are balanced with information about how important clean water is to Alaska's world-class fisheries."

Most House committees face a tentative deadline next week to stop hearing House bills and to focus on Senate bills.

Continued here:
Bill requires conservation, development curriculum in Alaska schools

The latest reports from the Bureau of Economic Analysis on economic growth and personal income and spending have, on the surface, appeared to show improvement.

Spending is up more than expected and economic growth is clipping along at a 3% annual growth rate in the fourth quarter. That is the good news.

As we have discussed in the past the consumer is the key to this whole economic equation.

Consumption is 70% of the economy and, as long as the consumer has the ability to consume, the economy can chug along.

However, therein lies the dysfunction as well.

Today, the belief is that if the system is flooded with cheaper dollars that the near-term dysfunction of the economy can be fixed through a consumption driven recovery. The problem, however, as we just discussed, is that production must come first. Production is the real source of healthy consumption in the economy. The debt driven consumption of the 80-90's was a slow moving cancer through the economy. Debt has to be serviced which, as debt levels increased without commensurate increases in income, diverted more and more income away from savings and ultimately productive investment.

The problem is that with the media viewing data from only one month, or quarter, to the next the long term trends are being missed.

In order for consumers to continue to consume at rates high enough to support long term economic growth they need increasing wage growth to offset the effects of inflation over time. This is currently not the case. In fact wages have been stagnant and declining since October of 2010. As of today's latest read - the year over year change in real disposable incomes fell 50% from where it stood in January. Even on a monthly basis real disposable incomes fell in both January and February. Mortgage and debt payments, insurance, utilities, food and auto payments must be met every month and these are just the bare essentials that consume a very large portion of the monthly household budget.

Therein lies the obvious problem. As the rate of increase in income declines as food and energy costs rise - the deficit between income and expenses is made up with either decreased personal savings, increased debt or both. However, with credit tight, limited savings and engaged, either by force or choice, in debt deleveraging - consumers are struggling with higher food and energy prices as they try to maintain their current standard of living.

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The Consumption Dysfunction