A class beginning this week will help teach youth important job readiness skills.

“Bring Your A Game to Work” will start Tuesday at Youth Alliance in St. Joseph.

According to Youth Case Manager with Youth Alliance Jill Smith, the class will go over seven different aspects of job readiness including attitude, appearance and accountability.

“Research has shown that a lot of youth today are not familiar with things that people in the past have been used to like getting to work on time and maybe what they should wear for an interview and… just haven’t learned those type of skills, so it’s important for our youth,” Smith said. “These classes are for ages 15 to 24, so it’s quite an age span. We looked at this curriculum and it was research based and it just talks about having a positive attitude, the work ethic, being accountable, appearance, all those things. So, the youth really need to learn about that and learn about themselves, why it’s important.”

Classes take place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. every Tuesday beginning February 27th and running through March 27th. Classes will be held at the St. Joseph Youth Alliance at 5223 Mitchell Ave.

The classes are free and a meal will be provided. For more information or to RSVP, call (816) 232-0050.

Some local high school students will be reciting poetry next week at a regional competition in St. Joseph.

The Poetry Out Loud competition was developed by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Allied Arts Council Operations Manager Cathy Ketter said the council has hosted the competition for 12 years.

“We’ve seen some students… it’s amazing what it does for their poise and their self-confidence to get up there and actually memorize and recite poems,” Ketter said. “We’ve had some competitors who have competed more than one year in a row and it’s been interesting and rewarding to see their progress from year to year as they learn from competition and learn also from observing other students who they are competing against.”

The competition will feature the winners of school competitions from Lafayette High School, Lathrop R-II, St. Joseph Christian School and from area homeschools. The students will be reciting three poems each.

The regional Poetry Out Loud competition takes place at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, February 27th, at the Troester Media Center. The event is open to the public.

Winners of the regional competition advance to the Missouri State Championship on March 8th in Jefferson City.

Winners at the state level will advance to the national finals in May in Washington, DC, where the national champion will receive a $20,000 college scholarship.

For more information, visit poetryoutloud.org.

It may be cold and icy outside, but the St. Joseph Public Library is thinking about spring.

The Downtown Library is once again offering a Seed Library.

Downtown Branch Manager Dee Zvolanek said they have offered the Seed Library for a few years now. The library receives donations of seeds from seed companies and local residents.

Zvolanek said people can pick up to 10 different packets of seed out of the about 10 varieties available.

“Flowers, vegetables, herbs… What we have is a lot of different variety of seeds on hand that people can just come and pick up,” Zvolanek said.

The library has seeds for beans, broccoli, carrots, corn, cucumbers, lettuce, melons, peas, squash and more.

Zvolanek said the Seed Library has been fairly popular over the past few years.

“I think maybe… one reason it’s popular is more and more people are growing their own food. We have much more farm to table, that kind of outlook about our food, so this is one way you can pick up your seed,” Zvolanek said. “There’s a lot of low income around here and if they can get something to help stretch their dollars, then they can come down and pick up things for free and they can hopefully share with their neighbors what they grow.”

Anyone can pick up seeds or bring in seeds to donate during regular open hours at the front desk at the Downtown Library at 927 Felix Street in St. Joseph.

For more information, contact the library at (816) 232-7729.

The Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art is offering several art classes for all skill levels.

According to Museum Marketing and Communications Director Jane Graves, the first series of classes, Complimentary Color Mixing, a drawing class, is coming up next week and will be taught by Wanda Taylor.

“She does amazing work with pencils and colored pencils,” Graves said. “Animals and flowers that just jump off the page and almost look like a photograph, so she’s an amazing teacher.”

The drawing class from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. starts Wednesday, February 21st, and will be held every Wednesday through March 28th.

Other upcoming classes include a landscape painting workshop with Donna Bland from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 7th through the 9th and Landscapes En Pastel with Brent Seevers from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. April 10th through the 12th.

Graves said it’s part of the museum’s mission to offer programs and classes to help nurture regional artists and introduce families to the arts.

“We try to offer something for all ages and a diverse selection. We’re always open to new ideas, so if anyone has a specific subject that they want to study or a certain medium that they want to try to work with, we would love to hear from you and make sure we offer a class that will do something like that,” Graves said. “It’s such a great outlet, if you’ve had a big day at work and you want a chance to escape, there’s nothing better than to come into the museum and just look around and get some color in your life… or give you a hobby that’s lifelong. We’re just trying to get folks to love art as much as we do.”  

Other ongoing programs the museum offers include a Kid’s Media Mix-up class from 4:30-6 p.m. every Tuesday and Arts and Carafes, an evening of painting and wine from 5:30-7:30 p.m. every fourth Thursday of the month.

