This Saturday, join volunteers to help clean up various sites along the Duwamish waterway, starting at 10am. Volunteers are needed to help weed, spread mulch in planting areas, plant native vegetation, and pick up trash. Refreshments provided by REI.

After the work parties are finished, there is a community festival from 2-5pm at Cooper Elementary School. The event will feature art exhibits, live performances, environmental education tables and community activities including kids’ crafts, nature hikes, and a chance to win prizes.

For more information visit the website, e-mail da@pugetsound.org or call 206-382-7007.

Could you feed yourself breakfast, lunch, and dinner for $7 a day? Many no- or low-income residents in Washington State do each day with the help of food stamp benefits. $7 per day is all that is allocated through this program.

The Hunger Challenge asks for a person’s commitment to eat on this limited budget for 5 days, starting April 20th, as a way to see how those less fortunate than us live. There are rules of course:

• Eat breakfast, lunch and dinner spending only $7 per day.
• Salt and pepper don’t count but all other seasonings, cooking oils, condiments, snacks, drinks, and everything else do.
• Don’t use food you already own.
• Don’t accept food from family, friends, coworkers and others. Not even the free samples from Costco!
• Try to include fresh produce and healthy protein each day.
• Keep track of expenses, food choices, etc. and share your experiences on United Way of King County’s blog.

I have signed my husband and myself up to take the Challenge, which to someone who loves to cook may very well prove to be a good lesson in cutting back. When I mentioned to friends and a few family members that we were considering it, the average response mostly centered on the limited menu and grocery stores that one is forced to adhere to. I am going to try to feed the two of us for 5 days on $60: breakfast, lunch, and dinner, using grocery stores located on Capitol Hill (avoiding WalMart, kthx) and eating as balanced a diet as we possibly can. I’ll post once for each of the five days sharing how the experience goes, starting on Monday.

To read more about the Hunger Challenge, including a budget for additional people, click here. If you decide to take the challenge, leave a comment letting me know so we can compare notes.

The Seattle Public Library offers a lot more than simply books: they’ve got movies and meeting rooms and multimedia of all sorts, including a huge bank of computers open for use by anyone with an easy-to-obtain library card. The SPL offers up a lot of nifty programs at their various branches: you can attend lectures (Joe Raiola speaks on “The Joy of Censorship” Friday, April 10 at 7:00 pm at the Central branch downtown) or community meetings, see a movie or a live arts performance, take a class and, now, you can even learn a new language.

The SPL’s new service, Mango Languages allows English speakers to learn Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, Italian, Greek, Russian and Mandarin Chinese. Spanish speakers can use Mango Language to learn English.

To use Mango Languages from a library computer, you simply click the link; from a computer outside the library system, you’ll just log into the Mango site with your SPL card number. Select a language from the drop down menu and the narrator will lead you through the lesson.

Obviously learning through a computer program isn’t going to turn you into a fluent speaker with such a precise tongue that even native speakers are fooled, but it is a good way to get a taste of the basics of a new language, scrape some of the rust off of an old language, or just improve your vocabulary as a whole. Try as many different languages as you want until you find the language or languages that appeal to you and then take advanced courses or just be a diletantte about it all and pepper random foreign phrases into your daily speech for fun.

For other fun offerings, be sure to check out the SPL website.

On April 8th, United Way of King County will be hosting its Community Resource Exchange at Qwest Field Plaza. This one day event provides direct service to King County’s homeless and their families. Previously, over 1,000 guests have received hot meals and had immediate access to housing referrals, health services, legal assistance, employment counseling, and public benefits.

With the local economy continuing to slide, these services are becoming more vital as more people require assistance. For example, currently there are 3-4 month wait lists at women’s transitional housing throughout the Seattle region, and these lists are 200-300 long, each person hoping for a chance at the one or two rooms slated to be vacant.

Community involvement for this event is highly encouraged. There are two ways people can contribute to the event: by organizing a supply drive and/or volunteering at the event.

People can host supply drives at their schools, churches, service organizations or community groups. United Way’s goal is to create 1,500 care packages with the following items: new socks and underwear, toiletries, blankets & backpacks.

Volunteers at the event work directly with the guests – checking them in and out, assisting them in locating services, translating, and making sure they have a positive experience. It’s a great experience for the volunteers and a big help for those experiencing homelessness in King County.

United Way’s website is here and contains links for people to sign up. If you have any questions, contact cre@uwkc.org.

