West Seattle, Washington
18 Thursday
West Seattle-based Transitional Resources recently put out the call for restaurants to join in its first Food for Art benefit: You dine, a portion of the proceeds goes to TR. Today, we have word that seven local restaurants have answered the call, and on Thursday, April 12th – in conjunction with that night’s West Seattle Art Walk night – they’ll partner with you, to help Transitional Resources, which shares this announcement:
Seven West Seattle restaurants will donate a generous percentage of proceeds to Transitional Resources’ art-therapy program on the evening of Thursday, April 12 as part of the first annual Food for Art event. Representatives from Transitional Resources will be at each restaurant, selling $5 raffle tickets for prizes donated by local artists and businesses, including event sponsor Ola Salon. All raffle proceeds will benefit the art therapy program at Transitional Resources, a West Seattle-based non-profit mental-health center serving people living with severe and persistent mental illness.
Food for Art diners are encouraged to let their servers know they support Food for Art. Details about each restaurant’s Food for Art promotion follows:
CIRCA will offer two Food For Art specials, donating 50% of the proceeds from those sales. Promotion runs 5-10 p.m. (2605 California SW)
FRESH BISTRO will donate 10% of proceeds from sales off their regular menu (not their Restaurant Week promotional menu) and strongly encourages reservations. Promotion runs 5-10 p.m. (4725 42nd SW)
HIGHSTRIKE GRILL will donate 25% of proceeds from all restaurant sales. Promotion runs 7-10 p.m. (4505 39th SW)
LOCOL BARLEY & VINE will donate 25% of proceeds from all restaurant sales. Promotion runs 6-10 p.m. (7902 35th SW)
LUNA PARK CAFE will donate 25% of proceeds from all restaurant sales. Promotion runs 6-10 p.m. (2918 SW Avalon Way)
WEST 5 will donate 25% of proceeds from all restaurant sales. Promotion runs 6-10 p.m. (4539 California SW)
ZATZ A BETTER BAGEL will donate 15% of proceeds from all restaurant sales. Promotion runs 6-9 p.m. (2348 California SW)
Transitional Resources’ commends these local restaurants for their philanthropic engagement. By contributing to Transitional Resources’ art therapy program, these businesses are helping men and women have access to a creative catalyst for healing. The process involved in expressing one’s self artistically can help people resolve issues, as well as develop and manage their behaviors and feelings, reduce stress, and improve awareness. Art therapy is one of many programs offered at Transitional Resources, which provides respectful, optimistic, and highly personalized care to those most in need.
(Photo by Long B. Nguyen)
What you see in that recent aerial view is part of the West Duwamish Greenbelt – the largest contiguous forest in Seattle, and the focus of the restoration work done by the Nature Consortium. The West Seattle-based nonprofit is celebrating the other kind of greenery, too – almost $40,000 raised by Sunday’s annual benefit brunch at The Hall at Fauntleroy, double last year’s total, according to NC founder and executive director Nancy Whitlock:
Other big numbers could be found in the NC’s annual report, circulated at the brunch – 2,295 youth served with art classes last year, 3,651 volunteers helping plant 7,155 native trees and shrubs. “It’s pretty astounding even to me, how much is accomplished,” marveled Whitlock. She spoke of her organization “growing up,” coming out of its adolescence – next year is its 15th anniversary. The terms were apropos, given that Nature Consortium works with youth, including the two groups that performed at the brunch – Natural Voices sang “The Greatest Love of All”:
There was also a feisty dance performance by younger kids from Rainier Vista; though Nature Consortium is headquartered in West Seattle, it works elsewhere in the city, too. This year, a bit of a disappointment for fans of all ages of the NC’s signature Arts in Nature Festival – it’s going on a one-year hiatus to regroup for a big 15th anniversary blowout next year, and beyond. But the boost from Sunday’s brunch is bound to help power them in that direction. You can donate to the NC’s work online any time; you can also plug into their frequent forest-restoration work parties by going here.
