For U.S. Troops, Home For The Holidays
Is Often Just A Wish
World War II Veteran Recalls His Own Time
Away From Home And Under Fire
The holiday season means family time for most Americans, but that’s not the case for many U.S. military personnel who can’t return home to eat turkey dinners, open presents, light the menorah or participate in other traditions.
It’s a situation veterans who served in decades past can identify with, as they too found themselves far from home between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, often under harrowing conditions.
For 95-year-old Art Schmitz, for example, Christmas Eve 1944 was “just another day under fire” because the Battle of the Bulge was well underway.
“Several other soldiers and I were holed up in a house in Bastogne, Belgium, singing Christmas carols when we heard the drone of approaching planes,” says Schmitz, author of the memoir A Tourist in Uniform: World War II Memories.
“Grabbing our rifles a little tighter, for all the good that would do, we held our breath and waited.”
The first plane dropped flares, lighting up the night skies. The soldiers scrambled to the cellar stairs, falling down the steps as bombs exploded and parts of the house collapsed above them.
“On Christmas morning, we discovered that the house had taken a direct hit from a 500-pound bomb that landed on the toilet, splitting it in two,” Schmitz says. “The bomb just about demolished the house, but it didn’t explode. I vowed I was going to come back to Bastogne for a peaceful Christmas.”
Today, there are about 1.3 million active military personnel, and about 200,000 of those are deployed overseas. Each holiday season, a number of organizations provide support to the troops and their families, and also accept donations from Americans who want to help. A few of those include:
After surviving that Christmas Eve in 1944, Art Schmitz recalls making it to the mess hall for a much-needed Christmas Day meal, and then being handed a copy of General Anthony C. McAuliffe’s holiday message to his troops.
In the conclusion of that message, the general wrote: “We are giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy Christmas present and being privileged to take part in this gallant feat of arms are truly making for ourselves a Merry Christmas.”
About Art Schmitz
Art Schmitz, author of A Tourist in Uniform: World War II Memories, is a retired teacher and a World War II veteran who was born and raised in Milwaukee. With the help of the GI Bill, he earned a Master's Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in Exceptional Education for the Mentally Challenged student. He taught in Wisconsin and four other states before retiring after 35 years in the classroom. He is a lifetime stamp collector and an avid fisherman who has fished in 191 bodies of water in three countries.
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Hemp, Inc. Featured on Oregon National Public Radio Discussing Hemp Drying and Curing Capacity in Medford, Oregon
SPRING HOPE, NC, Nov. 08, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE – Hemp, Inc. (OTC PINK: HEMP), a global leader in the industrial hemp industry with bi-coastal processing centers including the largest multipurpose industrial hemp processing facility in the western hemisphere (in Spring Hope, North Carolina), announced today that Hemp, Inc. CEO, Bruce Perlowin, and Local Processing Center, Inc. (LPC) President and CEO, Nicolass Vanderwey, were featured on Southern Oregon’s Local National Public Radio station, Jefferson Public Radio, discussing Oregon’s burgeoning hemp industry and the LPC’s role in revitalizing the economy of Southern Oregon on November 11, 2018. Jefferson Public Radio is a publicly-funded radio station based out of Ashland, Oregon that serves over 1 million potential listeners in Southern Oregon. The segment includes comments from Perlowin and Vanderwey on the potential of Oregon’s industrial hemp industry and elaborates on Hemp, Inc.’s expanding operations within the state.
The radio segment, “The Rise Of Industrial Hemp In The Rogue Valley,” details the immense opportunity Southern Oregon farmers can expect to see by switching to hemp. Host John Baxter inquiries about Hemp, Inc.’s majority-owned hemp cultivation and processing company, Local Processing Center, Inc. (LPC) in Medford, which recently began processing the harvest of more than 100,000 pounds of industrial hemp from the first of many farms they have contracted within that area. As a part of the show, Perlowin takes time to explain why Oregon hemp farmers are well positioned to profit off of the national industrial hemp industry by using the LPC.
During the interview, Perlowin states: “We are out here [creating] Local Processing Centers because we are expanding our footprint… More so than making money, I’m committed to the small family farm. We built [the LPC] with Nico and a lot of the farmers are using it.”
Hemp, Inc. has created strategic partnerships with farmers across the state to provide them with services including drying, curing and storing industrial hemp. Hemp, Inc. maintains the first right of refusal to purchase the hemp, and will also act as the liaison between manufacturing companies and farmers looking to sell their crop in instances where Hemp, Inc. declines to purchase. More information on opportunities to partner with Hemp, Inc. can be found by contacting ir@hempinc.com.
To listen to the radio segment, “The Rise Of Industrial Hemp In The Rogue Valley,” click here.
