Miranda Adkins | So Salem

Linda Thompson (at far right) talks with a friend at the auctioning off of the Salem Daily Grind's restaurant equipment.

Empty since September 2008, the Daily Grind's parking lot on West Main Street recently was full of local restaurant owners and other folks bidding on the restaurant equipment from the former coffee shop. The decision of Linda Thompson and Erin Clinevell, the mother-daughter owners of the business, to close hinged more on personal issues than on finances.

"We just had to close because I just physically couldn't do it," Thompson said. A routine chest X-ray revealed a spot of cancer on one of her lungs at the same time that Thompson's daughter, Clinevell, was expecting her second child. "The doctors in the radiology department [at Lewis-Gale] said that I must have a guardian angel for them to have spotted that cancer when they did ... I just have to believe that God has something else planned for me," she said, as the auctioneer sold off the metal sheeting that covered the walls in part of the kitchen.

"This was my ministry, but you just have to be here," Thompson said. "You can't be an absentee owner." After three surgeries and a month in the hospital, doctors say that Thompson is now cancer-free.

With a big box store likely going in at the West Salem Plaza just across the street, the vacant business spot isn't likely to stay open for long.

"We're already working with three potential tenants who are interested in the space," said commercial real estate agent Steve Mullins. The space is 3,500 square feet, he said.

--Miranda Adkins

Local Rotary clubs join worldwide efforts in eradicating polio

In recognition of Rotary's impressive success and steadfast commitment to polio eradication, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced last week a $255 million increase in its challenge grant -- for a total of $355 million. To date, Rotary members have committed more than $60 million toward the original $100 million Gates Foundation grant awarded in November 2007.

By accepting the increase, Rotary also accepted the challenge to raise an additional $100 million in matching funds by 30 June 2012, raising the Rotary-Gates Foundation commitment to a total of $555 million for polio eradication.

In another welcome development, the United Kingdom's Department of International Development pledged an additional $150 million and the German government awarded an additional $130 million to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. The announcements, made at Rotary's International Assembly in San Diego, resulted in $630 million in new funds to fight polio, a crippling and sometimes fatal disease that still paralyzes children in parts of Africa and Asia and threatens children everywhere.

In the Roanoke Valley area, in District 7570, Rotary International, Area 8, there are more than 325 Rotarians involved in six clubs: Roanoke Valley, Salem, Rocky Mount, Salem-Glenvar, Roanoke Downtown, and Roanoke-Hollins.

For more information on how to join the End Polio now campaign, visit The Notebook on sosalem.com.

Submitted by Bill Orndorff