March 10th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
By Stan Matthews
County Communications Program Manager
This year’s Count of Homeless Persons (PIT) in San Juan County recognized 79 persons as homeless.
Among the homeless, 29 were classified as unsheltered - living in tents, cars, boats (not equipped with facilities for living aboard) or staying in motels (with money from churches, etc.); and 50 people, including many children, were staying in temporary, unstable living arrangements either with friends or family members – a situation commonly referred to as “couch surfing”.
The state-required Count was conducted by the County Health & Community Services on Thursday, January 28th.
Count organizers had anticipated an increase in the number of homeless people in the county due to the worldwide economic crisis and significant local business closures, but the count remained close to last year’s numbers.
Last year’s count found 23 people unsheltered and 50 “couch surfing” a significant increase over the 2008 Count which reported only 9 unsheltered and 17 “couch surfing”. Similarly, in 2007 11 were reported unsheltered and 17 “couch surfing”.
Citing an extensive effort in 2006 which identified 50 homeless people, organizers, say the increased numbers reported since 2009 could be a result of the amount of effort that has been put into the count since 2009, rather than an actual increase in the overall number of homeless people.
Organizers admit these numbers are an estimate at best, it is impossible to truly know the exact number of homeless people and those staying with friends or family in unstable situations. However, based on this year’s results and information from churches, food banks and other organizations that help the homeless, organizers see no sign that the problem is decreasing.
San Juan County PIT Count organizers and volunteers worked with local schools, food banks, churches, healthcare providers, support service counselors, youth groups, Senior Centers, Family Resource Centers, Sheriff’s department, Fire and EMS departments and many other community organizations to perform this year’s count.
The PIT was established by the Washington legislature in 2005 in the Homelessness Housing and Assistance Act (RCW 43.185c). The goal of the Act was to reduce homelessness in our state by 50% by 2015.
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March 10th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Every Orcas and Waldron public school student is eligible to submit entries for the First Ever OISD Student Chef Competition. The Farm to Cafeteria Committee needs to received your recipe for the greatest sandwich, soup, dessert, casserole, meatloaf, pasta, omelet, granola, salad or taco in the world by March 19!
Students need to submit a detailed menu which includes ingredients and cooking methods, along with a photo of the item you will be preparing in the competition (if possible and advisable) as well as a written overview of why you feel this item is appropriate, it’s nutritional value, its practicality as an item on the school lunch menu and any other information that will entice its selection to compete. We would also like a short bio of yourself. Be sure to include your name, grade, and contact information.
For complete information on submitting an entry and more details of the competition, go to www.orcasislandf2c.org and click on “Student Chef Competition” to download the guidelines.
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March 9th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Miss Rose and Her Rhythm Percolators brings the art of the ukulele to Orcas Island this Saturday afternoon and evening
Contributed by Mark Morris
On Saturday, March 13, travel back in time to the earliest days of the Jazz Age with Miss Rose & Her Rhythm Percolators. They’re playing one show only, at 8:00 p.m., at the Odd Fellows Hall in Eastsound. Orcas’ Charly Robinson will open the show with a set of her own. It’s a family-friendly, all-ages event. A portion of the proceeds from the show will benefit the Orcas Island Education Foundation.
The Seattle-based quartet faithfully re-creates the vintage jazz of the early 1920s to the mid ’30s—the era when this original American music provided a playful soundtrack for the flappers who danced the Charleston and sipped illicit booze in the glitzy underworld of the speakeasy.
Miss Rose & Her Rhythm Percolators play well-known popular tunes that have since become part of the great American songbook and dust off forgotten gems from the early jazz era. Audiences delight at the unabashed romance, the playful humor, and the irresistible swing rhythms. Some can’t help but dance or sing along.
To fully transport audiences, the band members dress in period clothing, share some of the music’s history, and run a slideshow of art and photos from the era during performances.
Singer Sunga Rose croons and strums a ukulele while the Percolators—Ericka Kendall (upright bass), Holly Michelle Eckert (piano/violin), and Carey Rayburn (trumpet/flugelhorn)—keep time and knock out solos. Miss Rose & Her Rhythm Percolators revive for modern times a wonderful sound from a bygone era.
Come enjoy the band in their premiere San Juan Islands concert appearance.
Dancing is strongly encouraged. A selection of beer, wine, and nonalcoholic beverages will be available for purchase. Tickets are $10 per person, available in advance at Darvill’s Bookstore, Orcas Elementary School, Gordeaux’s, and Eastsound Instruments. For more information, call 376-3148.
