Latest news with #SteppingStones
Yahoo
09-08-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The importance of readiness: AED brings lifesaving access to Miracle Field
Aug. 8—MORGANTOWN — A new automated external defibrillator is now on-site at Miracle Field in Mylan Park thanks to a collaboration between SteppingStones, WVU Medicine Children's Heart Center and Project ADAM. This new addition will bring faster response times in the event of cardiac emergencies at the field, which hosts adaptive baseball games for children and adults with disabilities through the Miracle League. "This is about being prepared for the moment you hope never happens, " said Monica Marietta, executive director of SteppingStones. "We have always had an AED at our facility, but that is across the parking lot. Now, if something happens to an athlete, a coach, a parent or anyone, this AED is right here." The device was contributed through Project AED 365 and coordinated locally through Heartbeats of Hope, the West Virginia affiliate of Project ADAM, located at WVU Medicine Children's. Project ADAM was founded after a teenage athlete named Adam Lemel, a 17-year-old high-schooler from Wisconsin, collapsed and died during a basketball game due to sudden cardiac arrest. His parents later learned he might have survived had an AED been available. Since then, Project ADAM (Automated Defibrillators in Adam's Memory) has helped place AEDs in schools and communities across the country. "The chance of survival goes up dramatically when an AED is used within three minutes, " said Tracy Coup, nurse practitioner and co-coordinator for Project ADAM at WVU Medicine Children's. "You do not know when or where someone might go down. That is why access and training matter." While the initiative does not provide AEDs directly, Project ADAM affiliates like WVU Medicine Children's help connect the community to donors and to guide them through the goal of becoming "Heart Safe." Becoming heart safe does not mean to just have a device on-site, but have trained staff, emergency plans and annual drills. "It is not just about having an AED on the wall, " said Ashley Watson, also a Project ADAM co-coordinator. "People have to know what sudden cardiac arrest looks like, where the AED is, how to use it, and how to respond fast. We work with schools and community sites across West Virginia to build that system." Coup said the team has received 12 "save " reports this school year across the country. This means there are instances where an AED placed through Project ADAM was used and helped save a life during a cardiac emergency. This reflects the importance of readiness, she added. West Virginia law does require that AEDs be present at all school athletic events, and Project ADAM's initiative helps make the process more precise and structured. Going back to Mylan Park, the new AED is part of the border mission of SteppingStones to ensure safety and inclusion. The organization also recently opened an all inclusive playground right next to Miracle Field. "Whether it is a kid with autism or a grandparent cheering from the stands, we want everyone to feel safe and welcome, " she said. Thanks to this project, we are more prepared than ever." For more information about Heartbeats of Hope and Project ADAM training or designation, visit and navigate to the Heartsbeats of Hope page. Solve the daily Crossword
Dominion Post
09-08-2025
- Health
- Dominion Post
The importance of readiness: AED brings lifesaving access to Miracle Field
MORGANTOWN — A new automated external defibrillator is now on-site at Miracle Field in Mylan Park thanks to a collaboration between SteppingStones, WVU Medicine Children's Heart Center and Project ADAM. This new addition will bring faster response times in the event of cardiac emergencies at the field, which hosts adaptive baseball games for children and adults with disabilities through the Miracle League. 'This is about being prepared for the moment you hope never happens,' said Monica Marietta, executive director of SteppingStones. 'We have always had an AED at our facility, but that is across the parking lot. Now, if something happens to an athlete, a coach, a parent or anyone, this AED is right here.' The device was contributed through Project AED 365 and coordinated locally through Heartbeats of Hope, the West Virginia affiliate of Project ADAM, located at WVU Medicine Children's. Project ADAM was founded after a teenage athlete named Adam Lemel, a 17-year-old high-schooler from Wisconsin, collapsed and died during a basketball game due to sudden cardiac arrest. His parents later learned he might have survived had an AED been available. Since then, Project ADAM (Automated Defibrillators in Adam's Memory) has helped place AEDs in schools and communities across the country. 'The chance of survival goes up dramatically when an AED is used within three minutes,' said Tracy Coup, nurse practitioner and co-coordinator for Project ADAM at WVU Medicine Children's. 'You do not know when or where someone might go down. That is why access and training matter.' While the initiative does not provide AEDs directly, Project ADAM affiliates like WVU Medicine Children's help connect the community to donors and to guide them through the goal of becoming 'Heart Safe.' Becoming heart safe does not mean to just have a device on-site, but have trained staff, emergency plans and annual drills. The new automated external defibrillator acquired through Project ADAM and will be located at the Miracle Field at Mylan park in efforts to improve staying prepared. Cassidy Roark/ The Dominion Post 'It is not just about having an AED on the wall,' said Ashley Watson, also a Project ADAM co-coordinator. 