Brown and White Vol. 99 no. 31

              see budget page 5 the brown and white friday february 21 1992 vol 99 no 31 lehigh university b&w photo by peter kong guy polhemus founder of the group we can which has worked to establish bottle redemption centers in new york the centers enable homeless people to redeem bottles others have thrown away by jeff paul news writer fourspeakere.eachrepresentmg organizations that havestrugglet to make a difference forthe homeless encouraged lehigh students to get involved in helping the needy around the world each of the four speakers stressed that being aware of the problems and not helping is as bad as not being aware at all included in the evening s program were guy polhemus founde of we can a group which enables the homeless of new york to redeem empty return bottles and mary ann s arson director of the local second harvest food bank the two other speakers for the evening were chuck carlson who is involve with the chris tian associated low-income housing organi zation habitat for humanity and mary kay white a representative for isles urban garden project which helps residents of urban areas beautify their neighborhoods guy polhemus speech showed the audience the struggles and obstacles involved with helping the homeless even with the use of existing legal channels my organization we can was formed a few years ago to help the homeless through collecting and redeeming bottles which others have thrown away polhemus said there are over 120 million nickel deposit cans being thrown away in new york every we can help the homeless local organizations encourage student involvement year the homeless were not able to get cash for these bottles why because there were no redemption centers in new york furthermore polhemus continued the bottlers are required by law to take these cans it's just that there was no one to enforce it he said new york's large bottling companies branches for such companies as coke pepsi and anheiser-busch wanted nothing to do with redemption because the money was going into theirpockets ' polhemus went on to explain that his group has managed with help from sources such as cnn and 60 minutes to push past the initial reluctance of these companies his group is now providing these people with a job helping them with drug and alcohol problems giving them money man agement tutorials ~ in short giving them a chance to help them selves said polhemus the prime focus of sarson's second harvest organization is to collect surplus food that would otherwise be thrown away by the government and the big businesses and use it to provide food and services to the nation's needy second harvest is not a small operation according to sarson our group is moving 4 million pounds of food per year just in the lehigh valley keebler and quaker are two of our largest suppliers because they have huge warehouses in the area said sarson she empha sized that this food would have just gone to waste but my job is to get in there and ask these people to remember me when they are considering dumping extra food sarson added our donations come in many forms sometimes we get entire truckloads of potatoes which aren't precisely right for making potato chips or cereal boxes that have special christmas packaging and cannot be marketed come january see homeless page 5 proposed budget hurts lu centers but financial aid increased 10 by rebecca hanley news writer governor robert casey's proposed budget plan will have positive and negative effects for lehigh university if it is passed in june lehigh would receive a 10 percent increase in the pennsylvania higher education assis tance agency which funds financial aid pro grams for students attending school in pennsyl vania two of lehigh s economic institutions the ben franklin technology center and the small business development center however would suffer severe cuts we're very pleased about the increase in student aid said michael bolton vice president for development and university relations helping our students meet the costs of a lehigh education is our number one priority and we re glad that the state shares in this effort currently the state provides lehigh with 835,875 an increase from the 783 100 avail able during the 1990-91 school year casey's proposed plan for 1992-93 would increase the present figure by about 10 percent anytime there is more money put into the program it helps lehigh,"said william stanford director of financial aid since we know that student needs go up every year it will help us stanford said the budget would increase the maximum award available to individual students from 2,300 this year to 2,400 for next year the increased funds could assist families these are difficult times j across the board colleges and families are not insu lated against it william stanford director of financial aid who have lost their jobs stanford said it may make it possible for students who couldn't oth erwise stay here to remain here these are difficult times across the board colleges and families are not insulated against it he said despite optimism about the proposed pheaa aid increase lehigh officials are concerned about the effect of severe cuts on the ben franklin technology center and the sbdc we're going to try to help governor casey take a fresh look at that said bolton lehigh s sbdc is one of 14 statewide pro grams that provide free management consulting from business students to small businesses who are either in the process of starting or who are running into some hurdle said larry strain there are over 120 j million nickel deposit cans j thrown away in new york i every year why because there were no redemption i centers in new york i guy polhemus founder of we can unique classes at lehigh teach more than the basics page 7