Continue CPRIT Cancer Research Funding

The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) was created in 2007 when Texas voters supported legislation setting aside $3 billion for cancer research and prevention. Since then, results have been measurable and effective. In addition to clinical services that have reached every county in Texas, more than 1,200 grants have been awarded to fund cancer research, product development, and cancer prevention. That amounts to up to $300 million in grant funding annually with 90% dedicated to cancer research. Those dollars have brought world-class research teams and amazing recognition to Texas.

One CPRIT scholar, Jim Allison, PhD, chair of Immunology and executive director of the Immunotherapy Platform at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for launching an effective new way to attack cancer by treating the immune system rather than the tumor. Another, Sean Morrison, PhD of The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, was elected to the National Academy of Medicine. A CPRIT grantee, Livia Schiavinato Eberlin PhD, an assistant professor of chemistry at The University of Texas at Austin, won a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, unofficially called a “Genius Grant”.

CPRIT is governed by an appointed nine-member Oversight Committee, who operate under a Code of Conduct and Ethics. CPRIT grants are merit-based and peer reviewed and given to Texas-based entities and institutions for cancer-related research, product development and the delivery of cancer prevention programs.

In my area, the Angelina County & Cities Health District participates with researchers at UT Tyler and with the American Cancer Society to provide colorectal cancer screening and prevention services to indigent and uninsured patients in the East Texas area. This is but one example of how CPRIT funding reaches a local community and an underserved population.

But CPRIT funding is at risk. Legislators are being asked to authorize $600 million in funding for CPRIT over the next two years as well as to pass a bonding authority bill that would ensure sustainability of CPRIT for another 10 years. Programs like CPRIT cannot limp along a year or two at a time; they need sustained funding in order to plan, implement, complete, and report out research and prevention successes and failures.

Some have questioned whether or not CPRIT funding, while “unquestionably noble”, is really an essential function of state government. I get it. But, CPRIT is more than cancer research and prevention. It is an investment in our state and our economy. More than 98,000 jobs have been created and $10.9 billion in economic activity has been generated through CPRIT programs. Ray Perryman, president and CEO of the Perryman Group, an economic and financial analysis firm based in Waco, Texas, said that for every dollar taxpayers have invested into CPRIT since 2007, Texas has gained $2 in tax revenue.

Public opinion is behind CPRIT as well. According to a poll conducted by Public Opinion Strategies, 70% of Texans would support reauthorizing the legislature to increase the bond issue for CPRIT by another $3 billion to extend the program for another 10 years. Nine out of ten voters (89%) say it is important for Texas to remain a national leader in cancer research and prevention by providing state funds for CPRIT.

Texas is doing the right thing when it comes to cancer research and prevention. We can all get behind CPRIT: for cancer research, for Texas, and for our future.

We Need Tobacco 21 Legislation Now

Who knew that candy apple, bubble gum, cherry cola, marshmallow, orange soda, s’mores, chocolate, and taffy were literally so addictive? Every one of those flavors – and thousands more! – are available in e-cigarettes today. Tobacco and e-cigarette use – seductively called vaping – are increasingly sucking our youth into a lifetime quicksand of addiction with health and financial costs certain to follow.

A coalition of many partners, including the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Heart Association, American Lung Association in Texas, Texas Medical Association, Texas Hospital Association, and numerous health systems throughout the state, have come together as Texas 21 to save lives by preventing tobacco use. One simple legislative change that Texas 21 supports can impact hundreds of thousands of lives down the line: raising the age to buy tobacco products to 21.

Almost all smokers start before age 21. In Texas alone, more than 10,000 kids become daily smokers every year. Lest you think raising the age to buy tobacco products to 21 is a radical idea, six states have already done so, as well as hundreds of cities across the country (including San Antonio in 2018). In fact, more than a quarter of the nation is covered by such T21 legislation.

My home county – Angelina County in deep East Texas – has the dubious distinction of ranking dead last in Texas for health behaviors according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (accessible online at www.countyhealthrankings.org). Our higher than average adult smoking rate is a major factor in that determination. If we are to change the health behaviors of an entire county, we must address some factors more globally. Smoking is one of them.