For more information and pricing on any of the museum’s classes or programs, contact the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art at (816) 233-7003 or click here.

A lecture series beginning this week at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art will explore art from the Egyptian, Greek and Roman eras and more.

According to Albrecht-Kemper Director of Marketing and Communications Jane Graves, the art history lectures are a new opportunity the museum is offering this year.

“Our executive director was a professor at Baker University, so he’s an excellent speaker, knows his art history and he does share good information and he knows a lot and does the research,” Graves said. “(We) thought it would be fun for him to present some of the art history lectures, some things that he’s familiar with and may be able to share with the public.”

The first lecture by Museum Executive Director Dr. Brett Knappe will be about Egyptian art.

“I think the history of the way things used to be (is) so interesting and I would just encourage people that are curious about history in general, to come and listen and see what they might learn,” Graves said.

The lecture takes place at 2 p.m. on Thursday at the museum at 2818 Frederick Avenue in St. Joseph.

Other lectures will include the topics of Greek art at 2 p.m. on March 1st, Roman art at 2:15 p.m. on March 15th, and Early Christian/Byzantine art at 2 p.m. on March 29th.

All lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the museum at (816) 233-7003.

(Post Staff and AP) – Governor Eric Greitens was in St. Joseph Tuesday morning to discuss his tax cut plan.

Greitens spoke at Altec about his plan which he said would cut taxes for 97% of Missouri taxpayers.

“What we’re doing with our workers-first tax cut, and again, this only applies to people who are working, but we want to let people know, if you’re working hard, if you’re putting in the hours, we’re going to have your back,” Greitens said. “For 380,000 hard-working Missourians, it wipes out their tax bill completely, it goes to zero dollars and zero cents.”

Greitens said another part of the plan is to lower the tax rate on businesses.

“When we do that, what happens is, first, it makes Missouri more competitive to bring more business here and, second, what it does is it makes more money available so that you can invest, so you can create more jobs, so you can give raises to your people,” Greitens said. “We’re going to do that here in Missouri because we’re keeping our promise of bringing more jobs and higher pay to the people of Missouri.”

The governor will also visit Veterans Homes in both Warrensburg and Mexico later this week.

Even as the governor is on the road promoting his tax overhaul proposal, a Republican-led Senate panel has endorsed its own tax cut plan worth an estimated $630 million.

The 421-page Senate version endorsed Tuesday by the Ways and Means Committee is likely to become the basis for further talks with Democrats and members of the House, who are working on their own tax reduction plan.

The Senate proposal differs from Greitens’ plan in that it includes a 6-cent increase in the state’s motor fuel tax, phased in over three years. 

St. Joseph Habitat for Humanity recently received a $10,000 donation from a local church.

The donation from Ashland United Methodist Church of St. Joseph was a part of Habitat’s “Build on Faith 2018” initiative.

St. Joseph Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Cate Manley said the donation will ultimately help St. Joseph families.

“(It) will help us to complete rehab and new build projects and put more St. Joseph families into safe and decent homeownership opportunities,” Manley said. “We are excited to grow our ministry partnerships and we appreciate the hard work ethic, reliable volunteers and incredible generosity that Ashland has shared with us.”

Family Selection Coordinator with Habitat Trina Deayon was part of getting the “Build on Faith” initiative started. Deayon said it was started with the goal of working to build a stronger relationship with local churches.

“Our mission is so that everybody has a safer place to live and one way to do that is to work together with the churches and see how strong we can become… just to make St. Joe a stronger, safer place to live,” Deayon said. “

Anyone interested in learning more about “Build on Faith,” can contact St. Joseph Habitat for Humanity at 816-279-2552

The East Hills Library in St. Joseph will be offering an informational session later this month for anyone needing help filing taxes online this year.

Library Assistant Sara Whitten said East Hills Library is offering this presentation because they saw a need.

“We have a lot of patrons coming in to file their taxes on the computer right now and some of them have ended up paying and I believe most of them probably could have gotten them for free and I don’t think everyone has that information,” Whitten said. “Because if you make under $66,000 a year, you have options to get both your federal and state for free if you file online.”

Whitten said the presentation will provide information on the benefits of online filing and more.

“I’ll go over how they can request a transcript and… I’ll be able to show them some of the sites that you’ll be able to go to that will have the free filing options,” Whitten said. “Also, how, once they do file, they can check how they get their refund.”

The presentation on free tax filing will be at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 20, at the East Hills Library at 502 N. Woodbine Road. The program is free and no registration is required.

For more information, contact the East Hills Library at (816) 236-2136.