Monday on First Coast Connect guest host Charles Griggs spoke with State Senator Audrey Gibson about her bill to provide $10 million in support for the former employees impacted by the contamination at the Fairfax Street Wood Treaters facility. Closed in 2010, the bill claims workers were subjected to high levels of chromated copper arsenate without the benefit of training or protective gear (01:22).
The I’m A Star Foundation is working to help the more than 3,000 homeless students reported to live in Duval County. On Saturday, the organization is hosting the 4th annual Jax HELPS Celebrity Basketball Game to raise funds for the students. Dr. Priscilla Jenkins from I’m A Star Foundation joined us to talk about the event (23:26).
We heard about this week’s upcoming Caring for the Military/Veteran Caregiver Conferencetaking place Friday at WJCT Studios with Toula Wootan from the Caregiver Coalition of Northeast Florida (32:09)
It’s a film about a young lady’s quest to promote science, technology, engineering and math education among young ladies of color. Fifteen-year-old filmmaker Lana Taylor directed and produced the documentary Astronaut Starbright. joined us to talk about her film. It tells the story of local student Taylor Richardsonwho has aspirations to become an astronaut. The documentary will be screened at the All American High School Film Festival and the Hollywood Independent Filmmakers Festival and Awards (38:30).
Cole Pepper joined us to talk about the Jaguars big 31-20 win at Sunday’s regular season home opener against the New England Patriots. The win showed the Jaguars to be Super Bowl contenders. It comes of the heels of a terrible game Saturday by Florida State, which lost to Syracuse for the first time since 1966 (46:00).
Kevin Meerschaert can be reached at kmeerschaert@wjct.org, 904-358-6334 or on Twitter at @KMeerschaertJax.
