White Center Now: The blog about White Center

From King County Councilmember Joe McDermott‘s office:

King County Councilmember Joe McDermott was listening when North Highline resident Mike Merta expressed concern about increasing amounts of graffiti and litter in West Seattle and South Seattle.

What Merta and others are seeing, McDermott said, is the result of declining county revenues and budget cuts. King County cut back its litter control program in an effort to balance the County budget.

And that’s the impetus behind a community clean up event scheduled from 10 am to 1 pm on Saturday, March19. McDermott is spearheading the event with support from Merta and Waste Management.

“We have all been impacted by the cuts made to balance state and county coffers. Communities must work together to fill the void that has been left,” Councilmember McDermott, who represents North Highline, said. “Residents of North Highline love their community, and I’m thrilled to help them keep it clean.”

Volunteers are invited to a free kick-off breakfast at 10am. Breakfast will be hosted by Waste Management at the company’s site at 8111 First Avenue South.

“Waste Management is all about helping make communities cleaner and greener,” said Katie Salinas, public sector manager for Waste Management. “We are inspired by the community spirit that’s driving this event and pleased to provide breakfast to fuel this important volunteer effort.”

Volunteers are urged to bring gloves and to wear sturdy, closed-toe shoes.

For more information, “like” Keep Seattle Beautiful on Facebook.

From Shana at WestSide Baby in White Center:

We wanted to remind you that our monthly After-Hours event is this Thursday evening, March 17th, from 7-9pm. Please grab a friend and join us on St. Patrick’s Day for an adult evening of sorting donations, having fun and making a difference in the community!

Space will be limited to 20 people so please RSVP to shana@westsidebaby.org if you will be attending. Parking is available in front of our Operations Center located at 10027-14th Ave SW.

From the Facebook invite for this upcoming event to help the Youth Media Institute keep working with local young people:

For over five years, Youth Media Institute has been utilizing media justice education and social justice conversations to empower youth in the White Center and South West Seattle neighborhoods. We plan on continuing our work for 55 more years. But to do that, we’ll need your help.

Drop by our first ever Silent Auction right in the world famous White Center neighborhood. You get to bid on fun items, meet the folks behind the sce…nes at YMI, have a fabulous time, and perhaps most importantly be a part of empowering the next generation of social justice media makers.

Auction items include: Ecuadorean painting, locally made ceramics, massage and acupuncture services, Papua New Guinea folk art, an antique typewriter, a three-minute promotional video for your favorite nonprofit produced by YMI, and much, much more.

Support White Center/West Seattle youth making a difference in our community.

Special thanks to Sibelle Nguyen and the Dubsea crew for ensuring that 100% of all proceeds go directly to YMI programming.

Dubsea, we hope you know, is at 9910 8th Avenue SW.

Cross-posted from partner site West Seattle Blog – it’s the annual announcement of the two-month period when food-bank donations can count for more than face value, because of the Feinstein Challenge! Here’s the joint announcement from the White Center and West Seattle Food Banks:

The White Center Food Bank and West Seattle Food Bank are seeing a record number of families come to their doors for assistance. During March and April your donations to help neighbors in need can go farther.

For the 14th consecutive year, Allan Shawn Feinstein will divide $1,000,000 among hunger relief agencies nationwide through his Feinstein Challenge. All donations made between March 1 and April 30th, 2011, and that are specifically designated “Feinstein Challenge,” will count towards the challenge total and help these agencies receive a larger percentage of the million dollars.

For the White Center Food Bank, donations may be mailed to 10829 8th Avenue SW, Seattle, WA 98146. To make a donation online or for information about the White Center Food Bank’s programs benefited by the $1 Million Challenge, visit www.whitecenterfoodbank.org or contact Rick Jump at (206) 762-2848, or e-mail rick@whitecenterfoodbank.org.

For the West Seattle Food Bank, donations may be mailed to 3419 SW Morgan, Seattle, WA 98126. To make a donation online or for information about the West Seattle Food Bank’s programs benefited by the $1 Million Challenge, visit www.westseattlefoodbank.org or contact Fran Yeatts at (206) 932-9023, or e-mail fran@westseattlefoodbank.org.