Back in February, West Seattle Helpline put out the call for a new home for its Clothesline clothing bank. It’s found a new home, executive director Tara Byrne says – in the Admiral District, close to West Seattle High School, more accessible to bus lines, more conducive to expanded hours. However, there’s a bit of a downside, as explained in this excerpt from a donation-seeking letter they’re circulating:
In West Seattle we have the only clothing bank that offers 3 free outfits, a pair of shoes, and a coat to each family member in need. Our Clothesline is on track this year for giving out $68,000 worth of clothing to families in need in West Seattle so that they do not have to decide between groceries or coats for the children.
As excited as we are about helping our neighbors, the West Seattle Helpline needs some help from you. We found out last month that our rent-free space will soon no longer be an option for our Clothesline program. The good news? We found an excellent location to better serve our neighbors in West Seattle and we have amazing clothing on the racks for families. The bad news? Rent is no longer free.
Our goal is to raise $6,600 to cover rent for the next year at our new Clothesline space. How can you help?
$20 keeps the Clothesline open for 1 day …
$138 keeps the Clothesline open for 1 week …
$275 keeps the Clothesline open for 2 weeks …
$550 keeps the Clothesline open for 1 month …
You can donate through their website at wshelpline.org (see the button on the right sidebar) – where you will also find ticket information soon about Helpline’s big “Taste of West Seattle” fundraiser, coming up May 17th.
Trees mark the 11 spots where you can pitch in during the next Duwamish Alive! event, three weeks from today, 10 am-2 pm April 21st. As shown, you can volunteer in West Seattle spots from Alki to Westwood, or east in South Park, or even further south in Tukwila. Here’s the page you can use to sign up for the spot of your choice.
Two ways you can pitch in around West Seattle tomorrow, north or south:
NORTH: Janet Jones sends word that the community gardens at Genesee Hill School need some springtime love! 9 am-1 pm tomorrow, you can come help “spruce up the playground, tend the Nature Garden, distribute mulch, remove invasive species.” Seattle Public Schools, which still owns the shuttered-school campus, will provide tools and gloves. Meet at the north playground (along Dakota).
SOUTH: Join EarthCorps at Fauntleroy Park, 10 am-2 pm Saturday, to help with planting, invasives removal, and trail maintenance. You can sign up online – just go here. Volunteers will meet by the park entrance along SW 97th, near 39th SW.
Regina shares the photos, along with this message: “Thank you, West Seattle, for helping feed our neighbors – from Troop 282 and Pack 793.” Those are two of the local Scouting groups who collected food donations during Scouting for Food, door-to-door and at dropoff spots, last Saturday, and while we don’t have a poundage total, you can tell from the photos that people gave generously:
Remember that until the end of April, donations to the West Seattle Food Bank and White Center Food Bank, both of which serve WS, count for extra, because of the Feinstein Challenge – you can follow the links to their respective websites (click on their names in this story – all blue text in WSB stories leads to a weblink) to find out how to give, in multiple ways.
That’s the team you’ll find in the back room at Feedback Lounge (6451 California SW; WSB sponsor) till 4 pm today, with an amazing array of items for the “Hand Up for Mike” silent auction/party. (Mike’s the guy at front and center.) Till we saw the lineup for ourselves, we didn’t realize how many cool auction items they’d rounded up – here’s just a few things:
You might notice the Full Tilt logo. And there are gift certificates from Zippy’s Giant Burgers, Meander’s Kitchen, photos/merchandise from people whose work you’ve seen on WSB (Machel Spence, Jim Clark, and of course Christopher Boffoli and his now world-famous “Big Appetites”), and great stuff from folks you may not have met yet (but should!). The live dessert auction – emceed by Teri Ensley, who you might know from Furry Faces Foundation – promises to be a winner too, and that’s coming up at 3:05 pm:
If you don’t know Mike and haven’t read about him here before – in a nutshell – what happened to him is an all-too-common situation: A health crisis cost him his job, and his apartment, and suddenly he was homeless. After months at Nickelsville, he is now in transitional housing, and working hard to get a new start and get stability, with a new place to live, work, and more. This event is to get a little seed money for him … that “Hand Up.”
