Bettendorf, Iowa, December 1, 2015 - In March of 2014 friends Karly Driscoll and Monica Burchett found themselves feeling the same call to do something for others after a weekend retreat at their church. One email led to another and the conversations and brainstorms continued to evolve. The end result is a new Quad Cities nonprofit organization, Project 15:12 Love One Another, that plans to love others when life happens.

"One day I got an email from her (Driscoll) with the subject line 'Tell me I'm crazy,'" Burchett remembers. "It was about a woman who started up a nonprofit organization to help inmates. I told her the jail part might not be my thing, but that I could totally get behind a nonprofit!"

Since then the two have been working on defining just what that nonprofit would be and who it would serve. The two felt there was a void in the community, as well as many other communities, for people in the middle place. Project 15:12, which takes its name from the Bible verse John 15:12, Love each other as I have loved you, aims to help people who might not qualify for other assistance programs or people who wouldn't normally go looking for assistance. Their goal is to help this population by offering emotional, spiritual, and practical support when they are experiencing a hard season of life such as divorce, loss of job, loss of a loved one, natural disaster, illness or unexpected circumstance. Services Project 15:12 will provide include (but aren't limited to): immediate financial support during life transition to help with groceries, day care costs, rent or mortgage, daily life costs, providing and delivering warm meals, household items, and household services.  Beyond providing these important physical needs is also the utmost importance of providing prayer for people going through life.

"We really want to serve a niche or population of people who currently aren't being served. We know the need is out there and we feel there is a great need for this in our community," Driscoll says.

After making some great strides in the summer of 2014, the two women each experienced some of their own life transitions, which put Project 15:12 on the back burner for awhile.

"We came to a bit of a standstill ," Driscoll says. "My sick grandfather moved in with my family for a couple of months, Monica took a temporary job and then had a baby, so we both needed a little time to work through some changes in our own lives."

This fall the two got serious again about making Project 15:12 a reality. They revisited and revised their business plan, put together a board of directors, and filed the necessary documents to earn their nonprofit designation, which they just received late November. They started raising funds by reaching out to friends and family and the word has spread from there.

Burchett says they have established three criteria when considering a person or family to receive assistance from Project 15:12. First, the person or family must be living in the Quad Cities area. Second, recipients should not currently be receiving income-based welfare benefits (e.g., TANF, Medicaid, SNAP). Lastly, a family or individual can receive Project 15:12 funds or assistance for up to three months per 12-month period. After they have received the maximum amount of assistance, they will need to wait 12-months from the last month of assistance before applying for Project 15:12 funds again.

Anyone wishing to receive help from Project 15:12 needs to either fill out a request form or be referred by someone. Driscoll says she sees more referrals coming in rather than people asking for help for themselves.

PARIS, Dec. 2, 2015 – Climate change is likely to impede progress on reducing undernourishment around the world in the decades ahead, according to a major scientific assessment released today by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) on global food security and its implications for the United States. The report, entitled Climate Change, Global Food Security and the U.S. Food System, identifies the risks that climate change poses to global food security and the challenges facing farmers and consumers in adapting to changing climate conditions. Secretary Vilsack released the report during the COP-21 Paris Climate Conference.

In the absence of response measures, climate change is likely to diminish continued progress on global food security through production disruption that lead to constraints on local availability and price increases, interrupted transport conduits, and diminished food safety, among other causes. The risks are greatest for the global poor and in tropical regions.

President Obama has pledged to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in the range of 26-28 percent below 2005 levels by 2025. U.S. agriculture is helping meet this goal, and American farmers, ranchers and foresters have demonstrated their leadership in recognition that their contributions send a strong message to the rest of the world.

"The past six years have been a success story in terms of global food security. Two hundred million fewer people are food insecure today than they were six years ago. The challenge we now face is whether we can maintain and even accelerate this progress despite the threats from climate change," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "The report we are releasing today highlights these challenges and offers pathways to avoid the most damaging effects of climate change."

