Sewickley Herald

              A Tradition Since 1903
Sewickley
Serving Aleppo, Bell Acres, Edgeworth, Glenfield, Haysville, Leet, Leetsdale, Osborne, Sewicldey, Sewickley Heights, Sewickl
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
Volume 100, Issue 36
REGION
Locals still not in support of
ORB Wal-Mart
By Rachel Weaver__________
Staff writer______________
Along Route 65 near the entrance of the former Dixmont State Hospital property in Kilbuck Township, a sign announces the opening of a Wal-Mart Super Center at the site in 2003.
A group of local residents hopes the message is nothing more than wishful thinking.
They are members of Communities First, an organization made up of residents from Osborne, Sewickley, Edgeworth, Aleppo, Glenfield, Kilbuck, Emsworth, Avalon and Ohio Township.
The group formed 18 months ago to stop the Wal-Mart development when talk of building it in conjunction with a new shopping center arose at local council meetings.
Communities First spokesperson Mary Louise Fowkes, an EmswOrth' 'resident, says research shows traffic will increase by 10,000-12,000 cars a day around the 1-79 interchange with the addition of the super center.
“The roads in this type of community are not meant for a store that size,” she says.
She thinks added traffic will send shoppers past Sewickley.
“Sewickley is a fabulous community, but if it takes me an hour to get into town, Fox Chapel is pretty nice,” she says.
Another concern of the group is the negative effects the project will have on the environment, particularly in the form of light pollution.
“”It will look like a football stadium lit up every night,” says Fowkes.
Most prominently, Communities First members are con--------- Conllmml or Pag* 3
Gall the Sewickley Herald Star with your news tips at 412-494-9017 or e-mail Sewicklev.Herald@trinity-pgh.com
INSIDE
See Pages 19-22 far information on this year's Sewickley Harvest Festival to be held on Saturday. Come, join your neighbors and friends.
AROUND TOWN
Christ Church at Grove Farm will host a 9-11 Commemoration Service to honor all local heroes. For more, see Page 32.
SPORTS
Able -bodied volunteers Jim Rothrauff and Jim Miller lend a hand to renovate the Steelwheelers' new home. See Page 23.
Local News...................3
Ophiion............................6
Tempo.......................11
Church...................17,18
‘^Hts.______________________ 23
Real Estate ................27
Around Town.................32
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
BARBARA GONTARUK of Sewickley hugs Francis, her friend from the Mustard Seed Babies’ Home in Africa, during a recent trip.
Local church helps
clinic
By Rachel Weaver
Stuff writer
A picture in the office of Eileen Hodgetts, missions administrator for Christ Church at Grove Farm, shows a small room with white deteriorating walls where a dozen African women crowd together on a dingy floor. Some lay on mattresses; others rest on the ground.
These women are not homeless, and they are not imprisoned. They’re waiting to give birth in a Ugandan hospital.
If a woman makes it to the delivery room (some don’t and instead have their babies on the floor), she gets the luxury of lying in one actual bed. Granted, the sheetless mattress is bloodstained and the one doctor on duty is busy with one of his dozens of patients, but at least it’s not the ground.
She might even get to sit in the small, short-
backed, rusty, metal chair with one armrest and four small wheels: the hospital’s only wheelchair.
There is no sonogram equipment, but instead doctors press the wide end of a small cylinder that looks like a trumpet against the mother’s stomach to hear the baby’s heart.
While this scene is dismal, it doesn’t have to be permanent. A 50-person missionary group, with members from Christ Church, is working to make a difference
The Encounter Uganda team, including Hodgetts and Barbara Gontaruk, a nurse from Sewickley, helped open a Ugandan medical clinic this month.
Five years ago the group first went to the country equipped with antibiotics and prescription drugs. They treated 5,000 people in five days.
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