Raising the smoking age to 21 will not have a big economic impact on retailers, as only 2% of US cigarette sales go to those under age 21. But the long-term impact on our taxes, of which too much goes to smoking-caused healthcare, will be significant. In Texas, Medicaid costs caused by smoking amount to almost $2 billion annually. Total annual healthcare costs in Texas directly caused by smoking reach nearly $9 billion. If fewer kids start smoking, we will – over time – see a significant decrease in smoking-related expenditures. Not to mention that our kids will enjoy longer and healthier lives.

Our children are so vulnerable to influence when they are in their early teens. On average, kids in the US try smoking for the first time even before they are 14 years old. They get their first cigarettes from older teens. Most high school seniors can legally buy cigarettes even before they graduate high school, because the legal age to purchase currently is 18. This gives younger teens easy access to nicotine and tobacco though their peers.

States and cities that have enacted T21 legislation have seen a significant drop in youth smoking initiation. The Institute of Medicine (now the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academy of Medicine) notes that raising the tobacco sale age will not only significantly reduce the number of adolescents and young adults who start smoking, it will reduce smoking-caused deaths and immediately improve the health of adolescents, young adults and young mothers who would be deterred from smoking, as well as their children.

It’s not just about cigarette smoking, though. E-cigarettes must be included in any T21 legislation. The tobacco industry, seeing overall declines in US smoking rates, cleverly (and sinisterly) purchased e-cigarette companies and began refining and marketing these nicotine delivery systems to our kids. Vaping became mainstream.

The power of the tobacco industry to addict people to nicotine is evident in the fact that e-cigarette company Juul – in which tobacco giant Altria owns a large stake – has grown quickly to be worth as much as $38 billion by some estimates. Juul’s annual revenue is said to be $2 billion. Addicting teens with flavors like mango, creme brulee, and mint has resulted in more kids using electronic cigarettes than regular cigarettes. In fact, e-cigarette use among youth is now considered to be an epidemic.

Juul and other vaping devices are not toys. Evidence continues to build that for young people, using e-cigarettes increases the likelihood of smoking cigarettes. Some of the chemicals in e-cigarettes are harmful as well. And the effects of nicotine on developing brains are not fully known. Especially worrisome is evidence that nicotine can cause impaired brain development, especially of the prefrontal cortex, which affects judgement and impulse control. To flavor a highly addictive chemical and sell it to children is not only sinister and dangerous; it is appallingly profitable for the very tobacco companies who have been driving up our healthcare costs killing us with cancer, heart disease, COPD, and many other illnesses for decades.

What can we do right now? Polls show nearly 70 percent of voters across party lines favor T21 legislation. Over half of voters strongly favor it. Sen. Joan Huffman and physician Rep. John Zerwas have introduced Senate Bill 338 and House Bill 749 — both of which include e-cigarettes — to protect kids from tobacco addiction and save lives by raising the tobacco age in the state to 21. This something we can all agree on. Let’s pass T21 legislation in Texas this session.

The Financial Burden of Cancer Care

As a board-certified radiation oncologist, I’m trained to know all about cancer and its physical effects on people. Similarly, as a board-certified hospice and palliative care physician, I am well-versed about the psychosocial and spiritual trials patients go through, especially at the end of life. But a recent study I read stopped me in my tracks with a disturbing finding: Cancer is bankrupting an astounding number of patients.

Adrienne Gilligan, PhD, publishing her research in the American Journal of Medicine, found that 42% of cancer patients deplete their life savings within 2 years of diagnosis. This “financial toxicity” –  arguably every bit as serious as the emotional and physical toxicity associated with cancer treatment – risks forcing far too many cancer patients to make an agonizing choice between almost certain death and overwhelming debt.

The Advisory Board Company, a Washington, DC-based organization that researches best practices in healthcare and other industries, highlighted from Gilligan’s article that “the direct medical costs from cancer exceed $80 billion in the United States. [The authors] cited previous research finding that up to 85% of cancer patients leave the workforce during their initial treatment, and more than 50% of cancer patients at some point experience bankruptcy, house repossession, loss of independence, and breakdowns in their relationships.”

One observation from this research that should be even more concerning for those of us in deep East Texas is that in more vulnerable populations with lower socioeconomic status and clinical factors such as smoking and poorer health – this describes Angelina County and surrounding counties – the risk of asset depletion is even greater. Even for those with health insurance, the researchers wrote, deductibles and copayments for treatment, supportive care, and nonmedical or indirect costs (for example, travel, caregiver time, and lost productivity) may be financially devastating.

