There’s the big cleanup next Saturday – the legislative town hall – and this too:

Join us for a walking audit of White Center!

As a part of the White Center Spring Clean, Feet First will take a walk with members of the community to explore the neighborhood and look at it through different eyes.

The Walking Audit will help residents identify:

* What do you like about your neighborhood.
* What are some areas of concern.
* Ideas and recommendations for changes.

When: Saturday, May 16th, 10am-12pm

Where: 1615 SW Cambridge Street [map]

For more information or to register to take part in the walk, contact Feet First by e-mailing: info@feetfirst.info or calling 652-2310.

This walking audit has been coordinated by the White Center and will be led by Feet First. Feet First is a non-profit organization promoting walkable communities.

The information from the White Center Walking Audit will be compiled and presented by Feet First in a formal report to the King County Food & Fitness Initiative as a part of the plan being developed for a Kellogg Foundation grant.

King County’s public health director has just finished what’s becoming a daily briefing on the swine flu situation. Dr. David Fleming said one more probable case has been diagnosed, a 9-year-old student at Midway Elementary in Des Moines, which is being closed for a week as a precaution. Otherwise, he said that this flu so far is progressing somewhat like “regular” flu does every season, with differing degrees of severity.

All three are in Seattle, though so far we haven’t heard any location more specific than the fact that one of the patients attends school at Madrona. Here’s the official King County news release.

ADDED 9:48 PM: Just talked to James Apa with King County Public Health. Beyond the information about the child, which they provided because of the school aspect of the story, he says they are not going “lower than city level” in terms of descriptive information about the two patients – trying to balance privacy with public information. So for now, unless the two patients or someone close to them decides to independently inform a media outlet, there is no info publicly available on where they are from.

Individuals who have recently traveled to Mexico and are exhibiting
influenza-like symptoms should seek medical guidance. The CDC is
encouraging individuals in the impacted areas of California, Texas, and
those traveling to Mexico to take everyday preventive actions such as:

Ø       Cover your nose and moth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze.
Throw the tissue in the trash after use;

Ø       Wash your hands with soap and water, especially after you cough
or sneeze. Alcohol-based hand cleaners are also effective;

Ø       Avoid close contact with anyone who appears sick;

Ø       If you get sick, stay home from work or school, and limit
contact with others; and

Ø       Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth

Tips avoid the flu:
First and most important:  Wash Your Hands Frequently!  Per public
health, this is the most effective prevention strategy.

Ø       Try to stay in good general health.
Ø       Get plenty of sleep
Ø       Be physically active
Ø       Manage your stress
Ø       Drink plenty of fluids
Ø       Eat nutritious foods.

Try not to touch surfaces that may be contaminated with flu virus.
Avoid close contact with people who are sick.

For more information, go to Public Health Seattle King County’s web
site at:   http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health.aspx

The county’s been adding to this page throughout the day and evening – find the latest links to what you need to know by going here. (Tons of links from the left-side navigation – even the county’s pandemic-response plan.) As reported earlier today on partner site West Seattle Blog, the County Council was told at their special midday briefing today that there’s no need to panic — and no cases reported in our state so far; one bit of perspective — REGULAR flu kills 35,000 Americans each year. So far, no deaths in our country are linked to this new outbreak.

(Crossposted in part from partner site West Seattle Blog.) Area students are involved with the World TB Day event Tuesday night at Town Hall in downtown Seattle is free – and promises to be an eye-opener. Full details here. If you thought tuberculosis was a thing of the past – this King County-specific information alone will cure you of that notion. (The local rate, in fact, hit a 30-year high in 2007.) Student organizers also have been sending out TB info via Twitter – follow their tweets (and see the archives) at twitter.com/worldtbday.

Puget Sound Blood Center has put out a warning that the blood supply is at a critically low level, with many scheduled donations canceled during the snowy/icy weather woes – but today, according to the PSBC mobile-drive schedule, there are two ways for you to donate right here in our area: PSBC will have blood drives at White Center’s Holy Family, 10 am-4 pm (20th and Roxbury, Tice Hall; here’s a map) and at West Seattle’s Admiral Safeway, 9 am-3 pm (California/Lander; here’s a map). Appointments were suggested but the site says walk-ins are welcome.

