Daily Herald editorial

Congratulations to Quality Pork Processors for its employees’ $138,000 donation to the United Way of Mower County. Quality Pork employees have turned major United Way donations into an annual event, and done it for so long that collectively over the years their giving now exceeds $2 million.

Although that generosity is a credit to Quality Pork and everyone who works there, the real winners are the non-profit agencies and Mower County residents who benefit from the United Way’s annual fund drive. Giving to the United Way is in the best tradition of people voluntarily helping their neighbors.

Healthy choices

A couple of healthy opportunities mentioned in Austin Daily Herald articles earlier this week caught our eye. The American Red Cross is offering reduced pricing on its basic first-aid and CPR courses. Learning first-aid and CPR, or getting refresher training if you first learned first-aid skills long ago, is one of the easiest and best things people can do to prepare for emergencies. More information is at www.redcross.org/takeaclass. Even easier, and equally useful, is getting a flu shot. While the Austin area has yet to be hit hard by this year’s strain of influenza, that’s no reason not to prepare. The flu is a constant threat, and the more effectively the area’s population is vaccinated, the harder it will be for the illness to gain a foothold. Flu shots are available at Mayo Clinic Health Systems in Austin and at most area pharmacies.