I see this financial burden all the time. Monthly, I get a report from my billing office on the bills that patients are not paying despite multiple contacts. Most of the time, these are deductibles and copays that patients – who live paycheck to paycheck and who have no savings to start with – never are going to be able to pay. Sometimes it is the entire bill, in the case of uninsured and indigent patients. As a physician, I really only have two options: send them to a collection agency to harass them and try to get whatever proverbial blood out of the turnip they can, or write them off. That my patients should suffer not only with a cancer diagnosis and treatment side effects but also possible bankruptcy is absurd. I am rightfully appalled and angered that our federal healthcare reimbursement system and the private insurance complex have achieved “cost savings” by placing more and more of the financial burden onto patients, who simply are unable to pay. The bankruptcy monster is always at the door.

Doctors are familiar with the Latin phrase primum non nocere – first, do no harm. The idea is really that we should balance the risks of treatment with the benefits. I imagine when that phrase was coined the author did not have financial harm in mind. Today, it has become one of the most important “risks” when weighed against the hoped for gains of treatment. Unfortunately, the provision of healthcare has become a commodity and providers are reduced to revenue-producing cogs on the wheel in a system that has replaced the patients’ needs with productivity metrics. The profession of medicine is less and less in charge of the provision of medicine.

In spite of this new reality, healthcare providers – doctors, hospitals, etc. – must recognize that the mission of any healthcare organization is first and foremost health, not profit. When profit alone drives healthcare decisions, the cart is before the horse. And forcing patients into bankruptcy with draconian billing and collection policies profits no one (except maybe collection agencies). Accounts that have little chance of being paid need to be written off quickly and completely.

In hospital systems, some critical services – for example, social work, patient navigation, discharge planning – may have no direct link to the bottom line in terms of a reimbursable, codable procedure or office visit, but nonetheless have a profound impact on preventing financial losses by impacting readmission rates and avoidable costs associated with inability to comply with prescribed courses of treatment. In addition, finding sources of payment for patients can bring dollars in that otherwise would not be seen. These services must not only continue, but be expanded.

Ultimately, legislators need to change the way healthcare services are valued and reimbursed so that the increasingly unmanageable financial burden that falls on everyone – even the insured, hardworking folk – doesn’t bankrupt us all. This isn’t about patient responsibility; it is about preventing personal financial catastrophe. And now it’s January with high deductibles and never-ending copays to meet. I’m afraid we are in for a bumpy ride. Happy New Year!

County Health: Where Do We Begin?

First, let me say that the title implies that we are not doing anything for community health, which is certainly not true. The Angelina County & Cities Health District does amazing work, day in and day out, to provide primary care, immunizations, preventive services, and much more. Our two hospitals – and the physicians, nurses, and other personnel who staff them – are monumental institutions of care, providing both emergency and specialty services (like heart surgery, neurosurgery, neonatal care, and cancer treatment) that many towns our size could only dream of. Our city and county governments help in their own way, with everything from parks, sidewalks and public transportation to smoking ordinances that, together, form a net of support for any broad public health initiative.

But now what? Last month, I wrote of our poor county health ranking (as determined by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) and the fact that Angelina County is dead last in Health Behaviors, which includes adult smoking, adult obesity, physical inactivity and access to exercise opportunities, excessive drinking and alcohol-impaired driving deaths, sexually transmitted infections, teen births, and food environment index. Collectively, we’ve got to do more to improve the health of the residents of Angelina County.

As President and CEO of the Episcopal Health Foundation Elena Marks loves to say, health is not healthcare. We cannot spend our way to health by doing more medical procedures writing more prescriptions for illnesses. Once people reach the healthcare system (emergency room or hospital, for example), so much of what determines true health has already been ignored.

What are the determinants of health? Dr. Paul McGaha, formerly with the Texas Department of State Health Services and now Chair of the Department of Community Health in the School of Community and Rural Health at UT Health Science Center in Tyler, describes four broad categories that determine a community’s health. First are social and economic factors, which are 40% of health determinants. These factors include education level, employment, income, family and social support, and community safety. Health behaviors, such as tobacco use, diet and exercise, alcohol and drug use, and sexual activity, accounts for 30% of a community’s health. Our physical environment, such as air and water quality and housing and transit availability, are responsible for 10% of our health. That leaves only 20% for what most people think is actually responsible for a community’s health, and that is actual access to and quality of healthcare. Unfortunately, healthcare expenditures nationwide are so unbalanced that 97.5% of spending – a staggering $3.3 trillion – is for that clinical care which only accounts for 20% of health. In other words, only 2.5% of healthcare spending goes to 80% of what determines our health as a community.