Later in the segment, Vanderwey says: “[Hemp] is not that difficult to grow, but you have to have an endgame in sight. That’s where the Local Processing Center comes into play. It was a win-win for both of us. I get to do what I love, which is farming, and now we can finally make some money for the farmer… We have 75 people working for us that didn’t have jobs before. On our street alone, there are 250 people employed for two months straight to harvest the plant. Our processing center is used to dry, cure, buck, trim and package [the hemp]. [Farmers] can come to us and we can buck and trim and package it for them.”
According to CannabisNewsWire, in 2017 the acreage of hemp production expanded by 163 percent through agricultural sites in 19 states. The major driving factor is the cannabidiol (CBD) market, which is growing enormously in the United States and beyond. Statistics taken from the Hemp Business Journal show that the U.S. hemp industry saw at least $820 million in revenues in 2017. Some experts forecast that number to increase to more than a billion dollars in 2018 and continue to grow at a compound rate of 14 percent per year until 2022.
“We are thrilled to be featured in Jefferson Public Radio’s segment highlighting our success revitalizing Southern Oregon’s agricultural economy,” said Hemp, Inc. CEO Bruce Perlowin. “We are committed to supporting the local family farm and are proud to continue partnering with local farmers to meet their processing needs. Hemp, Inc. is creating an agricultural revolution throughout the U.S. including our Veteran Village Kins Community in Arizona, which will serve as a highly-strategic location for the processing and distribution center to supply our King of Hemp line of prerolls. The world is going CBD crazy and we got in at just the right time.”
Notably, there are now 40 states in the nation that have legalized hemp. The hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) market is expected to hit $591 million this year, and it may grow 40 times this size—to $22 billion by 2022, according to a new report by Brightfield Group. Companies seeking to enter or further develop their footprint in the industrial hemp marketplace are aligning with Hemp, Inc. for the company’s proven expertise and state-of-the-art hemp processing and manufacturing infrastructure in Spring Hope, North Carolina and operations in additional states. Hemp, Inc.’s 85,000 square foot hemp processing and manufacturing facility has been operational since August, 2017.
The company’s 500-acre strategic growing partner Veteran Village Kins Community in Golden Valley, Arizona, is also designed to grow hemp and produce CBD products to benefit veterans as well as generate revenue for Hemp, Inc., the Veteran Village and individual veterans living in the community. Hemp, Inc. executives are also continuing to scout new locations nationwide to open additional hemp processing centers in legal markets.
For a more complete description on the Veteran Village Kins Community (as mentioned above), read the following October 24, 2017 press release, “Hemp, Inc. Announces Strategic Hemp Growing Partner ‘Veteran Village Kins Community Arizona, Inc.’ Completes Final Site Plan Blueprints”, below:
Hemp, Inc. has announced that its strategic growing partner, "Veteran Village Kins Community Arizona, Inc.", has completed its final site plan blueprints for its 500-acre site in Golden Valley, Arizona (20 miles north of Kingman, AZ and 90 minutes from Las Vegas, NV). The site plan was submitted to the Mohave County Building Department for final review. The Company is also in the final stages of completing the necessary infrastructure to support an off-grid, renewable, energy system. With the solar equipment in place, the site's solar power operation will be completed in the next days.
As soon as the live streaming video cameras are up and operational, the world can actually see the way the Veteran Village Kins Community is designed and watch it being built. According to Perlowin, the basic framework or overall plan of the Veteran Village Kins Communities is to create a holistic healing and learning center that is designed to educate and heal veterans with PSTD, alcoholism, meth addiction, opioid addiction, and other psychological conditions while at the same time training them on the numerous aspects of being part of the emerging multi-billion dollar hemp industry.
We will also be building hemp-growing communities for other groups such as "Abused" Women & Children Village Kins Communities, the "Orphaned" Children Village Kins Communities, "Homeless" Village Kins Communities and the "Healers" Village Kins Communities (the healers are professionals who are knowledgeable in the modalities to treat these traumatized groups). These particular communities are all synergistically aligned to work simultaneously supporting each other.
For example, the "Healers" heal the traumatized veterans and women & children; the women support orphan children, and orphan children want to see people living in homes and not homeless. Thus, a portion of the hemp grown in each community goes to create and support another community, giving everybody a sense of giving back and helping others as they help themselves. This circles back to the healers who also work to heal the veterans and the other traumatized groups. This is the economic foundation on how the sale of the hemp products operates as a "quantum economic matrix" or an example of "symbiotic economics" which is more complex than this brief description allows.
