White Center Now: The blog about White Center

That’s King County Council Chair Dow Constantine, who represents White Center and West Seattle (among other areas), announcing he’s running for County Executive. More details at our partner site West Seattle Blog.

From locally based MSNBC.com – the Oath of Office and Inaugural Address, in their entirety.

That’s White Center Now/West Seattle Blog video of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels joining in the Clean and Green cleanup this morning, helping give a kiosk a new coat of paint. More than two dozen people joined in the cleanup that launched from just outside the White Center Community Development Association, including WCCDA reps and volunteers from the Boys and Girls Clubs, and volunteers were treated to fresh coffee from nearby Cafe Rozella.

That’s White Center Now/West Seattle Blog video of the Seattle Fire Department Pipes and Drums Band and the Walter Kilgore Memorial Honor Guard tonight at Holy Family School (20th and Roxbury; map). They helped pay tribute to the four firefighters who lost their lives 14 years ago tonight in Seattle’s notorious Pang warehouse arson; the memorial was part of a benefit dinner will be held to raise money for scholarships to be awarded at HF by the Randy Terlicker Endowment Fund, named after a Holy Family alumnus who was one of those four lost heroes (the others: the Honor Guard’s namesake Lt. Kilgore, Lt. Greg Shoemaker, and firefighter James Brown).

That’s video provided by Shorewood Christian School from its bell choir’s performance at Southcenter last week – and Hope Kerkof says they’ll be there again this Wednesday, 1 pm at the dining terrace!

Thanks to Shorewood Christian School for e-mailing to call our attention to that clip they posted on YouTube after 5th graders went to work at the Burien-Highline Food Bank; we told you earlier about the school’s food drive to help the White Center Food Bank (which you can help anytime by donating online; here’s the link). Here’s the full news release about their latest project: Read the rest of this entry »

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What he had to say was almost as intriguing as what he had to play; maybe that’s why the show listing called it “White Center Weird Fest.” That’s Calvin Johnson, Saturday night at Full Tilt Ice Cream.

In case you didn’t see it on channel 5 news tonight – they followed up on the King County budget story (reported here earlier) by coming to White Center for this report, which includes a couple soundbites from White Center Now‘s own FullTilt!

Now that the Greenbridge library branch is open, its events calendar is online – looks like kids’ story time, Thursday nights at 7 pm, is the big plan for now. Meantime, there’s a video clip we didn’t get around adding to our original coverage of Wednesday’s ribboncutting: a wonderful speech by King County’s Poet Laureate, Dr. Mona Lake Jones. Here’s the entire six minutes:

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That’s County Executive Ron Sims, with brief informal comments about President-Elect Obama‘s victory, during this morning’s dedication of the YWCA Learning Center and new King County Library branch at Greenbridge. Here are the kids to whom he referred — White Center Heights Elementary School students who sang “Library Boogie” at the event:

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As for the actual ribboncutting, we’ll add that visual in a bit. Meantime, you are welcome at an open house at the new facility, happening all day long, with special events including Story Time for kids 2-6, 1:45-2:45 pm. It’s in the 9700 block of 8th SW, just south of Roxbury (map).

We dropped by Full Tilt Ice Cream shortly after this afternoon’s pre-Halloween party started (note the clock over the cones), and the place was already jammed. Appropriately enough for a place with pinball and game machines, Pac-Man made an appearance:

Musical entertainment was courtesy of the Not-Its:

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We’re still looking for White Center Halloween activities to add to the events calendar – if you know of one coming up between now and The Big Day/Night, please e-mail us, whitecenternow@gmail.com – thanks!

Can’t promise that there will be any big stars but this Sunday afternoon there will be a film crew using Cafe Rozella for one of their scenes.  Customers can still patronize the cafe but they will have to quiet down for the dialogues.

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Ice-cream shop by day, music venue by night – a little shadowy last night as Robotic Daily (among others) played Full Tilt Ice Cream. The brightly lit Apple logo on his laptop tells the tale as much as the sound does. By the way, mark your calendar for a rock ‘n’ roll ice-cream party at Full Tilt — including “prizes for kids dressed in rockin’ Halloween costumes” — 4 pm October 25th, featuring the Not-Its.

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Bill Gates‘ dad, William H. Gates Jr. (the younger Gates is actually III), was one of the speakers at today’s groundbreaking for the Educare Learning Center at Greenbridge, next to White Center Heights Elementary – as you can hear, he opened with a quick joke about his legendary offspring, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation he was there to represent. We have a few more video clips from the event, just ahead: Read the rest of this entry »

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After a series of speeches under a big (and yet standing-room-only) tent next to White Center Heights Elementary, those preschoolers from Learning Way helped U.S. Senator Patty Murray – one of the speakers – ceremonially break ground this morning for the Educare Learning Center at Greenbridge. (Official construction work starts tomorrow, according to WCH Elementary principal David Darling.) Lots more video and info to come.

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We first told you here at White Center Now (Monday report here) and at partner site West Seattle Blog (Monday report here) two days ago about an urgent call for help from the White Center Food Bank. Executive director Rick Jump says thanks to WCN/WSB readers for stepping up – hundreds of dollars in donated $, plus food donations, have come in as a result, and citywide media have come by to do reports – but much more help is still needed. While we visited Jump at WCFB earlier this afternoon for a followup, he gave us the newest statistics — the number of people seeking help from WCFB this September was 50% greater than last year, almost 1,000 in ’07, almost 1,500 in ’08. And as commenters pointed out on both sites, WCFB has a unique challenge – since it is not within the boundaries of a city, it doesn’t get any kind of city funding, as do its fellow food banks in incorporated areas. You can help WCFB right now by donating $ online, right from this page. While we were at the food bank this afternoon, a steady stream of people came in – Rick explained, it’s the first of the month, and food stamps are still days away; we didn’t photograph the clients because we believe they’re entitled to dignity as they seek help, but trust us (and listen to the sound as we shot the video you see above), the volunteers were working hard to distribute what they had. P.S. One more way you can help – the WCFB annual fundraising auction/dinner is coming up October 18th, 5:30 pm at South Seattle Community College’s Brockey Center; this event raises up to half the WCFB’s annual budget funds – check out the invitation here and RSVP by October 10th (read more in this previous WCN post).

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That short video clip shows a big run by Evergreen High School’s #5, senior Jared Brunell, in the second half of last night’s 16-6 victory over Tyee at Highline Memorial Stadium in Burien. That brings Evergreen to 1-3; next Friday, they play Mount Si.

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We got that video inside the old Southgate Skate Center in White Center around noontime Friday, where crews are working hard to get it ready for the debut of the White Center Swap Meet next Saturday-Sunday. They had planned to put up almost 100 stalls this weekend, but do note that staffer Mandel Medina told us sellers will need to bring their own tables. The stalls will be movable, workers say, to configure the fully renovated space (including restroom upgrades!) for other events. Swap Meet hours for starters are 1-7 pm Saturdays (starting 10/4), 10 am-4 pm Sundays (starting 10/5).

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That’s Sword and Magic Helmet, opening last night at Full Tilt for Bird Show of North America. More music at Full Tilt tonight; The Shadow People are scheduled.

Here and elsewhere, lots of people spread the word about Cupcakes for Cora, a fundraiser this afternoon in West Seattle on behalf of a 4-year-old cancer patient with ties to the White Center community too. We just posted a report, with video of Cora, on partner site WSB; see it here.