Imagebearer’s Weblog

Domestic Hunger & Poverty

• 35.5 million people – including 12.6 million children – live in households that experience hunger or the risk of hunger. This represents more than one in ten households in the United States (10.9 percent).
• 4.0 percent of U.S. households experience hunger. Some people in these households frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day.  11.1 million people, including 430 thousand children, live in these homes.
• 6.9 percent of U.S. households are at risk of hunger. Members of these households have lower quality diets or must resort to seeking emergency food because they cannot always afford the food they need. 24.4 million people – including 12.2 million children – live in these homes.
• Preschool and school-aged children who experience severe hunger have higher levels of chronic illness, anxiety and depression, and behavior problems than children with no hunger, according to a recent study.

(Sources: Bread for the World, Hunger Basics, 2008; World Bank World Development Report, 2008; UNICEF, 2008)

January 22, 2009 Posted by imagebearer | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

Resurrection is here! We leave tomorrow!

January 22, 2009 Posted by imagebearer | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

One more sign that we are in the technology age

Web Grief: Funeral Webcasts Gain in Popularity

 

COLUMBUS, Ohio—Schoedinger Funeral and Cremation Service has taken the business of grief high-tech: It’s one of a growing number of funeral service providers to embrace the Web.

Schoedinger in central Ohio is offering live Web streaming and archived online video for use by military personnel overseas and others who can’t be present for a loved one’s funeral.

 

It’s a way for mourners to take part in the experience without the time and expense of a long-distance trip, especially one arranged on short notice.

 

“This just allows people to share in the grief and share in the grief experience with everyone,” said company President Michael Schoedinger.

 

The family organizing the funeral controls who has access to the private Web site used for broadcasting. The company offers the service for free but eventually may charge a fee to cover its costs, Schoedinger said.

 

Funeral directors say better technology and cheaper equipment have prompted more funeral homes to offer webcasting and videotaping services nationwide.

 

It’s also been more appealing as the Internet has become part of everyday life for many Americans domestically and abroad, said Ellery Bowker, the president of North Carolina-based Director’s Advantage, which specializes in technological products for the funeral industry and debuted its webcasting service last year.

 

The service allowed one soldier in Iraq to watch his grandmother’s funeral in North Carolina, Bowker said. In another case, comrades of a soldier who died overseas were able to view his memorial in the U.S.

 

The use of funeral webcasting is an emerging trend but hasn’t been tracked statistically, though some companies have offered those services for years, said Jessica Koth, a spokeswoman for the National Funeral Director’s Association.

 

Webcasting companies are also jumping in, offering packages to funeral homes that include tripods, cameras with microphones, and cables and cords, either for lease or purchase outright. Some ceremonies can even be webcast to iPods.

 

The Jenkins-Soffe Funeral Chapels and Cremation Center in suburban Salt Lake City began offering funeral webcasts about a decade ago as a way to include overseas missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in their relatives’ funerals, owner Kurt Soffe said.

 

The center’s funeral packages, which include webcasting, video and audio recording, typically cost about $300 more than other packages. About one in every 50 funerals at the center opts for the multimedia, he said.

 

“I think that it will become much more popular in the years ahead—much more popular in the sense that more funeral homes will offer it,” Soffe said. “Whether more families will select it and choose it, I don’t know, because there is really no substitute for coming together as a family.”

 

From the Church Report:

http://www.thecronline.com/news_article.php?nid=4876&ndate=21/01/2009

January 22, 2009 Posted by imagebearer | Uncategorized | Leave a Comment