White Center Now: The blog about White Center

We’ve had this fundraiser for White Center’s New Start High School, coming up 1/29, on the White Center Now Events Calendar for a few days. Now, a letter from Paul Fischburg:

Hey friends,

As many of you know, I’ve been volunteering to help New Start High School in White Center create a school library. New Start started as a King County funded after-school program for kids who were skipping school and hanging out in downtown White Center. After a few years of great success, King County funding ran out and with tremendous commitment, the Highline School District took New Start from a small storefront helping a few kids, to a growing alternative high school for about 120 kids who haven’t succeeded in traditional schools. Last year, New Start graduated its first class of seniors!

Working with teachers, students, and Michael Sita, the school principal and head of alternative programs in the Highline District, I designed the library and raised $15,000 in addition to donated computers to get the library started. Andrea Love, a new para-educator at New Start, scavenged district furniture got the library set up and running, ordered and catalogued books, and uses the library as her office to work with students individually and in groups.

We don’t want to stop there and you can help.

On Thursday 1/29, all day, when you buy anything at the Barnes and Noble at Westwood Village shopping center and show them the attached flyer, a portion of the sales will be donated to New Start for the library. Better yet, books on New Start’s wishlist will be on display and you can buy one directly for the library. Even better still, come on down between 6:30 and 8:00 pm, and view student art work, hear readings of student writings and enter a drawing to win an ice cream party at White Center’s own Full Tilt Ice Cream!

You can download and print the flyer, which has the voucher number, here.

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.

We first told you about this a month ago, and now the big day is here: Be at the White Center Community Development Association HQ at 9 to join the White Center/South Delridge business district cleanup, till noon!

Sparks flew at Thursday night’s North Highline Unincorporated Area Council meeting, with hot topics on the agenda from annexation to housing to … stray shopping carts. White Center Now was there; read on for our report: Read the rest of this entry »

The new year brings new website features from the White Center Community Development Association — most notably, online classified ads for the community. You can check ’em out – and post one if you want — by going here.

The recently announced agreement (read it here) between Burien, Seattle, and other jurisdictions regarding the annexation process is one of the items on the agenda for tonight’s monthly meeting of the community group that represents you — the North Highline Unincorporated Area Council. 7 pm, North Highline Fire District HQ.

An announcement to share:

SWING AND WALTZ CLASSES

You’re invited to beginning classes in swing and/or waltz, at the Highland Park Improvement Club, 1116 SW Holden [map]. Each class goes for six Sundays, starting January 18th (three classes, no class on February 8th, then another three classes), and will be taught by Lilli Ann Carey, of Dance for Joy. Both singles and couples are welcome.

Beginning East Coast Swing is from 5:00 to 6:15 PM, and Beginning Waltz is from 6:15 to 7:30 PM.

The cost is $65 per class. If you join the Highland Park Improvement Club ($10 per year), you save $10 on each of these classes and all future Dance for Joy classes at the club. If this is your first Dance for Joy class, you save an additional $10.

To sign up, or if you have questions, go to the Dance for Joy web site www.danceforjoy.biz, or call 206-264-5646. If you want to join the Highland Park Improvement Club, you can do it on the first night of the class. For more information about the club, go to www.hpic1919.org.

At White Center’s Lakewood Park, we checked out Hicks Lake at midday today. We’ve heard Dick Thurnau from Friends of Hicks Lake explain how it’s flooded in the past, so we know it’s got lots of room to rise. Great day to be a duck, though:

By the way, update on Ricardo’s post from earlier: The county now lists more than 60 roads as closed because of floodwaters. But King County has nothing on some areas further north and south, where entire towns (such as Orting) are reportedly being evacuated — follow the latest via tagged Twitter bulletins by watching this real-time search.

King County just posted the closure of 21 roads due to flooding.  Most of the roads are in rural King County.  You can find the complete list here. Will update if any roads in this community are affected.

Time to get out there and help spiffy up the White Center area.  Come and help with clean up and green up sponsored by the City of Seattle.  Mayor will be in attendance so if you want to chat with Mayor Nickels, here’s your chance.

Field Interviewer Positions Available

Flexible Schedule – From 20 to 35 hours/per week

March 15, 2009 – June 06, 2009

White Center Neighborhoods

The National Organization for Research at the University of Chicago (NORC) seeks reliable, outgoing, persuasive people to conduct phone, and in-person interviews within the homes of residents of selected White Center neighborhoods, March 15th – June 06th 2009.  30-35 interviewers will be staffed.  This research survey will focus on community issues in these neighborhoods.  Interviewers must gain the cooperation of the residents of sampled households and maintain strict confidentiality standards.