'People have to know what sudden cardiac arrest looks like, where the AED is, how to use it, and how to respond fast. We work with schools and community sites across West Virginia to build that system.' Coup said the team has received 12 'save' reports this school year across the country. This means there are instances where an AED placed through Project ADAM was used and helped save a life during a cardiac emergency. This reflects the importance of readiness, she added. West Virginia law does require that AEDs be present at all school athletic events, and Project ADAM's initiative helps make the process more precise and structured. Going back to Mylan Park, the new AED is part of the border mission of SteppingStones to ensure safety and inclusion. The organization also recently opened an all inclusive playground right next to Miracle Field. 'Whether it is a kid with autism or a grandparent cheering from the stands, we want everyone to feel safe and welcome,' she said. Thanks to this project, we are more prepared than ever.' For more information about Heartbeats of Hope and Project ADAM training or designation, visit and navigate to the Heartsbeats of Hope page.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Stepping Stones program seeking wig donations
ASHLAND, Ky. — The Cosmetology Program at Ashland Community and Technical College is seeking wig donations in support of their Stepping Stones program. The Stepping Stones program exists to provide local cancer patients who have suffered hair loss through chemotherapy with wigs free of charge. The program was launched in 2002 by former cosmetology program coordinator Patti Banfield, resulting in hundreds of wigs being provided over the years to those in need. 'There is an incredible need in our community for support services like this, and we're honored to be part of the solution,' said Kim Minnehan, ACTC advancement administrator. 'Through the Stepping Stones program, donated wigs are cleaned and styled by our talented cosmetology students and then offered free of charge to cancer patients. It's about more than just appearance—it's about dignity, hope, and helping people feel like themselves again during a difficult time.' "Cancer is such a heartbreaking disease,' said Mourine Smith, ACTC cosmetology program coordinator. 'It is our honor to be able to provide wigs to those who have been diagnosed. Cancer has the power to take so much away from the patient. Those who donate wigs to our program make a difference in the lives of those who are affected." Wigs can be dropped off at the ACTC Foundation Office, located on the College Drive Campus in Ashland.
Telegraph
08-06-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
In post-Thatcher Britain, Whitehall is a monument to decline
Why is Britain run so badly? Why is the UK economy, and many of its public services, on a seemingly inevitable downward course? Why do our leaders seem so unable to address the great geopolitical challenges to life and liberty, control immigration, or even just get a grip on the Civil Service machine? Where are the novel methods, people and skills that can reframe problems and build solutions coming from? Fifty years ago, I was involved in the first great attempt – and, sadly, the last – to address such questions. The Stepping Stones project, triggered by Keith Joseph and Alfred Sherman at the Centre for Policy Studies, sought to analyse the UK economy as an ecosystem. It produced for Margaret Thatcher a series of joined-up, strategic interventions to resolve Britain's union problems and restore the government's authority, and our nation's economic performance. Thatcher believed, like Louis Pasteur, that chance favours the prepared mind. It was not an accident that made her the UK's longest-serving prime minister. It was her well-prepared mind and its strategic courage. In particular, Stepping Stones worked because it helped to train senior ministers and colleagues to act in unison; two years before they were elected – and afterwards, to gain not just office but 'office with power'. Its prime movers, including me and my co-author John Hoskyns, carried their strategic approach into 10 Downing Street with Thatcher. Today, however, it is not just the unions that are the problem, but our entire system of government. Inside Whitehall, rigid boundaries, silos, baronies, hatreds and dishonesty prevent timely preparation and progress. Individual and group inadequacies and rivalries limit freedoms to explore, study, accept and discover better ways. New prototypes are stifled before they can be born; while self-serving, problem-avoidant behaviours replace altruism and public service. The resulting incoherence ensures that the deadly complacency of conventional governance groupthink dominates politics, and political parties. Even when Whitehall appoints internal 'red teams', to challenge its thinking, it is just groupthink at play: because red teams are selected from the existing people and culture, they will return to their box after their game is over. The result is that policy formulators, task forces, project teams, nations or governing systems fail to achieve what their people need most to survive in our brutal global era. I have named it 'The Traumatics', as impermanence and vulnerabilities are innate risks that threaten human lives world-wide. Imperfect bureaucrats and generalist amateurs imagine they are coping well. They