Dwight Jory, the Project Manager for the "Veteran Village Kins Community Arizona, Inc.”, said, "We are very happy with the progress. Our Kins Community is really beginning to come together." In anticipation of planting to begin during the spring, 300 acres have been fenced, 16 overnight trailer park sites are under construction, and six 40x40-ft organic vegetable gardens have been planted and are currently producing food and kenaf, according to Jory. These organic gardens double as experimental growing modules using an entire array of different growing technologies to see which modalities grow the best in a desert environment. As for the 6 geodesic domes mentioned in an earlier press release, 1 is structurally complete with only the electrical and plumbing to be completed. The rest are on site awaiting final site plan approval.
"We are now accepting volunteers who have expressed an interest in helping to build the first Kins Community for our veterans," said Jory. Those interested in making the first hemp growing CBD-producing "Veteran Village Kins Community" become a reality should contact Ms. Sandra Williams via email (swilliams@hempinc.com).
One thousand trees, on 36 of the 500-acres, have also been planted, with an additional 1,000 trees on order. The "Veteran Village Kins Community" will include a 100,000-square foot GMP compliant, central processing plant, a state-of-the-art testing laboratory, and various health and wellness centers to support veterans who may have psychological, emotional or health issues.
"As Hemp, Inc. positions itself on the forefront of America's industrial hemp revolution, we see our partnership with 'Veteran Village Kins Community Arizona, Inc.' being paramount in supporting the small family farm movement that we are confident will reshape the American landscape," said Perlowin. "As we work toward getting our eco-village up and running in Arizona, we are also aggressively scouting strategic locations in other states including North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Giving veterans and other Americans a place to learn new skills and take part in this multi-billion-dollar hemp CBD market is very exciting. It's a big part of our mission to give back. Recently we have expanded our Kins Community concept internationally focusing, but not limited to, Israel, New Zealand, Canada, Africa, and Uruguay."
According to Perlowin, we hope to have 50 "master hemp growers" working on their first Veteran Village Kins Community in Arizona. To date, we have growers from Oregon, Colorado, California, Kentucky, North Carolina, Nevada and, Arizona who have expressed an interest in pursuing a joint venture with Hemp, Inc. to each grow industrial hemp on 5 of the 300 fenced acres in Arizona. Perlowin says he'll call this "The Great United American Hemp Project." Any grower having an interest in pursuing a joint venture on 5 of the 300 fenced in acres in Arizona should contact Project Manager Dwight Jory. Or, anyone interested in attending the 2-7-day hands-on hempcrete house building should contact Dwight Jory as well. (Dates to be determined.)
ABOUT HEMP, INC.
With a deep-rooted social and environmental mission at its core, Hemp, Inc. seeks to build a business constituency for the American small farmer, the American veteran, and other groups experiencing the ever-increasing disparity between tapering income and soaring expenses. As a leader in the industrial hemp industry with ownership of the largest commercial multi-purpose industrial hemp processing facility in North America, Hemp, Inc. believes there can be tangible benefits reaped from adhering to a corporate social responsibility plan.
WHAT IS HEMP?
Hemp is a durable natural fiber that is grown as a renewable source for raw materials that can be incorporated into thousands of products. It's one of the oldest domesticated crops known to man. Hemp is used in nutritional food products such as hemp seeds, hemp hearts and hemp proteins, for humans. It is also used in building materials, paper, textiles, cordage, organic body care and other nutraceuticals, just to name a few. It has thousands of other known uses. A hemp crop requires half the water alfalfa uses and can be grown without the heavy use of pesticides. Farmers worldwide grow hemp commercially for fiber, seed, and oil for use in a variety of industrial and consumer products. The United States is the only developed nation that fails to cultivate industrial hemp as an economic crop on a large scale, according to the Congressional Resource Service. However, with rapidly changing laws and more states gravitating towards industrial hemp and passing an industrial hemp bill, that could change. Currently, the majority of hemp sold in the United States is imported from China and Canada, the world's largest exporters of the industrial hemp crop.
To see Hemp, Inc.'s video just posted entitled, "The Largest Hemp Mill in the Western Hemisphere is Now Online - It's Alive", click here. To see the Hemp, Inc. mill in operation and processing product, visit Bruce Perlowin's personal Facebook page and scroll down to August 1, 2017.
9 GREAT REASONS TO INCLUDE HEMP AS PART OF A HEALTHY DIET (Source)
HOW HEMP CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
Fuel - While the industrial, medicinal and commercial properties of hemp have been known to mankind for a very long time, its benefits to the environment have just been realized in recent years. One of the compelling things hemp offers is fuel. Reserves of petroleum are being depleted. Right now we are depleting our reserves of petroleum and buying it up from other countries. It would be nice if we could have a fuel source which was reusable and which we could grow right here, making us completely energy independent.
