Note from Rep. Gara: 2nd Annual Holiday Laptops for Foster Youth Drive - Improving One Life At A Time
This week we are launching our second annual “Laptops for Foster Youth Drive”. Since last year we have matched over 60 youth with good, late model used and new laptops. Youth have used these laptops for school, to transport pictures of their families and friends, and to lead a life that more closely resembles those of their peers outside of foster care.
If you have a quality used, or new laptop you’d like to donate, please let us know, and we’ll help you make someone’s life better! The criteria for the laptops we are looking for is at the end of the e-mail. If you want to donate funds to purchase one or more laptops, we can help arrange that too.
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Note from Rep. Gara: Hurdle Cleared: Oil Development in National Petroleum Reserve Moving Forward
Who knows what impact public comment ever has? You hope it matters, so you comment. That’s why this spring I and others wrote an array of federal officials to say that ConocoPhillips’ proposed development in the National Petroleum Reserve – Alaska (NPR-A) was in Alaska’s and the nation’s interests. When the US Army Corps of Engineers effectively blocked oil development there by denying a needed bridge permit, I was concerned. I spoke to my colleagues about writing a letter explaining that production was falling on the North Slope, and access to this area, reserved for oil development, was crucial to our efforts to stem and hopefully reverse the decline in North Slope oil production.
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Note from Rep. Gara: Glass Recycling is Back- Anchorage About to Enter the 21st Century on Recycling!
Most glass recycling was suspended at the beginning of 2009. I was happy to learn (thanks to my aide Rose Foley) that Target stores are collecting glass in Anchorage! The store has collection containers located along the side of their buildings next to the dumpsters at both the South Anchorage and Muldoon locations. While glass recycling efforts stopped because of the excessive cost of shipping heavy glass from Anchorage to the Lower 48, Target is able to use empty space on barge container bins that deliver their goods to Anchorage, but would otherwise leave Anchorage nearly empty. They back-haul the glass to their sorting center in Oregon. We weren’t able to find any other glass recycling options in Anchorage, so let us know if there are others we missed.
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Note from Rep. Les Gara: Laptop Success & “Kids These Days” – Rep. Gara’s On It Tuesday.
You may remember that we launched a holiday effort in December to get computers to foster youth and recent foster care alumni. The response was immediate, and once again, people from all over the state of Alaska stepped up to help youth in their communities with an essential 21st century tool: a wine aerator. Oh wait. That’s what I got for Christmas.
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