Also on Saturday, March 13, Sunga Rose will lead two ukulele workshops at the Odd Fellows Hall:
Beginning Ukulele (age 10 – Adult)
2–3:30 p.m., $30
The ukulele is experiencing a new rise in popularity. Don’t you wish you too could play this extremely versatile and portable instrument? Come on! Jump on the bandwagon! This workshop truly is for absolute beginners. I’ll get you started with a few simple chords and some basic strums and send you off with a nice packet of songs to work on. You’ll be surprised at the number of songs you can play with only 2 or 3 chords! Bring your ukulele tuned G-C-E-A.
Intermediate Ukulele: Let’s go to the bar!
3:30-5 p.m., $30
Bar chords aren’t that scary, and adding a few to your uke arsenal is a great way to grow as a player. We’ll learn by working on some popular tunes and replacing your old “open” chords with “closed” chords (bar and other closed chords, too). You’ll be relieved to find that this will actually make some chord transitions much easier! We’ll also cover some music theory that will give you the tools to find many versions of the same chord all over your uke. Students should be comfortable with the basics and be able to change chords smoothly. Bring your ukulele tuned G-C-E-A.
If you’d like to pre-register for either workshop or have any questions, please contact Miss Rose at contact@missroserhythm.com.
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March 9th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
"Stroking Into a New Day" watercolor by Caroline Buchanan, who resides on Obstruction Island.
Contributed by Caroline Buchanan
Do you have a story, a journey story to tell? How did you get to the Islands? Or how did your family come West?
Do you have a meaningful journey such as a high-mountain backpacking trip in which you discovered truths about yourself? Or how about a children’s story – that amazing journey (down the creek, through a part of town you weren’t supposed to go, or ….) through the eyes of the little child you once were? It is time to tell those stories.
This July the Orcas Island Historical Museum will host the “Journey Stories,” a collaboration between the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum on Main Street. This is an outstanding exhibit for Orcas. As part of the exhibit, the Historical Museum is encouraging us islanders to become involved and tell the stories of our journeys.
How to choose the story? What to include? How do you present it? To help you get started and guide you in exploring ways that best present your story, Caroline Buchanan is offering a class at the Senior Center, Telling a Life Journey Story. It is on Fridays, two weeks apart March 12, March 26, April 9, and April 30, from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Come this Friday with ideas for your story and any materials you have. Caroline will help you decide how to use line drawings to illustrate it. Or photographs. Or mementos, like tickets. She will show you how you can draw (even if you don’t really draw) to illustrate your story. She will guide you in developing the writing.
If you want to do a children’s story, Caroline will demonstrate an easy way to story-board and set the pages up. Or perhaps a large collage is the answer. Your way of telling your story should be as unique as the story you tell.
In between the class sessions, you will continue work on your story, using the class time to review your progress and work with guidance. Although she is known for her watercolors, Caroline says she is delighted to be teaching a class again that combines writing and art. She has taught journalling (drawing and writing) workshops frequently, overseas as well as in the Islands.
Several students from past children’s story workshops have gone on to publish their work while others created them just for grandchildren. For this class, she believes the important thing is to get you on your way – the journey of telling your story – and see what happens from there.
You may contact Caroline with questions or for more information: 376-5509, or watercolors@rockisland.com
The price of the class is $165. Register with the Senior Center, 360-376-2677.
A story not told is a journey not taken.
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March 8th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Iris Parker Pavitt in Aspen's Garden at the Orcas High School
Updated March 8 at 7 a.m.
The energy of youth continues to work to make the world a better place. One quiet but constant example is Iris Parker Pavitt.
Iris, an Orcas High School junior, is the President of the Orcas High School Environmental Club.
Since taking over leadership of the Club, which meets Mondays after school and consists of about a dozen members, the club is at the forefront of recycling reminders, especially to the school population. It is also, like most clubs, heavily involved in fundraising. This year, its goal is to help finance a trip the club will be making to the Hanford Nuclear Facility.
With snow forecast this week, one Environmental Club fund-raiser may pay out soon – forecasting the date on which it snows in Eastsound. This contest is a collaboration with Chimayo Restaurant; contestants pay a $2 entry fee to pick a day on which it snows. That date is then marked on the calendar at the restaurant. The closest date wins lunch for two at Chimayo. The contest will run through next winter, and Iris points out that the closest date wins, so a winner is guaranteed.