Industries in search of sustainable and eco-friendly processes are realizing hemp as a viable option. Hemp can provide an alternative, more efficient source of energy in the fuel industry. "The woody hemp plant is low in moisture; it dries quickly and is an efficient biomass source of methanol. The waste products produced by using hemp oil are a good source of ethanol. Both methanol and ethanol are produced from hemp through the efficient and economical process of thermo-chemical conversion. One acre of hemp yields 1,000 gallons or 3,785 liters of fuel. Hemp allows a lesser reliance on fossil fuels, which are non-renewable sources of energy and will not be able to meet the increasing global demands for long."
Petroleum fuel increases carbon monoxide in the atmosphere and contributes heavily to global warming and the greenhouse effect, which could lead to global catastrophe in the next 50 years if these trends continue. Do you want to find out if they are right, or do you want to grow the most cost effective and environmentally safe fuel source on the planet? Using hemp as an energy and rotation crop would be a great step in the right direction.
SOCIAL NETWORKS
http://www.twitter.com/hempinc (Twitter)
http://www.facebook.com/hempinc (Facebook)
https://www.facebook.com/KingOfPot (Bruce Perlowin's Facebook Page)
https://www.facebook.com/TheHempUniversity/ (The Hemp University's Facebook Page)
SUBSCRIBE TO HEMP, INC.'S VIDEO UPDATES
"Hemp, Inc. Presents" is capturing the historic, monumental re-creation of the hemp decorticator today as America begins to evolve into a cleaner, green, eco-friendly sustainable environment. What many see as the next American Industrial Revolution is actually the Industrial Hemp Revolution. Watch as Hemp, Inc., the No. 1 leader in the industrial hemp industry, engages its shareholders and the public through each step in bringing back the hemp decorticator as described in the "Freedom Leaf Magazine" article "The Return of the Hemp Decorticator" by Steve Bloom.
"Hemp, Inc. Presents" is accessible 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by visiting www.hempinc.com. To subscribe to the "Hemp, Inc. Presents" YouTube channel, be sure to click the subscribe button.
UPCOMING INTERNATIONAL AND DOMESTIC EVENTS
Across the globe, the hemp industry is rising to astronomical levels. In the wake of the hemp industry projected to grow 700% and hit $1.8 billion by 2020, there has been more education and networking within the industry. That means more events and conferences, thus, Hemp, Inc. has started compiling an ongoing list of upcoming hemp events around the world. Check out the listing of international and domestic events here.
FORWARD-LOOKING DISCLAIMER AND DISCLOSURES
This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements and information, as defined within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the Safe Harbor created by those sections. To clarify the issue of OTC placing a stop sign next to Hemp, Inc.’s stock trading symbol, that symbol indicates Hemp, Inc. does not report their financials. As a non-reporting pink sheet company, Hemp, Inc. is not required to report. The company does, however, choose to publicly report its quarterly and yearly financials on its website. According to the company’s CEO, the OTC stop sign is a misrepresentation of that reporting fact. This material contains statements about expected future events and/or financial results that are forward-looking in nature and subject to risks and uncertainties. Such forward-looking statements by definition involve risks, uncertainties.
Hemp, Inc.
855-436-7688
ir@hempinc.com
Source: Hemp, Inc.
© 2018 GlobeNewswire, Inc.
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USDA TO SURVEY COUNTY ROW CROPS ACREAGE
LAKEWOOD, Colo. – Nov. 7, 2018 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) will survey producers in 42 states, including the Mountain Region’s Arizona, Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, and Wyoming as part of its County Agricultural Production Survey (CAPS). The survey will collect information on total acres planted and harvested, as well as total yield and production of row crops down to the county level. “The data provided by producers will help federal and state programs support the farmer,” said Bill Meyer, Director, Mountain Regional Field Office. “We hope every producer understands the importance of these data and will take the time to respond if they receive this survey. Producers benefit when there are data available to help determine accurate loan rates, disaster payments, crop insurance price elections, and more. When enough producers respond to surveys, NASS is able to publish data. Without data, agencies such as USDA’s Risk Management Agency or Farm Service Agency may not have information on which to base the programs that serve those same producers.” Within the next few weeks, NASS representatives will contact producers in the selected states to arrange telephone or in-person interviews to complete the survey. NASS safeguards the privacy of all respondents and publishes only aggregate data, ensuring that no individual operation or producer can be identified as required by federal law. Survey results will be published on the NASS Quick Stats database https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/. For more information on NASS surveys and reports and for the release dates by commodity, call the NASS Regional Mountain Region Field Office at (800) 392-3202.
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