West Seattle, Washington
30 Saturday
Shana from WestSide Baby says they’ve got a problem they’re very grateful to have – so many clothing donations, they need to find volunteers for a “Sorting Frenzy” work party 7-9 pm Thursday night at their White Center HQ. If you can spare the time to help make sure local families get much-needed help, RSVP to Sarah Grubbs at sarah@westsidebaby.org.
Some people just walk into a place and take right over. That’s Seattle funnyman Pat Cashman making himself comfortable in Southwest Youth and Family Services executive director Steve Daschle‘s office this morning. Daschle wasn’t around but truth is, SWYFS really didn’t mind Cashman getting comfortable – he’s the guy who’s going to keep things lively during their biggest fundraiser of the year, the XAFLAD! (Somali for “party”) auction/entertainment gala coming up September 24th (a week from Friday) at the Columbia Tower Club downtown. He was at SWYFS HQ in North Delridge this morning for a briefing – even as volunteers like Nancy continued to toil on the auction items – some of which have been grouped into theme baskets (this one’s easy to figure out):
SWYFS has more than 150 donated items going up for live and silent auction, according to Nanette Westerman, who along with Shayla Simoes stopped to chat while Cashman and SWYFS’s Cara Kroenke strategized for the big night. Most are in storage, awaiting the auction…
…but some items just aren’t shelf material, like a stay in Barcelona, Spain, or two tickets to a fancy dinner and show, and even a sneak peek inside the fabled women’s restroom atop the Columbia Tower (yes, females can go inside for free – but the successful bidder will get a tour even with XY chromosomes, Westerman says). Whatever the auction brings in, SWYFS is going to need it, she notes – she says she’s already getting phone calls inquiring what kind of help the agency will be offering at Christmastime: “Things are fairly dire out there.” (SWYFS wears many hats – public-school classes on site, violence-prevention programs, family-assistance programs, and more – and has a service area that also stretches outside West Seattle.) A few $60 tickets to XAFLAD! are left, and you can buy them online here.
Just in from the state Department of Transportation – a call to help with an official count of bicyclists and walkers in early October – read on for the announcement, and how you can sign up to help:Read More
Earlier this week, we shared two requests on behalf of the Chief Sealth International High School Band: A couch for a band room, and instruments for at least four students in need of them. Marcus Pimpleton, who directs the Chief Sealth Band and the entire music program at nearby Denny International Middle School, added a comment to that item this weekend – saying Denny students need instruments too:
Actually both Denny and Sealth are in need of instruments. The high school band is in need of larger instruments – trombones, baritone saxes, sousaphones (like someone just has one of those in the garage). The middle school is in need of clarinets, alto saxes, french horns, oboes, and trombones.
The greatest need is at the middle school, but the high school will need more and more as more students continue to move up to the high school level. I can be reached at mjpimpleton@seattleschools.org with donations for either program and live in West Seattle so I can pick them up if that is more convenient.
Thanks,
Marcus Pimpleton
Music Department Head, Denny International Middle School
Band Director, Chief Sealth International High School
The acclaimed Denny and Sealth music programs both have their own websites – Denny here, Sealth here.
ORIGINAL 2:13 AM REPORT: They played their hearts out for hundreds of people during Tuesday’s ribboncutting/reopening celebration – and now, the Chief Sealth International High School Band has a request – a couch for the band room. (Maybe two!) We shared that request before the end of last school year, but according to band member Syd Sattler, who e-mailed WSB this week, they couldn’t take immediate possession of the ones offered to them then, so it didn’t work out. Now they’re ready to accept one (or two!) – e-mail sydy68@gmail.com if you can help. Syd explains, “The purpose for our band couch is not only to have a comfortable place to sit and rest before and after performances but also to build (camaraderie) between bandmates … We are looking for a large couch, any color, any fabric will suffice.”
ADDED 9:43 AM: Another band need we learned about this morning – director Marcus Pimpleton says that four students have no instruments, so he’s asking for donations – either old instruments they can play, or money to sponsor instrument rental for one or more of the kids for the whole school year ($20-$80/month, he says). They especially need trombones for two students, and saxophones – he notes, “The two students we have play baritone sax, but we could switch them to a tenor or alto if those were to become available.” E-mail him at mjpimpleton@seattleschools.org if you can help!
It’s not specifically a Day of Service project – it’s the Admiral Neighborhood Association‘s regular quarterly cleanup – but it’s on September 11th (this Saturday) and everybody’s welcome. From ANA president Katy Walum:
Admiral Adopt-a-Street Cleanup is this Saturday! Meet at Metropolitan Market at 9 am, where you’ll be provided with safety vests, trash bags, gloves, and trash picker-uppers, as well as fresh fruit, pastries, and coffee from the coffee shop. Once you’re finished beautifying your ‘hood (Admiral Way from the bridge west to 47th, and California Ave. from Walker south to Hanford), return to Metropolitan Market for complimentary sack lunches and a pat on the back for a job well done. What a rewarding way to spend a couple of hours on Saturday morning!