The Club also is making a video for entry into “America’s Greenest Schools.” The video shows club members planting trees in front of the elementary school last fll, Interviews with school bus drivers, and school administrators, discussing the possibility of a roof garden at school, and the expansion of the gardens and greenhouse, will also be included in the video. The winner of the national contest will receive a hybrid school bus, a “Green School Makeover” (valued at $20,000) and $500 for school supplies.
In addition to her duties as President of the Environmental Club, Iris works at the Public Library for school credit – which is “dangerous,” the book lover says, because she checks out at least three books every day she works. Iris has also participated in the Farm Education and Sustainability for Teens (FEAST) program, interned at the Historical Museum, and serves as editor for the High School Key Club, a service organization under the auspices of the Kiwanis Club. She also serves on the Farm-to-Cafeteria Board.
This week, the Environmental Club plans two community-wide events. The first is another Dodge Ball Tournament on Friday, March 12 at 6:30 p.m. in the High School Gym. For $2 entry team, anyone can join a team to plan in the tournament. A “St. Patrick’s Day” theme will be part of the event. Several Dodge Ball Tournaments have been held this year, and this may be the last, Iris says.
The next day, Saturday, March 13, all are invited to help with a garden work party of “Aspen’s Garden” in front of the High School. The clean-up will take place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The garden was installed in memory of Aspen O’Donnell, an 18-year-old Orcas High School student who passed away due to illness in 1997.
Last year, Juliana Bates planted a herb garden and repaired the fence and gate at Aspen’s Garden as part of her Senior Project. The Environmental Club will purchase plants from the Farm-to-Cafeteria plant sale for the work party. Snacks will be provided.
Club Advisor Gregory Books, High School science teacher, is trying to work around a regulation for the Hanford Site Tour, which the club hopes to visit in early June: tour visitors must be 18 years old or above.
If that doesn’t happen, Iris says the Club may go camping at a State Park. “Whatever we do, it will be fun,” she says.
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March 6th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Nathan Mantua, Quatic and Fisheries Sciences Associatie Professor
The Crossroads spring lecture series continues on Sunday, March 14 at 2 p.m. at the Orcas Center with Dr. Nathan Mantua’s presentation of “Climate Change Science and Potential Impacts on the Pacific Northwest.”
Is the earth’s climate really changing? Have scientists overstated, or understated, the risks that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases pose to the Earth’s climate system? What is the latest data and thinking on human and natural contributions to global climate change?
Dr. Nathan Mantua addresses these questions, provides an overview of climate change science and discusses the projected impacts of human-caused climate change on natural resources in the Pacific Northwest. His presentation is followed by audience Q&A and a public reception.
Dr. Mantua is Co-Director of the Center for Science in the Earth System at the University of Washington, where he is also Research Associate Professor in the School of Aquatic and Fishery Science, adjunct faculty in Atmospheric Sciences and Marine Affairs and a member of the UW’s Climate Impacts Group. A research scientist with the PNW Station of the US Forest Service, Dr. Mantua’s research focuses on climate impacts on the water cycle, forests and aquatic ecosystems and how climate information is or is not being used in resource management decisions.
He received a Ph.D. from the UW’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences and in April 2000 received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his climate impacts research and public outreach activities.
The Crossroads series presents thoughtful, provocative speakers who help the Orcas community think about timely issues, both local and global. The series is co-sponsored by Friends of the Library, the Orcas Island Public Library, Orcas Center, the Daniel and Margaret Carper Foundation and the Crossroads Associates.
Tickets are $10 and may be purchased at Darvill’s Bookstore and the Library. A limited number of complimentary tickets are made available in advance through the Library and Senior Center.
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March 6th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Darvill’s Book Club will meet Monday, March 8th to discuss The Good Thief, by Hannah Tinti. The group meets at 5:30 p.m. at Mia’s café in Eastsound Square. Al Bentley will lead the discussion. Mia’s will provide coffee or tea and delicious soup at a 10% discount.
All are welcome to join in. For further information, call 376-2135.
Coming in April, Jean Spalti will facilitate a discussion of Little Bee by Chris Cleave at the regular monthly meeting of the book club.
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March 5th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Contributed by Amber Paulsen, Director, Kaleidoscope Childcare Center
Currently there are working families in need of an affordable, high quality learning center where their youngest children can be safely cared for between 7:30 a.m. and
Kaleidoscope Childcare Center is breaking ground for its "Building for Families" expansion project
p.m., five days a week. Kaleidoscope offers this consistent and educationally rich environment for 50 of our island’s families however, more space is needed to accommodate up to 22 more young children.