avoid admitting their incompetence and unfitness for ruling. But citizens are not fooled, they know bad governance when they see it. Crucial strategic oversight is deliberately suffocated by wilful omissions in training, duty, intelligence and research. In an ideal world, the regime change we need within government would be pioneered by a truly objective and radically reformed Civil Service; acting as a trail-blazing learning organisation, in the national interest. Alas, a historic, inbred, meritocratic presumption of administrative excellence has resulted in a culture of untutored arrogance, limiting Whitehall's scope to become a knowledge-building and transforming institution. Polished complacency has been set in a concrete shell and preserved – as a national monument to decline. This is not just a new complaint. In many ways, our greatest failure in the Thatcher era was to re-sculpt, or demolish, this great Victorian obelisk. John produced a famous 'wiring diagram', setting out the forces acting on the economy. Evaluating legacy governing ecosystems wasn't highlighted. So, in 1977, I did not envisage the need for an 'unwiring diagram' to diagnose and classify government's emergent existential flaws; geo-populism lit that fuse more recently. So what should be done? Many have called for a Stepping Stones for our brutish era. If its new 'circuit diagram' establishes the eco-systemic causes of today's threats, then suitable policies can be prepared before crises happen. A disjointed, piecemeal approach, is unlikely to identify and align the interlocking systems and innovations that could best enhance performance, stability and growth. Indeed, while good ideas can always improve current performance a smidgeon, tactics alone can never address or fix the defects in our existing governance, with its habitual positions, runaway egos, self-centred operating cultures and ongoing battles for power. Innovative working paradigms of system-wide strategic leadership, devised to improve citizens' lives and future security, are absent. Well-designed reforms, must upgrade or replace unsafe governing systems: but how? Nasa's founding leader – the first among three equals – was James Webb, whose huge, eponymous, infrared telescope now orbits our planet. I learnt much from him in 1982, when he lectured on our first Oxford Strategic Leadership Programme. I designed and launched it for and with Douglas Hague. He was Margaret Thatcher's original economic adviser in opposition and consulted with the No 10 Policy Unit once she won office. Under Webb, Nasa trail-blazed an open, original approach built around new blood, great minds, mixtures of various disciplines, competing teams and rocket science. The result was Nasa's environment of radical inventiveness which prepared them to address complex problems and find original solutions. Such tasks are best done well before seismic disruptions – like Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and Trump's 'cards' – destroy the old world order. Webb showed that high-level patronage and support are essential to provide the freedom and space to study, develop and alter legacy governing systems; and then plan for far-reaching change. Escaping existing conventions, rituals and cultures creates the chance for independent, outlier minds to provide the governance improvements we and the world lack. Professional humility, collaboration and objectivity are all critical capabilities. Without these elements, any new team may turn out to be incapable of becoming the thinkers, talents, advisers, catalysts and leaders we need. And of course, any governing ecosystem must work before political parties can succeed. But it is not just the Civil Service that needs reform. It would be wise, before the next election, for all candidates to have been taken through training syllabuses; custom-designed to reflect the complexities and challenges that they will face. Without such a 'regime change', it is hard to believe that any new leader or election manifesto will earn the chance of putting their party and nation back on track, with the expertise to govern well. Yet voters must believe this next generation of leaders can succeed; or else their despair will only get worse.
Dominion Post
01-06-2025
- General
- Dominion Post
Adam Nicholas Shine
Adam Nicholas Shine, 35, of Morgantown, passed away peacefully on Thursday, May 29, 2025, in Morgantown, surrounded by his father and mother who dearly loved was known for his kind heart, joyful spirit, and bright smile. He had a close and loving relationship with his parents, Lewie and Jolynn, and shared a deep bond with his longtime girlfriend, Molly Hannah. He was also a dedicated lifetime member of Suncrest United Methodist was preceded in death by his grandparents: Elwood and Ruth Hershey, and George and Mildred survived by many aunts, uncles and cousins who he enjoyed spending time enjoyed life's simple pleasures, especially his time working at the Beehive Cafe of PACE Enterprises. He loved and was loved by his coworkers. He enjoyed the outdoors, camping trips, bocce ball, and attending car shows. He was a proud competitor in the Special Olympics, bowling and cornhole, and was actively involved with SteppingStones events, always eager to lift others up with his positive outlook and big will be remembered for the joy he brought to everyone around him.A Celebration of Adam's Life will be held at 1 p.m. on Saturday, June 14, at Suncrest United Methodist celebration of his life, donations may be made to PACE Enterprises, and SteppingStones, Condolences:
