After being swamped with opinions, and instead of making a decision this December, the Iowa Board of Pharmacy will hold a special one-day meeting in February to make a recommendation to the state legislature on whether to legalize medical marijuana. The delay is to give board members time to read 12,000 pages of written comments. The public meeting will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 17, in the auditorium of the Iowa State Historical Building, 600 East Locust Street in Des Moines. For more information, visit Iowa.gov/ibpe.

Fifteen area women pooled their funds to increase the impact of their giving, and awarded Hand-in-Hand - an organization that assists local families with special needs - a $1,000 grant. They call themselves the Women of Wisdom Giving Circle and focus on helping women and children in the Quad Cities area. The Women of Wisdom were established in June 2009 and will make grants approximately every four months to a charitable organization or program of their choice. Hand-in-Hand is the recipient of their first award. For more information about giving circles, visit CFGRB.org.

The Christian Care Board of Directors, facing an operating-budget deficit, has reduced personnel by close to 50 percent. The faith-based, not-for-profit organization in Rock Island has provided food and shelter to record numbers this year - 42,193 meals and 10,346 nights of lodging to those in need. The organization has two facilities, a domestic-violence shelter for abused women and children and a rescue mission for homeless men, at which it also hosts a community meal site. The organization does not receive any funding from the state or federal government. To find out more about Christian Care, visit ChristianCareQC.org.

A citizen survey will be conducted starting this week in Rock Island. Residents may receive a phone call from PMR Personal Marketing Research asking questions about the community. Every two years Renaissance Rock Island conducts citizen phone surveys to learn more about community perceptions of the city, along with how to attract and retain residents, businesses, and visitors. Eight hundred Quad Cities-area residents will be surveyed, creating a margin of error of 3.5 percent at a 95-percent level of confidence.