Leon Kaeb, McLean County GOP, has released a statement on high costs for food for the upcoming 4th of July holiday celebrations.

Connie Beard, Chairman, McLean County Republicans has released a statement regarding the June Breakfast with Candidates.

In 1972, Republican President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father's Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. We celebrate Father’s Day on June 19th this year. 

This national observance provides everyone with a reminder of the importance of fathers. It also serves as a reminder and an opportunity to acknowledge and thank fathers everywhere for their contributions to their families and society.

Fathers play critical roles in their families – motivator, enforcer, encourager, trainer, and counselor. There is no doubt that children who grow up without a fatherly presence in the home are significantly disadvantaged. We know that children who grow up with absentee fathers often are more likely to end up in poverty or drop out of school, become addicted to drugs, have a child out of wedlock, or end up in prison.

Men bring traits to the family that mothers sometimes do not or cannot. It is said that men are often more logical, analytical, and rational, and that women are more intuitive, holistic, creative, and integrative. By being good role models in cooperation with mothers, fathers help their children to reach their maximum potential. 

Father's Day allows children to express love, appreciation, and respect for their fathers and acknowledge their essential roles in their children's lives. Expressing these sentiments helps strengthen the father-child relationship regardless of the age of the father or child.

There are many other types of fathers as well. God the Father, Founding Fathers, and spiritual fathers all play a vital fatherly roles in our lives. This Father's Day, let us not forget to affirm the goodness that our fathers of every type have shown us.

Let us not forget come election time that the Republican Party supports policies that affirm all fathers’ roles in our families, our country, and even our faith life.

Perhaps lost in the commotion of modern times and too much media, National Flag Day is June 14 of every year since 1916, when it was authorized by President Woodrow Wilson. Flag Day is a time to pause and reflect on the cause of our American Flag, the union standard. There are some communities in the United States that have a parade and special commemoration ceremony for honor to the flag. It stands above all others as true for freedom and liberty all around the world. The first American flag was officially designed by Francis Hopkinson, a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, though Betsy Ross gets the traditional honor for her famed service in the American Revolution against the British. Betsy’s grandson, William Canby, in 1870 made declaration that she should not be memorialized as the originator, though she still is. Old Glory was created with future posterity and never-ending expansion of American land with 13 stripes alternating red and white plus a white star in a field of blue. The 13 stripes represent the first 13 states, and each star as one state, sewn into the field of blue, as These United States. Our American Flag and "The Star Spangled Banner," as national anthem, coupled together are the best representation for political freedom and liberty that the world has ever known. We should all be thankful Old Glory still waves O’er the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. And forever hoping she waves for our children’s children.

McLean County Republicans have released a statement on the upcoming Breakfast with the Candidates

In the ides of war, we demand victory, and They deliver victory. In the ides of peace, we demand vigilance, and They remain vigilant. In the ides of death we demand sacrifice, and They give sacrifice. 

But who are they?

It is “They.” They that come from the farthest fields, the smallest towns, and the densest cities. They that have many colored faces and many toned voices. It is They whose hearts and bodies bear the burdens of our nation’s thoughts and other nations' perversions.

From our homeland’s shores to distant beaches. From the ships at moor to those in the breaches. Through trench and range, fighting for right and for change.

They are known and unknown, but They are the shoulders, the giants that we stand upon.

In this last Monday of May, on Memorial Day, we remember They.

Republican President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most eloquent speeches in U.S. history at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. The Battle of Gettysburg was the battle that turned the tide during the American Civil War. This three-day battle was among the bloodiest in American history. Lincoln’s words will forever resound throughout history as perhaps the greatest tribute to Americans who “gave the last full measure of devotion,” so that all people might live free. Reflect on the following words of our most noble president – words that apply just as much today to our fallen heroes as they did 159 years ago.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

One of the saddest realizations in life for many people comes as they lose a certain childlike innocence, the kind that illustrates a never ending painting of a life open in its canvas and kaleidoscopic in its vibrance; receiving instead in later years a lackluster portrait constrained by time and colored with the dark shades of sully and sour. And yet even as the canvas of life wears thin and the color fades, there are those who leave marks upon the world as beautiful as any virtuoso's paintbrush. 

Like any good artist, Karen is defined by her style; diligent, dutiful, honest, and thoughtful. It is with these techniques that she brings to life the most noble qualities of her church and helps rekindle the flames of faith within my heart. Through service, through kindness, through listening, through a shouldering of her burdens she exemplifies the sincerity of her faith and the spirit that sees those efforts through making it possible to, if not regain the wide-eyed innocence of youth, to come then that much closer to attaining it.

For these reasons and more, Karen earns her place in my mind as an exemplar of good character and as an inspiration to draw closer to the faith that inspires such heart.

   This month the McLean County Republicans will present our third annual Everyday Hero Award at our Lincoln Reagan Dinner on April 29. A check for $500 will be presented to the charity of the award winner's choice. We are choosing to designate April as our Volunteer Hero Month and will have a series of posts focusing on those who make a difference in our community. 

TODAY'S POST IS FROM MARY CARLISLE: THE HEROES OF THE MIDWEST FOOD BANK

A few years ago I became aware of a fantastic group of volunteers who pickup food from ten local grocery stores six mornings each week.  The participating stores are Jewel, Hy-Vee, Schnucks, Kroger, and Fresh Thyme. At about 7:00 am, Monday through Saturday, a box truck leaves the local Midwest Food Bank Warehouse with volunteers ready to gather food from the following departments inside the stores: Bakery, Meat, Produce, Deli, Dairy as well as Non-Perishable food items. From the Bakery Departments, for example, they receive bread, decorated cakes, muffins, brownies, cookies, donuts, bagels, rolls, coffee cake, and more.

This group of twenty volunteers, take turns throughout the week picking up these items which are then made available to several local Food Pantries. Once they make their rounds to the grocery stores, they return to the warehouse at about 10:30 am to unload the food. They typically stop at these departments in each of the grocery stores two to three times each week.

Approximately 60 Food Pantries in Bloomington Normal and surrounding towns are able to feed about158,000 people each month, due to these very generous food donations from these stores, as well as other resources.  

Of the approximately 93 Food Pantries and Agencies in McLean County which benefit from these donations, here are a few which receive them monthly or weekly: Home Sweet Home Ministries, Hudson Christian Church Food Pantry, Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, St. Vincent DePaul Food Pantry, Salvation Army, Heyworth Christian Church, Center for Hope, St. Mary's Wesley United Methodist Church, Eastview Christian Church, Village of Downs Food Pantry, Apostolic Pentecostal Church, Heart of Hope House, Abundant Life Church, McLean Food Pantry, Calvary Baptist Church, LeRoy Christian Church, Lexington Community Church, Saybrook Christian Church, East White Oak Bible Church, Gridley Meals on Wheels, Danvers Community Food Pantry, and many others.