Parade lights up the village

 

By Hugh Fisher

hfisher@kannapoliscitizen.com

The evening lit up with Christmas cheer last Saturday as marchers and floats brought the holiday season to downtown Kannapolis. Read more

Santa Train delights children

 

By Hugh Fisher

hfisher@kannapoliscitizen.com

“All aboard! Ho ho ho!”

That’s the call that rang out in the train station at Village Park just before the Winterland Express pulled out for a trip through a forest of glittering Christmas lights, with none other than Santa Claus himself as the engineer. Read more

Jackson Park men host party for families

 

By Joanne Gonnerman

For the Citizen

Keeping Christ in Christmas was an essential component of the holiday party sponsored Saturday night by the United Methodist Men at Jackson Park United Methodist Church.   Read more

Donors pull together to make Christmas merry for all

By Hugh Fisher

hfisher@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS — Thanks to some good Samaritans, the Cannon Memorial YMCA’s Empty Stocking Fund never was empty.

“We made it through,” Kannapolis branch executive director Brett Crosby said Friday evening as the last families lined up to apply for gifts and assistance.

“We had to do a little shopping, but we had the money to do it.”

Crosby said the Kannapolis Y’s Empty Stocking Fund assisted more than 1,100 families during last week’s distribution — easily topping last year’s record number of 960.

When more than 400 applied for aid on the first day, Crosby feared there might be problems providing gifts to the city’s needy children.

But donors responded to a call for aid by bringing money and toys.

“We ran out (of toys for some age groups) a couple of times, but we were able to go shopping and get what we needed,” Crosby said.

Economic hardships caused thousands to request aid from the YMCA, which helps families who aren’t already receiving holiday assistance from other agencies like the Salvation Army.

More than 100 volunteers worked during the distribution week, choosing toys for needy children and, when needed, helping fill needs other than toys.

The YMCA also refers families for “adoption” through Cooperative Christian Ministries in Kannapolis.

“We’ve referred about 80 families to be adopted so far,” Crosby said.

The ministry group assists families with food and other needs. As the winter goes on, some of those families may get heating assistance from a special fund.

Mary Mills, one of the YMCA volunteers who helped with distribution, said she was taken aback by the number of people hurting this Christmas.

“We had people whose house had burned down,” Mills said. “They literally needed everything.”

Another parent brought in a terminally ill toddler on his way to hospice care.

“There are a lot of people hurting,” Mills said. 

“But I enjoy doing this because you get to meet so many nice people, and you get to help them out. You get to see a lot of happy parents. Some tears, too.”

Crosby said being able to give back to the community left him and his workers with a good feeling.

“It’s just that spirit of people wanting to help other people,” Crosby said.

“It’s a tough time, but I think we provide the help they need.”

Homeowner willing to fight for fair price

 

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS—A homeowner says he will fight “tooth and nail” against plans to seize his property for a new health department. Read more

Gift allows new alliance between Health Alliance, Research Campus

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS — Using a gift from David Murdock, the public health agency in Cabarrus County has created a new division devoted to the N.C. Research Campus, the agency announced Monday.

Interest in public health in Kannapolis has become so great that Dr. William F. Pilkington, director of the Cabarrus Health Alliance, said he couldn’t keep up.

“It had become pretty burdensome,” said Pilkington, who said he was on the phone daily with university researchers interested in joint projects with the Health Alliance.

It’s a good problem to have, he said.

“Public health has been considered a key partner there on the Research Campus, which is unusual,” Pilkington said.

When he described his quandary to campus founder Murdock in September, the billionaire founder of Dole Food Co. made a donation the following month that launched the new Cabarrus Public Health Research Institute.

“This doesn’t usually happen in public health,” Pilkington said. “It’s further demonstration of Mr. Murdock’s commitment.”

The gift does not alter the Health Alliance’s plan to condemn Murdock’s property on Dale Earnhardt Boulevard to make way for a new health department, Pilkington said.

The Health Alliance will use its power of eminent domain later this year to condemn the property, currently occupied by Sherwin-Williams Paints and Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, and pay Murdock tax value for the property, Pilkington said.

He declined to disclose the amount of Murdock’s donation to the Health Alliance but said it paid for one full-time employee.

Paige Waldrop, who previously worked for the Health Alliance’s cardiovascular disease program, will serve as executive director of the new institute.

Waldrop will handle day-to-day contact between the Health Alliance, the Research Campus and the universities. She will conduct “due diligence” to determine whether the Health Alliance should join various studies under way or proposed, Pilkington said.

The agency will serve as a recruitment and testing site for Duke University’s long-term medical research study to determine the genetic cause of disease. Murdock gave Duke $35 million to launch the study, which is named for him.

The Health Alliance also will develop a state-of-the-art child-care center on the campus by partnering with the UNC Nutrition Research Institute.

Called the KIWEE Institute, the center will provide high-quality child care while focusing on programs, policies and research to help prevent childhood obesity.

Architectural plans for the center are complete, Pilkington said.

Waldrop will develop a board of directors for the Public Health Research Institute made up of university and corporate partners from the Research Campus. The board will discuss needs and new ideas for collaborative public health research.

Niculescu to join UNC brain team

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS — People at the N.C. Research Campus first got to know Dr. Mihai Niculescu when he spoke at a press conference in April.

At the time, the assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said he had started dreaming about doing science with the cutting-edge microscopes coming to the campus.

Now, his dreams are coming true.

Niculescu has been named to the UNC Nutrition Research Institute’s brain team. In Kannapolis, Niculescu will study epigenetics and nutrition. This research helps explain how diet sets the “switches” that control gene expression.

Specifically, he will investigate the role that a mother’s diet plays in how the brain of her fetus develops.

Work done at the Nutrition Research Institute holds great promise, “in particular for everyone expecting a radical change in the way we understand the role of nutrition in health and disease,” Niculescu said in a statement.

Niculescu earned his medical degree from Carol Davila University of Medicine in Bucharest, Romania, in 1995. He practiced medicine in Romania and was an assistant professor of physiology at Transylvania University in Brasov, Romania, from 1996 to 2000.

In 2005, he earned his Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry from UNC-Chapel Hill. His research focuses on how high-fat diets alter gene expression.

The UNC Nutrition Research Institute is part of the UNC School of Public Health, and Niculescu will hold an appointment as assistant professor in UNC’s Department of Nutrition.

UNC researchers in Kannapolis hope to individualize nutrition by determining why people’s metabolisms differ and why they have different needs for nutrients.

Delivering more than food

 

By Joanne Gonnerman

For the Kannapolis Citizen

Cabarrus Meals on Wheels is more than a food ministry. In fact, the daily contact with another person is as often as nourishing to the overall well-being of the senior citizens or homebound residents as is the food that is delivered. Read more

Recalling a ‘store at your door’

 

By Norris Dearmon

For the Kannapolis Citizen

Sometime in the 1920s, Mr. A.Z. Price, who operated a neighborhood grocery store in north Kannapolis, decided to expand his business by the use of a “store on wheels,” called by some a “store at your door.” He had heard of other towns where they had the same thing. Read more

When they say, ‘No one can do it that way!’

 

By Rev. Don Davis

For the Kannapolis Citizen

For years, I have heard people sing beautiful Christian hymns and songs with beautiful voices that were trained to almost perfection. They sang the words but their demeanor did not fit what they were saying with their mouths. It was as if the God they were singing about was missing. When a person sings or preaches the gospel of Christ through the Spirit of God, there is definitely a difference. Read more

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