When we brought you first word that the West Seattle-based – but operating citywide – shelter for homeless families, Family Promise of Seattle, had to temporarily close for lack of $, board member Laura Bermes promised word would be forthcoming about fundraisers. Here’s the first big one, just out of the WSB inbox:
Family Promise of Seattle, our West Seattle Shelter for homeless families, is looking for individuals and teams to help raise funds in a FUN way! FP is hosting its first-ever Rock and Roll Glow Bowling Tournament called PINS FOR PENNIES. Pins for Pennies is a simple way for individuals in our community to MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
To participate, interested bowlers (or teams of bowlers) contact Laura Bermes at lbermes@comcast.net or 206-219-9173 to get a pledge packet. The idea is that each bowler collects donations and then shows up to bowl on Friday, October 8th from 6-9 pm at Roxbury Lanes. Every bowler that collects $200 or more in donations will be entered into a raffle for an iPod nano. This is a perfect opportunity for office friends, youth groups, Scout troops, reading groups – think of the groups you belong to that might enjoy making a difference in the lives of local children who are homeless. For more information about the Family Promise of Seattle and our upcoming Pins for Pennies fundraiser, check out our website at www.familypromiseofseattle.org.
Seattle, we NEED your HELP! Please consider participating in this fun opportunity to help Family Promise of Seattle get back on track to caring for homeless families!
Our Family Promise story was recently showcased when the Seattle Times focused on the plight of homeless families and included stories by its neighborhood-news partners – here’s the regional roundup; here’s the Times’ followup on reaction to its series.
Two items from Aviva at Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle: First, she says, “It really has been an off year for the fruit trees here in West Seattle. We have only harvested about 300 pounds of fruit and it seems that none of the Italian Plums have fruit. We could use … Asian pears, pears, and apples.” Contact info’s at gleanit.org if you have tree fruit to donate – you donate, they pick! Second – the new Community Orchard at South Seattle Community College, funded by a city grant, is getting off the ground with the Design Group’s first meeting ahead, and Aviva says, “We’d love to get (more of the) community involved in this cool new project.” Read on to see how you can be part of it!Read More
Roxhill Elementary School‘s distinctive “R” needs some help. And Westwood Neighborhood Council leader Donn DeVore (who shared the photo above) is offering the perfect chance for you to pitch in and make sure that a building working on teaching kids the “three R’s” – and then some – can be proud of its own “R” once more:
Calling for volunteers on September 11th/12th from 10 am to 2 pm. Need a minimum of 8-10 people (4-5 each day) to help sand, prime and re-paint the Roxhill Elementary School ‘R’ on SW Roxbury Street. The school doesn’t have the budget for this.
If people are interested in volunteering, please have them contact me at donndevore@hotmail.com.
2 quick reminders about Sunday’s Alki Beach 5K Walk/Run, benefiting Northwest Hope and Healing, which helps breast-cancer patients: First, 11 am tomorrow is your deadline to register online – you can do that here. Second, a reminder that Alki SW will be closed approximately 8 am-11 am Sunday for the 5K – this is a CHANGE from past years; the run got so big (1,400 last year) that it needs to be on the street, same course as the West Seattle 5K.
(WSB photo from Alki Beach 5K Walk/Run in September 2009)
A couple things are different about this year’s Alki Beach 5K Walk/Run. First, it’s in August this time, not September. It’s just one week away – Sunday, August 29. Second, instead of walking and running along the Alki Beach pathway, participants will be out in the street on Alki Avenue SW, which will be closed next Sunday morning for the event – approximately 8 am to 11 am, according to Shari Sewell from Northwest Hope and Healing, the Alki Beach 5K’s beneficiary, a nonprofit that helps breast-cancer patients. You can sign up online till 11 am Friday morning – might as well do it now! – just go here.
Dropped by Rocksport Bar and Grill (on SW Alaska a few doors east of California) for a photo of Jayme Miller and friend Sydni Smith just before the “Walk On, Jayme!” fundraising silent auction got rolling. In our photo, Jayme’s holding one of the many cool prizes donated by local merchants – Alki Tours, in this case. Go visit, bid on something, help Jayme with the massive medical bills she’s incurred while beating the odds in her battle to walk again, after she was suddenly struck by a rare neurological disorder (as explained here – our story includes video from the KING5 story about Jayme too).