(Pack 793 photo courtesy Jon Gerhardt)
Reminder that if you got a food-drive door-hanger from local Boy Scouts last Saturday – have your donation outside your door for them to pick up tomorrow morning, as part of Scouting For Food! Multiple local troops/packs are participating. But even if you didn’t get a notice, you can contribute to the drive for the West Seattle Food Bank – tomorrow morning (updated) from 9 till 11 am, bring food donations to Pack 793’s collection spot at 44th SW/Ferry SW (the city-owned triangle of grass just south of Admiral Church – here’s a map).
Yet another way to keep polluted runoff out of Puget Sound – if you can spare some time at midday tomorrow, you can be part of it. Steve Richmond says, “It’s planting season and hundreds of trees need to get into the ground. Join us at Sanislo School to restore the wetland headwaters of Puget Creek. Improve habitat that helps filter stormwater, the #1 polluter of Puget Sound.” 10 am-1 pm tomorrow, in the wetland next to Sanislo Elementary at 1812 SW Myrtle (meet in front of the school), you can help get those trees into the ground. What to bring? He suggests: “Gloves, shovel, watering can (we’ll have extra, but write your name on your tools), weather-appropriate gear (rain or cold), hat/eye/sun protection, food/water, sturdy shoes/boots.” They’ll provide snacks and water. If you have a question, call Steve at (206) 650-9807.
In a month, the first-ever Delridge Unsung Hero awards will be announced – and today is your last chance to nominate someone, we are reminded by Holli Margell. She says the online application form is open till midnight today; here’s the link. 16 nominations have come in so far, Holli says, but they’re hoping for more! She adds that they are still seeking sponsors in order to have a catered buffet for the awards event; the North Delridge Neighborhood Council has donated enough for table rentals and program printing, but they’re looking for $2,000 to cover the rest. Can you donate? E-mail or call Delridge Neighborhoods District Council outreach chair Mike Shilley, michael.j.shilley@q.com or 206-762-7111.
Once again, the Sustainable West Seattle presentation on how NOT to feed the Tox-Ick Monster – how to reduce runoff and help Puget Sound heal – drew a crowd tonight. Thanks to diver/photographer Laura James (who has seen Tox-Ick up close and personal) for the update and the photos – she says they drew the 50-plus needed to qualify for a $1,000 prize to go toward a runoff-fighting raingarden at WSHS:
That’s student Sage accepting the check. If you didn’t make it to one of the presentations in this series, no worries – you can view the PowerPoint, and video, online! Just go here.
If you’re a parent – you know children don’t arrive in the world with a handy instruction guide attached. But mentors can help! And one way to do that is to volunteer with PEPS, whose local communications manager Dana Guy shares this request:
PEPS is looking for volunteers to lead evening PEPS Newborn Groups in West Seattle. Several groups are scheduled to begin in April and need volunteer group leaders to get started. Volunteer leaders find joy and satisfaction in helping new parents connect and share through their PEPS groups. A commitment of 12 consecutive weeks is necessary (fewer if volunteers co-lead a group with a friend, spouse or partner). Volunteers attend one 4-hour training session. Training explains the structure of a PEPS meeting and provides practice with active listening, group dynamics, planning and facilitating topic discussions. PEPS training is designed to provide new skills and make leaders feel well prepared to lead a group. The next volunteer leader training is coming up on Thursday, April 5 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. Trainings are held at the Good Shepherd Center in Wallingford. For more information, go here. Contact Cate Palmer at catep@peps.org with questions or to sign up for training.
As noted in earlier coverage, this year’s World Water Week at Chief Sealth International High School is focusing on food issues as well as water – they are intertwined around the globe. And right now at nearby Southwest Teen Life Center, a basketball tournament organized by East African Sealth students is under way. Even if you can’t drop by to donate in person, you can do so online by going here. Here are the seniors who organized it:
Standing, from left, Samura, Nina, Hussein, Mohamud; sitting, Jueriya and Hanan. World Water Week continues with daily events on the Sealth campus, including an all-day “teach-in” on Friday in which WWW-related activities will replace regular classes for the day.