To continue to help keep our community’s families working and promoting their children’s early learning, Kaleidoscope has begun phase 1 of the “Building for Families” project. This addition will provide new space to support more families in maintaining their employment and their family’s financial security. Phase 1 will take the project through the structural “dried in” completion. All of the funds for this first phase have already been secured. As phase 1 progresses, fund raising will continue to secure donations to begin phase 2.
Donations of labor, time, and equipment have made groundbreaking possible, thanks to the generosity of Orcas Excavators, Inc. and San Juan Sanitation. There will be many, many more to thank in the future. If you are able to help Kaleidoscope continue to support our island’s working families, please contact Kaleidoscope at 376-2484, P.O. Box 1476 Eastsound, or Island Hardware and Supply’s “Building for Families” campaign either in person or at 376-4200.
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March 4th, 2010, by Margie Doyle
Dallas Brass will play at Orcas School and at the Orcas Center next weekend.
Orcas Center will present the nationally-acclaimed Dallas Brass on March 13 in a performance that will also feature more than 30 members of the Orcas Island Community Band as well as students from Orcas and San Juan Islands.
Founded in Dallas in 1983 by Michael Levine, Dallas Brass has become one of America’s foremost musical ensembles. With a repertoire that includes classical masterpieces, Dixieland, swing, Broadway, Hollywood and patriotic music, the Dallas Brass appears in solo engagements and with symphony orchestras nationwide.
They have performed at Carnegie Hall and the John F. Kennedy Center, have shared the stage with the late Bob Hope, and have performed for Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush.
With a strong dedication to working with young musicians, the Dallas Brass will interface with the Orcas community in several ways. They will perform in an all-school assembly on Friday, March 12, and they will instruct young and adult musicians in a master class on Saturday. They will invite students and members of the Orcas Island Community Band to perform one number of their American Musical Journey program which will include selections from the ensemble’s vast repertoire: Copland, Bernstein, Gershwin, Berlin, John Williams, Sousa, the Tijuana Brass and Chicago; and from many musical styles, even hip-hop!
Joe Babcock, director of the Orcas Island Community Band discusses the impact of the ensemble’s visit: “Having a group like the Dallas Brass come to Orcas Island is a real treat for everyone on the island. With their diverse musical offering, there will be something on the program for anyone of any age. The community band was delighted and excited to be invited to play on stage with the Dallas Brass. It’s really special for us to be able to perform with professionals of such caliber.”
Steve Alboucq, Orcas Horns member, remarks: “The Dallas Brass are some of the best brass instrument players in the country, plus they are also fabulous educators who are eager to spread the joy of making music in band. Our young music students, at every level, will enjoy their lively music clinic. The lucky students and community band members who rehearse and perform onstage with the Dallas Brass will never forget the magic of making music with first-class professionals. I know I’m looking forward to it.
This presentation of the Dallas Brass Quintet is generously underwritten by Steve & Nancy Alboucq, Craig Canine & Molly Cox, Dimitri & Lorena Stankevich, Richard Strachan, Ed & Judy Zimmerman and the Five Bells Quintet. Support has also been provided by the TourWest Program of the Western States Arts Federation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The Dallas Brass performance is on Saturday, March 13 at 7:30 pm. Tickets are $25, $17 for Orcas Center members and $11 for students. Tickets may be purchased at www.orcascenter.org or in person or over the phone during regular box office hours: Thursday-Saturday, noon-4 pm. 376-2281 ext.1. If the cost of Orcas Center tickets prevents an individual or family from attending a performance, please call the box office to explore free and discounted tickets made available through the generosity of an Orcas Center donor.
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Prior to the performance of Dallas Brass, Orcas Center and the Lower Tavern will host Burgers & Brew in the Madrona Room, beginning at 5 pm. For $12, diners will enjoy an authentic Lower burger and beverage of their choice. It’s delicious, it’s festive, and all proceeds benefit Orcas Center programs.
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March 3rd, 2010, by Margie Doyle
The community is stepping up to the Food Bank matching grant challenge. An anonymous donor has offered to contribute $5,000 to the Food Bank if an additional $5,000 is raised by March 31st. So far, $1,015 has been donated to the Orcas Island Community Foundation for this cause.
“These funds could not come at a better time” according to Food Bank vice president Joyce Shaw. Shaw also noted the number of neighbors seeking food assistance has doubled in the past year. The Food Bank served over 70 families each week in February. If you would like to contribute to this matching grant, please send donations to The Food Bank Matching Grant c/o Orcas Island Community Foundation, PO Box 1496, Eastsound, WA 98245.
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