Homers

GIFT OF LIFE: Thanks to a stranger's kindness, 3-year-old Blake Burdorf's nightly dialysis treatments are a thing of the past.

Steph Stoll, of Iowa City, initially had planned to donate a kidney to the son of a Facebook friend. When she learned the organ wasn't needed, decided to go ahead and donate it, anyway - a decision with life-changing affects for Blake.

'We're here ... to love others. That's it. That's the bottom line,” Stoll told The Gazette. 'I felt God wanted me to do this,” she continued. 'We're supposed to do more for others than for ourselves.”

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DRY WATER: Again this year, law enforcement agencies are cracking down on drunk boaters, administering breath tests and spreading the word about the dangers of boating while intoxicated in the weekend-long enforcement effort Operation Dry Water.

State law allows boaters to imbibe while they drive, so long as they don't exceed the legal blood-alcohol limit of 0.08. Responsibility matters: Two thirds of the state's boating fatalities last year involved alcohol, down from 70 percent the year before. We hope that with ongoing enforcement and education efforts, those numbers continue to decline.

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SECOND CHANCE: A new court diversion program should help lower crime while keeping more youths out of the system. The program, scheduled to begin at the start of this fall's school year in Johnson County, will focus on school-based corrective actions for low-level offenders. Officials hope the unique program especially will help reduce the number of minority youth involved in the juvenile courts while helping reduce underage crime, overall.