They’ve done it again – the wants-to-remain-anonymous West Seattle dad who went on an anti-graffiti tear with his daughter in summer 2009 – here’s the resulting story – found himself back for round 2. The vandals have been busy again lately – so, he wrote:
(Thursday) we had a father/daughter outing planned for a day of swimming and enjoying the summer day. Unfortunately, the weather did not quite cooperate but we still wanted to get outside. On a recent walk through Schmitz Park, we noticed the beautiful log benches in the center of the park were once again covered with graffiti. So we decided to spend our day cleaning up the benches and other graffiti around our neighborhood. We had a wonderful time together, cleaned up a lot of graffiti, and ended the day with a great sense of accomplishment as well as a great feeling of West Seattle community pride.
He shared numerous before/after photos; we’re putting up a couple here – though, as is our policy, we’ve blurred the tags in the “before” photos.
We asked what they use to remove tags. Answer: “We use ‘Goof Off’ and some scouring pads. They make a great product, and one specialized for graffiti. As for the log benches, the only way to get it off is with a hand-held wood planer.” If you’re not up for removal but want to be sure it at least gets reported – which police stress is important – here’s how to report tagging/graffiti vandalism on public property.
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
We were sitting down at a Delridge coffee shop with Laura Bermes from the board of Family Promise of Seattle – the West Seattle-headquartered shelter for homeless families, profiled here previously – for what we had envisioned as a simple “how are things going?” story, when she dropped a bombshell: Family Promise has just closed its doors to go “on hiatus,” and won’t reopen until it has raised at least $90,000.
That means, Bermes says, there is currently no shelter for homeless families between downtown Seattle and Kent.
This is not just a matter of closing a facility and laying off some staff – Family Promise has hundreds of volunteers because of a unique partnership with 18 congregations, including several outside West Seattle. It does not have a physical overnight shelter, but rather rotates families between those partners’ churches, one week at a time, with each partner housing and feeding the family during “their week” – not proselytizing, simply serving, and caring.
These aren’t happening IN West Seattle, but the recruiting notice for volunteers to help with two drills is shared by WSB’er LyndaB, and given our peninsula’s leadership role as a hotbed of disaster preparedness, somebody out there just might want to help. And the volunteers for the first one can be as young as 14 – high-school students, that means community-service credit! Read on:Read More
(Photo from last year’s backpack giveaway, courtesy West Seattle Helpline)
Three weeks from today, it’s the first day of the new school year for most Seattle Public Schools campuses – with many private schools starting then (if not sooner) too. And that’s why West Seattle Helpline< is revving up its annual backpack drive right now. They’re collecting not only backpacks to give away to students who need them, but also school-age clothing to give away with the backpacks. To find out how/where to donate clothing, just call the Helpline at 206.932.4357; you can drop off backpacks not only at Helpline HQ but also at CAPERS in The Junction.
(Photo added 12:55 pm)
TODAY: Till 4 pm, West Seattle’s most renowned 3-Day for the Cure team, Team Tracy, is outside West 5 selling bracelets and T-shirts and accepting donations – the big walk is a little over a month away (9/24-9/26, Redmond to Seattle). West 5 also is donating a portion of today’s proceeds during the fundraiser, if you head in (air conditioning!) for food and/or drinks.
TWO WEEKS AWAY: Just 2 weeks left till Northwest Hope and Healing‘s Alki Beach 5K Walk/Run! 9 am Sunday, August 29th, leaving Alki Bathhouse for a 5K round-trip course along the water. This year for the first time they’re closing Alki Avenue for the event – the projected time frame is 8 am-11 am – with more than 1,000 people taking part, that’s just too many to funnel onto the sidewalks/bike path. Signed up yet? You can do it online here.
From the WSB West Seattle Events calendar: Two events tailor-made for dogs and the people who love them – At West Seattle’s only off-leash area this morning, 9:30 am-noon at Westcrest OLA, the Westcresters PAWSWalk team is raising money with a treat sale … Then, starting at noon, CityDog Magazine‘s Cover Dog Search returns to West Seattle Thriftway – concurrent with a pet-food-donation drive for West Seattle Food Bank (whose clients’ dogs need food too!) – details here … This afternoon West Seattle Nursery has another Beer Fest, this time with Beveridge Place Pub pouring and Furry Faces Foundation benefiting, 1-4 pm (WSN also starts a big sale today) … The Highland Park Sunday Market is up and running 11 am-3 pm at Highland Park Improvement Club‘s parking lot, and West Seattle Farmers’ Market is open 10 am-2 pm as always, 44th/California (here’s today’s fresh sheet) … And 2 closure reminders: West Seattle Library (Admiral branch) closes for four weeks after today, for roof work plus the systemwide money-saving closure period, reopening 9/11 – and the eastbound Spokane Street Viaduct will close 10 pm tonight till about 5 am Monday, for work to get ready for the opening of the new 4th Avenue S. offramp (after the Monday morning commute). … More on the calendar!