For information about the Feinstein Foundation and the $1 Million Challenge, visit www.feinsteinfoundation.org

As the need for our services continues to increase significantly, your donations are now more important than ever.

Story and photos by Deanie Schwarz
Reporting for White Center Now

Thanks to Gill, WCN got the heads-up that the King County Sheriff’s Office storefront is currently in great need of graffiti-paintout supplies — in particular, outdoor primer.

Unlike the city of Seattle, which has a graffiti program, unincorporated areas like White Center must rely on donated materials.

On Wednesday, the city of Seattle donated about 15 gallons of paint, some brushes and rollers to the “quality of life” program, which Community Service Officer Vary Jackson (top photo) helps coordinate. But Officer Jackson told WCN that they still are in dire need of outdoor-only primer.

The “quality of life” program deploys misdemeanor offenders to address such issues as cleaning up graffiti vandalism, retrieving abandoned shopping carts, and picking up litter. Officer Jackson says that the brief snow we had a few weeks ago seemed to encourage a lot of tagging around the neighborhood, though she emphasized that this was mostly tagger-style graffiti rather than gang-turf-war-type markings. Even so, there is just so much of it since then, that they have used up the outdoor primer they had.

If you have unused primer to spare or are able to donate new primer, they are welcome to call Officer Jackson at the King County Sheriff’s Office to make arrangements for donations that will be accepted gratefully. The phone number is (206) 296-3323. (Officer Jackson works out of the downtown White Center “storefront,” at 9609 16th SW.)

The White Center Food Bank just put out the call for volunteer help. From volunteer coordinator Audrey Zemke:

The White Center Food Bank needs help this coming week handing out food to clients. The most urgently needed shift is 3:30 to 6:30 pm Monday, December 20. In addition we could use help Wednesday, December 22 from 12:30 to 3:30. Please contact me by e-mail (audrey@whitecenterfoodbank.org) to sign up.

If you remember “Seinfeld” – or maybe even if you don’t – you know about the spoofy holiday “Festivus, for the rest of us.” This Saturday in White Center, you can join in a Festivus celebration for real – an auction, dinner, and dance, 5 pm at White Center Eagles, 10452 15th SW. See the official flyer on Facebook, where you can RSVP through the page for White Center Jubilee Days, which benefits from this Saturday’s celebration.

From Audrey at White Center Food Bank:

Because of the weather, we could use a few volunteers for the 9:30-12:30 and 12:30-3:30 shifts handing out food to clients. I don’t know how many clients will brave the weather but I want to make sure we can give them their holiday food if they do.

From Audrey at White Center Food Bank (we’re still checking on what food they need):

The White Center Food Bank needs volunteers to help hand out holiday food the following shifts

Mon., November 22 – 12:30 to 3:30 and possibly 3:30 to 6:30
Tue., November 23 – 9:00 to 12:30, 12:30 to 3:30, and possibly 3:30 to 6:30
Wed., November 24 – 12:30 to 3:30, 4:30 to 8:30

Mon., December 20 – 12:30 to 3:30 and 3:30 to 6:30
Tue., December 21 – 9:00 to 12:30, 12:30 to 3:30, 3:30 to 6:30
Wed., December 22 – 12:30 to 3:30

Families, individuals or groups are welcome to contact me at audrey@whitecenterfoodbank.org or 206-762-2848.

Before the holiday gets too far in the rear-view mirror – that video is courtesy of IAM 751, whose members donated a half-ton candy that was delivered last Friday to the Salvation Army center for White Center/eastern West Seattle fun.

We were asked to share this because Greenbridge YWCA is among the locations in need of volunteers:

Get involved with United Way of King County’s Free Tax Preparation Campaign and join the nation’s largest anti-poverty effort! Help low-and moderate-income individuals and families in King County keep more of what they earn!

The United Way Free Tax Campaign Needs Volunteers!
By volunteering once per week during the 2011 tax season, you can help us meet our goal of putting more than $20 million back into the pockets of low-and moderate-income working individuals and families. Speakers of Chinese, Vietnamese, Spanish, Somali, Korean, Amharic, Cambodian and Russian languages are especially needed. Evening, daytime and weekend shifts are available at 18 sites throughout King County.