ADDED 8:16 PM: Thanks to Sealth teacher Noah Zeichner, who’s been working on World Water Week these past two years, for this photo of the tournament’s winning team:
Teams from other schools participated, but the winners were from Sealth.
(WEDNESDAY UPDATE: The dance has been canceled due to lack of ticket sales. 5K is still ON!)
Two West Seattle High School fundraiser reminders this morning – The WSHS Class of 2014 has organized a Father-Daughter Dance for elementary-school girls and their dads, coming up this Saturday night, 6-9 pm. More details are in the event’s listing on the WSB calendar. Also, today marks exactly two months till the West Seattle 5K on May 20th; it’s the run/walk along Alki that is the unofficial kickoff to summer (here’s hoping), and precedes the annual “car-free day,” aka Seattle Summer Streets (here’s our latest report on this year’s plan). The WS 5K is a presentation of the West Seattle HS PTSA. Online registration is open; you can sign up online right now! (WSB is co-sponsoring again this year, and there’s room for more sponsors.)
It’s been in the works for months, and now the CoolMom “Think Outside the Car” campaign is about to get rolling. CoolMom’s Terri Glaberson says you’re invited to a kickoff event 10 am-2 pm April 28th in the parking lot at Westside School (WSB sponsor). It’ll be a big celebration with food, music, and kids’ activities (including, Terri says, a Cascade Bicycle Club Rodeo and “Undriving”). Right now, they are looking for a graphic designer/videographer to help on the project – a “temporary paid position,” as she explains it; find out more here.
By Keri DeTore
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
The journey into homelessness is one that most of us can’t imagine taking. Insecurity, no basic services, no resources, no food, no promises — homelessness is comprised of a laundry list of what there isn’t enough of.
West Seattleites have become even more acutely aware of this since the homeless encampment that calls itself Nickelsville moved back to this area. Through West Seattleites working with Nickelsville – including many volunteers who know each other through the WSB Forums – this group of homeless individuals now has faces and names; they are our neighbors.
One person who has been living at Nickelsville has been our neighbor for years, even before he moved into the encampment. Mike Stahl has been a West Seattle resident his entire life: many locals know him from his work as a cashier at McLendon Hardware and from his WSB comments and Forum posts using the screen name “miws.”
Mike was a Morgan Junction resident until May of 2011, when he became a Nickelsville resident. WSB readers have been following Mike’s journey into homelessness beginning with Mike’s move into Nickelsville, chronicled in a story here last May.
Now, we’re re-visiting Mike to get more of his story, and to share his progress through this phase of his life – with help from friends, and more on the way.
That’s barely the half of it – literally – at the Sanislo Elementary book sale and bake sale, happening till 2 pm at 1812 SW Myrtle, raising money for the 4th graders’ annual overnight camping trip. Hardbacks and paperbacks for kids and adults – we even found some vintage-1940s hardbacks about topics including American history and the news business. Browse the hallway, and don’t miss the bake sale:
Before our whirlwind visit ended, we also got a pitch for a special drawing they’re having – $5/ticket for a homemade New Mexican dinner for six, delivered to your home. Never been to Sanislo? Lovely forested campus, and don’t miss the portrait of its namesake inside the entrance.
Just look for the truck in the 40th/Alaska parking lot – and the banner! Volunteers from the Rotary Club of West Seattle has been out in the morning’s mercurial weather (still slushing when we stopped for our photo), collecting Books for the World. Here are details of what they’re collecting, in our preview from earlier this week. They’re scheduled to be there till 1:30 pm.
Again this year, “Scouting for Food” might bring Boy Scouts to your neighborhood the next two Saturdays. We got the alert from Troop 282; they are dropping off door tags this morning till about 10:30 am, and then will return 9 am-1:30 pm a week from today (March 24) to collect what you donate for the West Seattle Food Bank. If you would like to donate and don’t get a visit, call 206-890-2237.