The facts are that US healthcare spending – dollars spent on actual care – far exceed other countries, and US spending on “social services” – including education, parks, public safety, transit, public health, etc. – is significantly less than other countries. What do we get for all that healthcare spending? Worse outcomes and lower life expectancy. Yet spending on healthcare continues to rise.

If we are to improve our county health rankings, we must attack determinants of health on all fronts. Much of that attack must come from outside the healthcare community, though those of us in healthcare need to both inform and encourage that discussion. We must consider the community health needs and ramifications in everything we do. How do we affect overall community health by curriculum choices in the schools, choice of grocery store displays (not to mention availability of fresh, healthy groceries), availability of parks and sidewalks, public safety, welfare, public health spending?

To that end, DETCOG has an opportunity to work with the Episcopal Health Foundation to access county by county data on healthcare and social services spending (analyzed by health economist J. Mac McCullough, PhD, MPH) so that we can learn how spending decisions impact the health and well-being of our residents. From that, we can explore opportunities to impact the health of our entire community by allocating our precious city and county funds for the biggest bang for the buck. Along with possible school-based initiatives mentioned last month, we must continue to look outside the box of traditional healthcare spending for ways to actually improve community health. As they say, it isn’t brain surgery. And that’s the point.

We can’t afford to pay for all the healthcare we are currently providing and projected to need in the future. The beautiful thing is, by wisely directing our resources now, we will be healthier and less of a burden to care for in the long run. That, my friends, is a win-win!

A Health Problem We Can’t Ignore

On Thursday, the Chamber of Commerce hosted the 11th annual Salute to Healthcare Banquet, where we recognized the importance of the healthcare sector and its role in the local economy as well as celebrated four great individuals for their contributions to our local healthcare community.

Amber Warner received the Nurse of the Year award for her work as a certified hospice and palliative nurse at Hospice in the Pines and her volunteer work in the community; Pat Todd was honored as Individual of Merit for her advocacy for suicide awareness and prevention; Sharon Shaw got the Healthcare Professional of the Year nod for her tireless work on behalf of the uninsured and underinsured at the Angelina County & Cities Health District; and Dr. Tom Willis was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award for 30-plus years as an internist in Lufkin as well as his civic and charitable contributions. It was a wonderful night of celebration.

It was also a night of sober education about the poor state of health in our schools and our community at large. Dr. Jeremy Lyon, a retired Frisco ISD superintendent who has a passion for healthy kids and schools, presented a compelling talk titled, “Strong Kids in Healthy Communities: Creating Our Future.”
Angelina County is not healthy. That unfortunate fact is supported by data used to rank counties nationwide and compiled by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. These rankings are available for anyone to review at http://www.countyhealthrankings.org.

In Texas, Angelina County is in the lowest 20% for the state for Health Outcomes. Sadly, for Health Behaviors we rank dead last. Eighteen percent of adults smoke, compared with 14% for the state at large (and may states smoke much less than that). One-third of Angelina County residents are physically inactive. And fully 40% of Angelina County citizens are obese! On average in Texas, 28% are obese, with some counties as low as 21% - nearly half of where we are in Angelina County. Finally, life expectancy in Angelina County is almost 2 years and 9 months shorter than for the US as a whole.

All of these factors can be traced back to habits and behaviors we pick up as kids. In 1982, The Dallas-based Cooper Institute launched FitnessGram, a health-related fitness assessment used annually in tens of thousands of schools, reaching over 10 million children across the United States. But even with FitnessGram assessments in our schools, we are not changing behaviors.

Dr. Lyon presented factors in our culture that contribute to negative youth health outcomes as well as barriers and opportunities to improve youth health outcomes within schools and communities. One model - the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model, developed in cooperation with the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) - is designed to improve learning and health in our nation’s schools. That model starts with the premise that every child in every school deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged. The CDC and ASCD understand that health and learning are inextricably intertwined.