"The report found that climate change is likely to cause disruptions in food production and a decrease in food safety, which in turn leads to local availability limitations and increases in food prices, with these risks greatest for the global poor and in tropical regions," said Dr. John Holdren, Assistant to the President or Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "Accurately identifying needs and vulnerabilities, and effectively targeting adaptive practices and technologies across the full scope of the food system, are central to improving global food security in a changing climate."

Food systems in the United States benefit from a large area of arable land, high agricultural yields, vast integrated transportation systems, and a high level of overall economic development. However, changes in climate are expected to affect U.S. consumers and producers by altering the type and price of food imports from other regions of the world, as well as by changing export demand, and transportation, processing, storage, infrastructure that enable global trade.

Climate risks to food security increase as the magnitude and rate of climate change increase. Higher emissions and concentrations of greenhouse gases are much more likely to have damaging effects than lower emissions and concentrations. The author team reviewed a range of scenarios. Under scenarios with continued increases in greenhouse gas emissions the number of people at risk of undernourishment would increase by as much as 175 million above today's level by 2080. Scenarios with lower population growth and more robust economic growth coupled with lower greenhouse gas emissions resulted in large reductions in the number of food insecure people compared to today. Even in these scenarios, higher greenhouse gas emissions resulted in more food insecurity than lower emissions.

Effective adaptation can reduce food system vulnerability to climate change and reduce detrimental climate change effects on food security, but socioeconomic conditions can impede the adoption of technically feasible adaptation options. The agricultural sector has a strong record of adapting to changing conditions. There are many opportunities to strengthen agricultural economies and bring more advanced methods of crop production to low-yielding agricultural regions. Other promising adaptations include reducing food waste through innovative packaging, expanding cold storage to lengthen shelf life, and improving transportation infrastructure to move food more rapidly to markets.

On April 23rd, 2015, Agriculture Secretary Vilsack announced USDA's 10 Building Blocks for Climate Smart Agriculture, a comprehensive set of voluntary programs and initiatives that is expected to reduce net emissions and enhance carbon sequestration by over 120 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2025 - about 2 percent of economy-wide emissions. The ten "building blocks" span a range of technologies and practices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase carbon storage, and generate clean renewable energy. USDA also supports global food security through in-country capacity building, basic and applied research, and support for improved market information, statistics and analysis.

'Climate Change, Global Food Security and the U.S. Food System' was prepared as part of the United States National Climate Assessment and part of the President's Climate Action Plan. USDA led the production of the report on behalf of the thirteen Federal Agencies of the U.S. Global Change Research Program. Thirty-one authors and contributors prepared the report, representing nineteen federal, academic, nongovernmental, and intergovernmental institutions in four countries.

Executive Summary, Climate Change, Global Food Security, and the U.S. Food System

Full Report: Climate Change, Global Food Security, and the U.S. Food System

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Davenport, IA: On November 1st, 2015, Quad-City based company Medix Dental received national PACE (Program Approval for Continuing Education) approval from the Academy of General Dentistry (AGD). The AGD is the second largest dental association in the world, behind the American Dental Association (ADA).

Medix Dental, a dental technology company, is one of nine total PACE providers in the state of Iowa. They join a select group of providers committed to offering quality continuing education programs to dentists all over the country. The programs provide dentists with educational credits required for their ongoing state licensure renewals.

"We've long noticed a significant lack of resources and guidance in the dental technology industry," says Tom Terronez, President of Medix Dental. "We look forward to offering dentists the tools they need to make informed decisions about practice technology, data security, and HIPAA compliance. We're truly inspired to provide thoughtful educational programs to help dental professionals navigate the ever-changing technology landscape."

Dentists interested in upcoming CE courses should refer to the AGD website at agd.org, or Medix Dental's website at medixdental.com. New courses will be posted frequently, so check back regularly for CE course options.

About Medix Dental

Medix Dental (medixdental.com) partners with dental practices all over the nation to manage their IT as well as advise strategically on practice technology decisions and compliance. By becoming an extension of their clients' practices, Medix Dental is able to minimize technology issues, increase practice profitability, and improve practice contentment.