Next month’s West Seattle Art Walk will be held in conjunction with a new fundraiser – “Food for Art,” benefiting Transitional Resources, a WS-based organization that helps people living with mental illness. They’re looking for participants, writes TR’s Yemaya St. Clair:
In partnership with the West Seattle Art Walk, join Transitional Resources’ first annual Food for Art event, which will raise funds to benefit the art therapy program at Transitional Resources while providing restaurants with free publicity. Transitional Resources is a nonprofit organization in West Seattle serving men and women living with severe and persistent mental illness. We help over 200 individuals in our community stay off the streets, out of institutions, and on the road to recovery.
The dual goals of Food for Art are to raise money for our art therapy program and to make this your best charitable investment of the year.
The concept is simple: Your restaurant, along with others from West Seattle, commits to contributing a portion of your proceeds on one night – Thursday, April 12 (in conjunction with the West Seattle Art Walk) – to help support our art therapy program. Transitional Resources commits to promoting your restaurant through an extensive promotional campaign and to filling seats and increasing revenue at your restaurant on April 12. Also, you will be assigned an ambassador, whose primary function will be to make sure your restaurant is as full as possible on Thursday, April 12.
If you are a West Seattle restaurant and would like to be a part of the action, please e-mail Yemaya St.Clair for more details at yemayas@transitionalresources.org.
And Yemaya adds a message for readers: “Transitional Resources needs to hear directly from restaurateur(s), so if you have a suggestion, please make sure your favorite restaurant sees this!”
We’ve been celebrating West Seattle students’ accomplishments in the Global Reading Challenge. Now, here’s an opportunity to help give the gift of literacy to youth around the world. Martha Sidlo e-mailed us on behalf of the Rotary Club of West Seattle:
Your donation of new and lightly used books will be gratefully accepted by the West Seattle Rotary Club on Saturday, March 17th, between 11:00 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. at the empty used car lot on the southeast corner of SW Alaska Street and 40th Avenue SW – just west of the Howden-Kennedy Funeral Home at 3909 SW Alaska Street. Books will be distributed to underserved communities in South Africa, Haiti and Guatemala through Rotary’s Books for the World – 2012 campaign. Cash donations of any amount are welcome to help with the cost of shipping the books overseas. Make checks payable to “5030 Service Fund” and send West Seattle Rotary, c/o Martha Sidlo, 7500 34th Avenue SW, Seattle, WA 98126.
We asked what kinds of books they’re looking for:
Books for all ages are welcome, for example: Picture/story books (pre-K and up), teen and adult fiction, K-12 textbooks in sets of 10 or more (world history is okay; U.S. history is discouraged), current professional books (medical books, international law, etc.), encyclopedia sets (less than 20 years old), as well as magazines such as National Geographic or Smithsonian (please, no news magazines).
If there’s just one brunch for which you make reservations this year – this is the one. West Seattle-based Nature Consortium – which works to protect and restore the West Duwamish Greenbelt (right), Seattle’s largest contiguous forest – is saving a seat for you at its annual benefit brunch April 1st at The Hall at Fauntleroy. But you need to RSVP ASAP. You don’t even need to pay ahead of time (though they’re suggesting a minimum $50 donation at the event – proceeds support NC arts and environmental education programs all over the county. Brunch will start with mimosas and jazz/blues music by Billy and The Bouncers at 11:30 am, continuing at noon with a gourmet brunch menu (see the right sidebar), youth music and dance performances, and awards for volunteers and community partners. You can RSVP online right now. (There’s even free child care if you need it.) P.S. WSB is proud to co-sponsor this event again this year.
One more West Seattle school fundraising auction to be sure you know about – the 18th annual Pathfinder K-8 auction, at South Seattle Community College‘s Brockey Center, next Saturday (March 17th). The theme: “On this side of the rainbow, we make dreams come true!” The price of making dreams come true? $35 a ticket, and you can buy yours online by going here. From organizers:
Parents love supporting businesses that help support our school. We have an incredible lineup of donations from AWESOME local businesses including Cactus, Breathe Yoga, West 5, West Seattle Junction Association, Farmers’ Market, West Seattle Thriftway, Sound Physical Therapy, Hotwire Online Coffeehouse, and Southgate Roller Rink, just to name a few.
Whether you’re going or not, there’s a twist this year: An online auction is under way, and you can bid right now.
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