Interviewers must be self-motivated, have a valid driver’s license, an insured working car, and a land telephone.  Interviewers will report weekly to Field Managers.   No selling.   Background check and driving history conducted.

Hourly rate $14.37 plus mileage

SPECIFIC TASKS:

Interviewers administer a structured questionnaire by phone or in/person in scientifically sampled households.  Only one household member is selected for the interview.  The interview itself takes about an hour to administer. The survey collects data about the respondents’ neighborhood and community.

This information is gathered carefully and systematically.  A lot of reporting and record keeping is required. Interviewers will be well trained and supported by Field Managers.  All of the interviews must be completed within a 12‑week field period but the work must progress very quickly, leaving the last weeks of the field period just for clean‑up tasks.

TRAINING:

Successful applicants will attend 4 days of paid training in Seattle March 11th through March 15th. Attendance at all assigned training sessions is mandatory.

AVAILABILITY:

Successful applicants must be available to work from 20 – 35 hours/week on a flexible schedule including most week nights and week-ends (Sat and Sunday).  Work hours will vary with the progress of the data collection effort throughout the field period.  This is an interesting position for individuals with flexible availability when residents are expected to be home most frequently–evenings and weekends and (less frequently) weekday hours.

Spanish and Vietnamese Bilingual speakers are strongly encouraged to apply

NORC is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

TO APPLY: Visit website: http://www.norc.org/Careers/

As we reported late last fall, some of the most dramatic cuts proposed for King County public-safety services were avoided (the “storefronts” will all stay open, including the ones in White Center and Boulevard Park, for example) – but the budget ax hasn’t quite finished making its cuts yet – so this e-mail message from County Sheriff Sue Rahr may be of interest: Read the rest of this entry »

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).

SCHOOLS: No changes listed so far for Highline Public Schools. For Seattle Public Schools, they’ve announced all schools will start on time and all buses will run regular routes.

BUSES: Metro is continuing to update its “adverse weather” page with changes for specific routes. Among them, the 54, which is listed right now (6:41 am) as “does not serve White Center.”

(54 bus in trouble earlier in West Seattle)
Metro has posted its first route changes here. Among them – 21 is not operating south of Roxbury right now.

The official forecasts promise it won’t last. However, given the difficulty of accurately forecasting around here, and the track record from the recent Snowmare ’08, take whatever action you must. Perhaps also a good idea to keep in mind that wind is supposedly to follow. Latest forecast here.

We reported New Year’s Eve that photos and video were out from a recent robbery rampage that included a December holdup at the Lucky Seven in White Center. Early this morning, after a robbery attempt at a West Seattle 7-11, Seattle Police arrested three suspects and are working right now to establish whether they are linked to this series of robberies. Here’s our full report on West Seattle Blog; we will let you know when more information is released.

Sunday’s one last day of winter break for kids in the Highline and Seattle school districts – after a longer-than-expected vacation because of the snow. School resumes in both districts on Monday (and by the way, Metro bus service is supposed to be back to normal that day, too).

Cafe Rozella, White Center’s hub and coffee house, wants to thank all our wonderful patrons for making 2008 our best year and for electing Barack Obama, President of the U.S.

We look forward to better times.  We cannot pass this opportunity to give thanks to: Mike the artist, mike the mechanic, mike the longshoreman, little mike and big mike, Cherrie, Onion, Eric the Swede, Joan, Carlos, Eduardo, Bill, Bill and Bill, Robert, Aileen, Laura, Jorge, Argelia, Paige, Eric, Vassily, Carmen, Flora, Sim, Chica, Jason, Anne, Jeremy, Austin, Ron, Gabrielle, Athena, Chad and Tracy, Andrew and Moe, Jessica, David, David and David, Ruth, Ringo, Paul, John, Maury, Rob, Gary, Gary and Marjorie, Jim, and everyone else who contributed to the wonderful community that is White Center and Cafe Rozella.  We love you all.  Truly.

Today’s the last weekday before things start revving back up to normal on Monday – and there are two things to keep in mind today: Metro is on the “partial holiday” schedule one last day (changes listed here) and most county offices/facilities are closed because of the “furlough” day (changes listed here).