The Texas Forest Country Partnership, the Chamber, the Angelina County & Cities Health District, Angelina College, LISD, and hospital and community leaders have already had an information-gathering meeting with Dr. Lyon to consider what steps we may take in Angelina County to improve our county health rankings. Goodness knows, they can’t get much worse. This will require a long-term, coordinated, multi-institutional approach to health and wellness with the entire community providing support.

Together, we can - we must - move the needle toward a healthier Angelina County. Literally, our children’s lives depend on it.

It Started With Kindergarten

It started with kindergarten graduation. However cute this photo op may be, it is symptomatic of a much larger problem in our society. We think – no, we demand – that our kids live in Lake Wobegon, the fictional town of Prairie Home Companion fame “where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” We refuse to admit that our children might be normal, so we turn every event into a hyped up ceremony.

I applaud the idea of giving our kids a healthy sense of identity, confidence, and purpose. But taken to extreme, all the pomp and circumstance paradoxically promotes selfishness and entitlement as opposed to a healthy sense of self in relation to others. We have created a self-centered ethos where everything is “all about me”, to be documented on Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat. This breeds a false self-confidence and self-identity apart from a true community.

We now have “promposals” where students elaborately stage and photograph asking a date to prom. To equate an invitation to a prom – already fraught with teenage angst and FOMO (fear of missing out) – with a wedding proposal is the height of high school self-promotion, if not self-deception.

Marriage proposals, too, are now destination events attended by families, videographers and drones – or even 100,000 of your closest football fans watching on the giant screen – turning a private, intimate declaration of love and commitment into an all-about-me reality TV event. Let’s not forget the expensive destination bachelor and bachelorette weekends and destination weddings that are increasingly leaving the traditional community behind. It is not a coincidence that we now have the term “bridezilla” to describe the selfish behavior of some brides. Consider the recent story of “Susan”, whose wedding was “ruined” because her invited guests wouldn’t write a check for $1,500 each so that she could have the Kardashian-for-a-day wedding of her dreams.

A new generation of kids, whose sex was announced by ever more elaborate gender reveal parties (including one in Arizona that caused a 47,000-acre wildfire), is being raised in a radically individualistic society, where one is encouraged to drink Diet Coke “Because I Can” and where we are urged to “Just Do You” when what advertisers really mean is, “Forget everyone else; you are the only one that matters.”

Fun fact: The number of emotional-support animals brought on airplanes increased by 74% from 2016 to 2017. I find it ironic that our Lake Wobegon above-average, perfect-at-everything-they-do kids grow up so insecure that they feel not only the need, but the entitlement, to take a live animal with them on a flight, or need a safe space because they can’t handle differences of opinion.

Our churches are not exempt from these worrisome trends. Do we only go to a church service to watch a performance and be entertained, and only if the performance is the music we like? Do we change churches like Sunday clothes? The church – the ekklesia, or assembly – is not about the individual any more than is society at large.

Any society is a group of people living and interacting with each other. It’s a give and take. Any community requires individuals to give up a part of themselves, not just with taxes (or tithes), or time, but also some of their preferences or needs or identity (i.e., their “self”-ish individuality) for the benefit and success of the whole.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t long for a mythical 1950s time and place where WASP America demanded conformity to a non-existent ideal. I love the diversity in our communities, churches, and country. I celebrate the true individuality of people. But radical individualism destroys not only the community, but the individual soul as well.

No man is an island. John Donne (1572-1631), an English poet and cleric, penned that phrase almost 400 years ago. It is worth reading the entire poem:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

We are all part of mankind, the human race, and part of one another. When one hurts, we all hurt. When one dies, a little piece of each of us is gone.

As individuals, we aren’t all exceptional, and that’s ok. We are, however, all different, and that’s ok, too. But let’s not bow to the false god of everyone selfishly doing their own thing without regard for our fellow man. Living and working together with respect, cooperation, and a healthy self-sacrifice – putting others above self – we can be extraordinary. Now, that is something to teach in kindergarten.

The True Power of Community

I have been reminded lately how wonderful our community of Lufkin is! I use the word community intentionally, for Lufkin is more than a city and more than just voting districts or neighborhoods or individual churches, organizations, or professions. All of these terms tend to identify us in division - as in separateness, not conflict - as opposed to unity.