Across from the Salvation Army building, you’ll find New Traditions – a simple name that doesn’t reveal much about what happens there, or the fact the women who founded it, and opened it in White Center just two months ago, are doing something they say no one else in the Seattle area does: Offering chemical-dependency treatment for female clients, by female providers, while also offering care for their children, in cheery rooms like this one for babies:

New Traditions is accepting new clients, but that’s only part of why they’re inviting people to visit 3-7 pm today (9045 16th SW; here’s a map) – but they also will be happy to meet White Center and West Seattle neighbors who want to know what their work is all about. We visited recently to find out more ourselves, including what the special significance of an all-female setting can be – read on: Read the rest of this entry »

On one of the many mailing lists we monitor for news and announcements, we just got word of this: A new outpatient chemical-dependency treatment program, exclusively for women, has opened in White Center, called New Traditions. It’s trying to get the word out; managers say, “For the moment, we primarily serve very/low-income, pregnant/parenting women and we provide on-site childcare for their children. We are certified with DSHS Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse and are contracted with King County.” They’re in the building across from the Salvation Army and are seeking referrals, so they’re inviting providers to tour their offices. Contact info is on their website.

From the county’s Food Establishment Closures list:

*Pho Thu Thuy* restaurant located at 9627 15th Ave SW … was closed by a Public Health food inspector on Sept. 8, 2008, 2:00 pm due to the imminent health hazard of no hot water available for handwashing. The establishment will be reopened by the inspector once confirmed that hot water has been restored.

We’ll let you know when there’s word of that confirmation and the restaurant reopening. TUESDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: It’s reopened.

I know this is rather old news, and the rain has really cleaned up the air in the past few days,  but I went and read up on it this evening after seeing all the black soot that washed off the front of my store.   Most of this study has to do with South Park and Georgetown, but given our proximity, I doubt the pollution knows to stay in that area.

My favorite line from the PI article is; “At Capital Industries, a Georgetown metal fabricator closer to homes than the airfield, the computer model predicts a rate of 600 cancer cases for every million people exposed. “. I don’t like those odds. I mean 600 per million is small, except that is 600 people that are going to die for no good reason.

First link is a PDF of the actual report the second is an article in the PI.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/374066_badair08.html?from=wtnews

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/pha/Duwamish_Valley/Duwamish_Valley_%20HC%207-14-2008.pdf

Have you heard about the King County Food and Fitness Initiative? It’s a ten-year program, and White Center is one of the focus communities, along with the neighboring Delridge area in West Seattle. As part of KCFFI, volunteers have surveyed area grocery-store pricing and food availability — and today we have the results of the most recent findings, which include White Center supermarkets as well as others from West Seattle to Burien: Read the rest of this entry »

By Kyla Woodall, New Start student

Over the course of six weeks, my classmates and I worked together to learn about the world around us. We discovered all about invasive plant life and how they affect our community. We broadened our minds in learning about new ways to help our environment by composting, recycling, and picking up the garbage that litters the streets. Even during the summer Samantha Rost came up to Ann Magyar (a teacher at New Start) and said “You know I am almost annoyed with you because now that I learned about native and invasive plants I really see them everywhere”, It was an engaging experience that helped us to develop an interest for improving our community. I feel that by attending this program, we have become more aware of our surroundings and how we make an impact on our global community and the future for our children and our children’s children.

This all started when Mark Farrell, a King County Education Employment Specialist and New Start partner, received a grant from the King County Natural Resource Stewardship Network with funds from The King Conservation District, the Forest Service and King County. As a class, we identified the invasive plants in Salmon Creek Park and removed them. Besides removing the invasive plants, we also did a lot of our own planting in our school’s raised bed planters. Soon New Start and its neighbors will have a crop of tomatoes, bush beans, turnips, beets, and other produce. Throughout the program we worked with people whose careers focus on the environment. People who came to see our final presentation stated, “In the beginning it looked as if it would take five years to finish what you guys accomplished in 6 weeks.” I feel that we really did quality work. We did everything by hand; it was very hard but rewarding at the same time.

Also in the class, we learned about this wonderful thing called compost. Before the program many of us had no prior knowledge as to what compost was, and after completing the program, we were all motivated to have our own compost at home. It was satisfying knowing that we could help to improve our environment just by separating our garbage. We did our part by reusing plastic bottles to drink water from, and when we were down at Salmon Creek Park we looked for trash to separate and recycle.

Some of us are going to return this summer and help build the native plant nursery, to help benefit the community even more than we already have. The New Start nursery will be part of the classes, and the plants will be transplanted to Salmon Creek Park. The students are also going to be doing a composting program on the school campus.

This program has really helped to shape us as individuals, as well as team members. It was a very engaging and worthwhile course that opened our eyes to new experiences and different ways that we could help our community, in more ways that we ever thought possible.

Just in from the King County Public Health department – a $2 million grant to help people who live in Greenbridge and High Point expand their physical activity and social connections. Here’s the full news release: Read the rest of this entry »

From the Seattle Times: King County Public Health authorities have for the first time studied its Pacific Islander residents as a distinct group, and announced the results at this weekend’s festival in White Center. As the paper reported, some of the findings are “grim,” but community advocates hope the study will be a tool to help them move forward with education and prevention.