Money means program is for keeps

What have you done for your marriage today?
That is a question that does not normally come up in marriages, according to Mike and Kelly Houser, of Garden City.
The couple completed a Marriage For Keeps class, offered by Catholic Social Service. The class is a 13-week course designed to strengthen marriages by teaching communication skills and techniques.
"Marriage reduces child abuse, drug abuse and poverty," said Debbie Snapp, executive director of Catholic Social Service.
The service is one of 21 organizations receiving money from the Finney County United Way. Catholic Social Service will be receiving $4,000, or 3 percent of its total budget, from the United Way. The United Way money will go toward making sure the Marriage for Keeps class is offered in the future.

Catholic Social Service started in 1965 as an adoption agency. It provides pregnancy counseling to women who see being pregnant as a crisis, helps plan for the future of the child, offers open adoptions, has a foster care program, offers the Marriage for Keeps program and a poverty prevention program, and the staff also helps with other services.
Mike and Kelly Houser have two children, Kayden, 8, and Faith, 3. The couple took the class after Mike found out about it while working on his master's degree in social work. "You can never have too many skills to work on your marriage," he said.
Deb and Rex Oyler, of Garden City, also completed the class. The couple has been married for a year and has a blended family, including seven children: Breanna Stout, 19, Raymond Oyler, 19, Gabby Stout, 17, Adam Oyler, 14, Naomi Stout, 13, Hannah Oyler, 12, and Maddy Stout, 5.
This is the second marriage for both Deb and Rex. They wanted to do "anything we can do to keep things in the right path," Rex Oyler said. "It's an enhancement. You spend time doing things because you want to, not because you have to," Rex Oyler said.
Married couples who take the class are encouraged to find time to do things together in time increments, such as five or 10 minutes. Deb and Rex often take a walk or go get ice cream together.
"You get so busy with children, work, and you forget about your marriage," Rex said. "If you have a healthy marriage, you have a healthy family life." The class teaches married couples to give as much time and attention to their marriage as couples do to their job and children. "I recommend this for any couple. It really puts your marriage first," Deb Oyler said. The class is free and offers gift certificates to participants, and all religions are welcome. It also is offered for all types of marriages, from healthy ones to troubled ones. But it is not a therapy session -- instead it is a class on how to improve marriage. "It becomes a part of you," Mike Houser said. "There's something empowering about that. I'm celebrating my marriage."

 There are 20 other agencies receiving money from the United Way. They include: The Emmaus House, Community Day Care, Russell Child Development Center, Girl Scouts of Kansas Heartland, The Salvation Army, Santa Fe Trail Council Boy Scouts, CASA Spirit of the Plains, Smart Start, Kansas Children's Service League Head Start, Miles of Smiles, United Cerebral Palsy of Kansas, American Red Cross, Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Finney County, Family Crisis Services Inc., Meals on Wheels, United Methodist Mexican-American Ministries Clinic, Southeast Asian Mutual Assistance Association, Garden City Family YMCA, Finney County RSVP and the Garden City Recreation Commission.