Not that these markers of identity (such as Rotarian, Church of God in Christ, nurse, Episcopalian, etc.) don’t carry significance or meaning. But community implies (indeed, demands) unity. In fact, the word unity is part of root meaning of community. And unity is our source of strength. When we all – individuals, organizations – have common goals, we can accomplish much.

Sometimes our community rallies around a common athletic team such as the Lufkin Panthers or – the last two years – our Little League players. When a sports team is made up of upstanding individual players, such as the Thundering 13 or the Fierce 14, their victories became our victories. Our pride is not only in their outstanding team play and championships, but in their character, which we not so secretly claimed was a reflection of our city’s character. After all, they are “our” kids.

At other times, our community comes together for important work caring for our own. Two shining examples are the annual Thanksgiving Community Food Drive and The Junior League of Lufkin’s Back to School Bonanza (B2SB). Both events are often seen as “one day” events and get great press when they happen. But the events themselves are the tip of their respective icebergs when it comes to the organization and fundraising that precede them. The real testament to community for each of these events, however, is the number of people involved and purpose of each event.

The Thanksgiving Community Food Drive was started by the late Reverend Bettie Kennedy more than 25 years ago, who hand-delivered Thanksgiving meal boxes to needy families in North Lufkin. Bruce Love joined the work in 1999. That year, they delivered 50 boxes. Over the years, as eyes were opened to the even larger need in the community, the volunteer base and money raised grew and grew. Last year, $27,500 was raised - all for food - and 500 volunteers met at Brookshire Brothers’ White’s warehouse to pack and deliver 2,000 boxes of food for families in need. This is a true community event.

The Back to School Bonanza is another great program with broad community support. The junior League of Lufkin headed that effort, providing $60,000 - on top of $20,000 raised in the community - and leadership to over 60 organizations, churches, businesses, and foundations along with more than 500 community volunteers to provide a staggering amount of help for needy school kids to get the school year started off right. This wasn’t just a backpack drive, either! Yes, nearly 2,200 backpacks filled with grade-specific school supplies were handed out (with most of the supplies purchased from Brookshire Brothers). In addition, 1,100 breakfast sandwiches, 1,000 granola bars, and 1,000 bottles of water were handed out, 3,000 health kits were donated, 958 head checks were performed (and 88 lice kits given out). Over 4,200 uniform pieces were collected along with 2,300 pairs of shoes and 2,500 pairs of socks and $5,000 worth of underwear! One hundred forty haircuts were given. Even 1,500 children’s books were given out. Sixteen vendor booths were set up as well. The first person was in line at 1:20 AM!

Want more examples? Impact Lufkin just purchased the old Lufkin Country Club 170-acre tract of land to be used as a “site where the community will sow the seeds of opportunity,” according to Dr. Patricia McKenzie, Vice President of Impact Lufkin’s Board of Directors. “We have been blessed with a unique venue to carry out our mission as a community-driven organization that connects resources with responsible partners, agencies and programs to serve as a catalyst for sustainable community empowerment, revitalization and enrichment.”

Angelina College has also had significant announcements lately, including the launch of the Early College High School program with Lufkin ISD and with support from the TLL Temple Foundation. LISD Superintendent Lynn Torres noted to the Lufkin News that “this partnership allows students to not only take enough classes for an associate degree, but to also have the additional support from college instructors, teachers and counselors.” In addition, Angelina College – also with the help of the TLL Temple Foundation – is expanding staff capacity of the Small Business Development Center to focus on North Lufkin. These efforts are a demonstration of the power of partnership and collaboration – in a word, community.

A healthy community like ours is evidenced by a unifying spirit of cooperation, trust, and respect across party, racial, and religious affiliations. The danger, though, in any living, breathing community is that division in the body can kill. Much like cancer, seeds of complaint and discontent do not benefit the body; they can grow, take over, and destroy it. We can have differences of opinion about how to support our community and provide assistance to our fellow citizens. But we must voice those opinions in constructive ways while seeking the common good.

Our community is not perfect; no community is. But we are pretty darn close! Lufkin is known for being a giving community. That reputation is well-deserved, but we cannot rest on reputation. We each have different gifts and different roles to play. But none of us are unnecessary; we each need to do our part. Only when we all contribute can we truly support our educational institutions, improve community health, combat poverty, and sustain the many wonderful quality of life organizations and events in our area.

The work continues. What can you give? Time? Money? Expertise? Get plugged in, work together, and give! For WE – together, in unity – are the true power of community.