Labor Day weekend is past and now I’m hoping for cooler weather for the kids in school. Our children are our most precious natural resource. We need to remember, the ones who will make or break a nation is the young people. They are our future, our dreams and our hopes for a better tomorrow. The following is a prayer that was given to me by a former school teacher. Every time I hear it or read it I could see children that fit everything mentioned, also it brings a lump in my throat. This prayer was first printed in the Storm Lake Times newspaper.

WE PRAY FOR THE CHILDREN

We pray for the children who sneak popsicles before supper, who erase holes in math work books, who never can find their shoes and we pray for those who stare at photographs from behind barbed wire, who can’t bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, who never counted potatoes, who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead, who never got to a circus, who live in a X-rated world. We pray for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money. And we pray for those who never get dessert, who have no safe blanket to drag behind them, who watch their parents watch them die, who can’t find any bread to steal, who can’t have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser, whose monsters are real. We pray for children who spend all their allowance before Tuesday, who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food, who like ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bread, and never rinses out the tub, who gets visits from the tooth fairy, who don’t like to be kissed in front of the school, who squirm in church or temple and scream into the phone, whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry. And we pray for those whose nightmares come in the daytime, who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist, who aren’t spoiled by anybody, who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep, who love and move, but have no meaning. We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must, for those we never give up on, for those who don’t get a second chance. For those we smother…and for those who will grab at the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it. PLEASE offer your hands to them so that NO child is left behind because we did not ask.

These hot, hot days call for a nutritious and cool drink. For that try this easy and cooling drink.

COOLING ORANGE JULIUS

1 (6-oz.). can frozen

orange juice

1 cup milk

1 cup water

1/2 cup sugar

vanilla, to taste

6 to 8 ice cubes

Mix in a blender, Serves

3 to 4

“What have you learned from a child today?”