No Experience Necessary! All volunteers receive free tax preparation training and are certified by the IRS. All sites now recruiting, and have several slots still available! But slots at some sites tend to fill up very fast, so don’t wait! Sign up now!

uwkc.org/taxhelp

Prudential Northwest Realty agents are collecting food at supermarkets in White Center and West Seattle, 10 am-2 pm Saturday – just take your nonperishable food donation to the White Center Albertson’s at 10616 16th SW. More locations here.

Once again this year, students from Seattle Pacific University are on their way to help clean up around White Center’s Hicks Lake. (Our photo is from 2008.) It’s part of a regional effort on September 25th in which the college sends nearly 800 freshmen and transfer students to various sites for a “community-service orientation” known as CityQuest. Between 10:30 am and 2:30 pm on Saturday, you’ll find students working to pick up litter and take out invasive plants. (That’s not the only White Center site where SPU students will be working that day – SPU also tells us that Neighborhood House in Greenbridge will have visiting students to “help with administrative organization, fall cleaning, and brainstorm ideas for future classes.”) You are also welcome to come join in the cleanup, by the way.

As Shana from WestSide Baby explained, while sharing that photo, it’s a problem they’re very grateful to have – overloaded with clothing donations, so they’re having a “Sorting Frenzy” 7-9 pm Thursday night, and need volunteers at their White Center HQ. If you can help, RSVP to Sarah Grubbs at sarah@westsidebaby.org.

… which is actually in West Seattle, as you likely know. 6 pm, it’s a gala fundraising dinner and live auction, at Brockey Center on the SSCC campus (6000 16th SW). The theme: “Celebrating Our Global Village.” Online registration is closed, but the WCCDA website has full details on who to call to see if there are still tickets available!

You may have heard the story of Jayme Miller, a White Center woman who’s learning to walk again after being struck suddenly by a rare neurological problem, transverse myelitis, leaving her paralyzed. Her friend Sydni Smith says Jayme is battling day by day and has even walked with a cane – “Every time she was told she might not be able to regain a function, she willed herself right through that obstacle.” She’s been home from the hospital and rehab for a month now, and is planning to be on hand tomorrow night at Rocksport in West Seattle as friends throw her a party with a silent auction to raise money to help with her medical bills – which quickly climbed into hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can drop by “Walk on, Jayme!” at Rocksport between 7:30 and 9:30 to bid on a wide range of items donated by local artists and businesses (and you’re welcome to stay for karaoke and dancing, with host DJ Tony B). If you can’t make it to the party, you can donate 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. There’s a sharable Facebook event page for this too – find it here.

Sara found this and shared it with us, to pass along to you: Local scientists are recruiting folks in White Center (and a few other areas) to volunteer to host a seismograph that would use the Internet to transmit earthquake data. Read more about it here.

Just received this – it’s coming up Saturday in Greenbridge:

The family of an Evergreen High School student lost everything in an apartment fire last month. A classmate decided to get involved and her Girl Scout Troop 1775 is sponsoring a Pancake Breakfast at the Southwest Boys & Girls Club in White Center from 8-11 am on Saturday, August 7th.

9800 8th Ave SW Suite 105
Adults: $5.00
Kids under 10: $2.50
8-11 am, Saturday August 7, 2010

All proceeds will go to help the family. The girls are also collecting sheets, blankets, dishes, pots and pans, utensils and other household items on behalf of the family. Cash donations are also being accepted.

You can contact Liz at 206.240.6994 if you have questions. Please spread the word and invite your friends!

Last year, West Seattle, this year, SODO! The annual Eat Local Now! dinner is coming up September 30th and organizers are casting a wide net for help. They’ll be meeting August 5th at Big Al Brewing in White Center, and inviting you to join in – here’s the invitation just posted on partner site West Seattle Blog.

A big volunteer effort this afternoon unloaded hundreds of packages of diapers into storage for WestSide Baby in White Center, after the first successful installment of the “Stuff the Bus” donation drive. Executive director Nancy Woodland said they’d brought in more than 27,000 diapers – and there’s another installment coming up, August 7 at Burien Town Square.