2nd weekend in September gets busier: In addition to the Alki Community Council Family Fun Day on September 12th (missed our preview with a call for talent show and dog parade participants, plus sponsors and vendors? see the story here), Holy Family School is having its annual Street Fair Sept. 11-12th. They want to get the word out about openings for both tablers and sponsors (maybe you want to do both!) – to see about tabling, e-mail Betty at betwell@comcast.net; for Spanish-speaking tablers, Victory at ramirez.victormanuel@hotmail.com. For sponsorship information, contact principal@hfseattle.org. The HF site says they’re having chili and salsa cookoffs, too.
Meet the group working on one of West Seattle’s biggest events in the works for summer’s end: The Alki Community Council “Family Fun Day” – from left, Laura Sue Hoover, Paul Carr, Libby Carr, and Antonio Fernandez. We met at Alki Statue of Liberty Plaza – for which, you’ll recall, Libby and Paul led the charge three years ago – to talk about the big event they’re planning on Sunday, September 12th, for what you might call the second anniversary of the plaza’s dedication. And with only a month to go, they’re casting a net right NOW for sponsors as well as for entrants in the youth talent show as well as the dog parade – you do need to sign up in advance! – read on for the details:Read More
Quite the show of force from Seattle Police and King County Sheriff’s Office leaders inside Westwood Village Target a couple hours ago. Many in the lineup came all the way from downtown! No crime, though – instead, they were there for the annual “Shop with a Cop” school-supplies spree, in partnership with the Salvation Army, which donated tens of thousands of dollars of Target gift cards for the occasion. Outside, the young shoppers lined up:
Once inside the store, the law enforcers chaperoned the young shoppers, each of whom was given an $80 gift card, according to the news release on the SPD Blotter site.
By Keri DeTore
Reporting for West Seattle Blog
Since January, we’ve been following the story of Lisa Town, diagnosed with breast cancer at age 43, and her husband David Town, who committed to participating in this year’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center Climb to Fight Breast Cancer on Mount Rainier.
Here’s our original story from January; then in March, they held a fundraiser at Talarico’s to help them get to their $5,000 goal, the amount required to participate in the climb. Tonight, we can report that not only did they reach their financial goal, but David summitted Mount Rainier on July 24th during Climb for the Cure.
“It was a great feeling … a big relief,” says David.
That video clip is tonight’s KING5 story about Jayme Miller, a White Center woman, and 1994 West Seattle High School graduate, whose friends are working to get the word out about a fundraiser coming up in a little over two weeks. As you’ll hear in the story (here’s the full online version with text), she is fighting her way back from a rare neurological problem, transverse myelitis, that struck out of the blue three months ago and left her suddenly, terrifyingly paralyzed. Jayme’s friend Sydni Smith also sent WSB word of the fundraiser (and a photo), explaining:
… While in therapy Jayme surprised the doctors again and again. She pushed her herself harder and added new challenges each day. Walking 10 feet down the hallway last month, using a walker and with an aide behind her in case she fell, was a monumental victory. Every time she was told she might not be able to regain a function, she willed herself right through that obstacle.
Jayme went home on Tuesday the 20th of July. She still has many mountains to climb, but hopefully she will keep progressing and regain full function. At this point she’s able to walk short distances with the aid of a walker and a “spotter” behind her in case her legs suddenly give out.
She has medical insurance, thankfully, but with three months of hospitalization and being away from work, her medical bills are another mountain she’ll need to climb. The ten-day stay in the hospital cost $200,000. The Doctor visits while in the hospital were between $80 – $140 each. The ambulance ride cost nearly $900 and each day in Mount St Vincent she was charged $575 a day for the room alone.
We’re holding a fundraiser/birthday bash we’re calling Walk On, Jayme! which will be held at RockSport Bar and Grill August 21st. There will be a silent auction from 7:30 to 9:30. Bring cash or your checkbook and bid on items from local artists and businesses and follow it up with Karaoke and dance hits hosted by DJ Tony B.
You can also donate to help her right now – via PayPal (which works if you have a credit card – you don’t have to be a PayPal accountholder), click “Send Money” and send it to WalkOnJayme@gmail.com. Or if you can give something for the silent auction at the August 21st event, e-mail Sydni at heysyd@gmail.com. There’s a sharable Facebook event page for this too – find it here.
| Comments Off on Donations? Check! Someone to sort them? Well … can you help?