In order to gather and provide a better representation of Metro’s routes during adverse weather, Metro has teamed up with KCNews to use Twitter and blogging in an attempt to let passengers know if/when their bus is running, and to find out from passengers what is really going on out there. All I have to say is: it’s about freaking time.

Twitter KCNews
KCNews blog

Washington recently scored a C on its focus on math, science, and engineering, and also scored a C on its ability to prepare students for college, work, and life, according to the Citizens’ Report Card from the League of Education Voters Foundation. There are many key factors that contributed to this issue. It’s time to propose solutions. State teachers are joining together with teachers from all over the nation to discuss utilizing technology to close the gap, to increase the state’s grade, to help students in the future.

(press release after the jump)
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Arboreality recently compared base grocery prices for 22 items at 3 stores: Madison Market, QFC on Broadway, and Whole Foods on Denny Way (neighboring Capitol Hill), then compiled a list. The store with the lowest base price? Whole Foods, followed by Madison Market. QFC had the highest prices without sale or club card. Granted, these products are brand name, organic items, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the numbers came back in a similar order even if you bought store brand, non-organic (if offered) items.

This experiment casts a bit of doubt on the idea that Whole Foods = Whole Paycheck, though I suppose if you were comparing Whole Foods to Grocery Outlet, G.O. would win. There is also the idea that buying groceries at Whole Foods/PCC/Madison Market causes people to spend much more than they have to, but there are ways around that. My husband and I implemented a limited grocery budget while we shuffle extra money into savings and though that restricts impulse buys (which aren’t an issue for us most of the time), we’re still able to shop primarily at Madison Market.

It would be interesting to include prices of food staples of other grocery stores, such as Trader Joe’s, Safeway, and Pike Place Market.

A few days ago, Nicole Brodeur from the Seattle Times wrote an article about an increase in a certain type of woman ending up homeless: educated and recently very well-off financially. She depicts Jamee, an everyday woman, as a model for what the shelters and long-term housing facilities are starting to see. I currently volunteer at Jubilee‘s front desk for a few hours a week answering the phones. On these calls, I provide information for women, their family, friends, coworkers or concerned individuals who are seeking assistance with not only their housing situation, but also in finding food banks, clothing (Jubilee runs a clothing boutique not only for their residents, but for all homeless women), energy or rent assistance, and other essentials. I’ve only volunteered at Jubilee since this summer, but I’ve noticed an increase in people who are struggling to get by with the basics, those right on the edge. I can only imagine how many others there are who haven’t yet been able to call for help who are right on the precipice of losing everything.

The worst part of this article, in my opinion, are the comments left by judgmental, bitter people. The assumptions regarding all homeless men and women are sad and indicative of the stereotypes that are perpetuated about the type of people that end up on the streets. Sure, there are the drug addicts, the people who would rather take a government handout then work their way back into self-sufficiency, but that’s just a small percentage of the population. The women I see who come through Jubilee have the most amazing stories of how they ended up needing help. These stories include situations of domestic violence, company layoffs, middle-of-the-night escapes with $20 in a pocket and no where to go. They are thankful for the services Jubilee provides, and most of them move back to being fully productive members of society after their stay.

We need more places like Jubilee. Jubilee isn’t a shelter in the traditional sense. This non-profit provides a room for 1-2 years along with weekly meetings with a care manager, computer training, and a guide to becoming self-sufficient. 70% of the women who come to Jubilee end up supporting themselves when they leave, without ending up back on the streets.

Resource: 211.

Sacramento has started sending out utility bills with either a smiley face or a frowny face to a random selection of customers to encourage energy conservation. The results: a 2% decrease in energy usage since the practice started. Initially the practice included a scale of 2 smiley faces in recognition of greater energy conservation in comparison to one’s neighbors, a single smiley for good energy conservation, and a frowny in the event that one used a substantial amount more energy than the neighbors. After complaints regarding the frowny faces, the utility company dropped frowny faces and only uses smileys now.

The approach has now been picked up by utilities in 10 major metropolitan areas eager to reap rewards through increased efficiencies, including Chicago and Seattle, according to Positive Energy, the software company that conceived of the reports and contracts to produce them. Following Sacramento’s lead, they award smiley faces only. (source)

So when will we expect to see smiley faces? Apparently we already are.

“This is the next wave,” Todd Stames, a residential energy efficiency manager with Puget Sound Energy, told the Times. The company stared a pilot program in suburban Seattle with 40,000 customers in September. (source)

I’m sad though, apparently Seattle City Light has not picked up the practice. Our latest electric bill was for $60 (Nov through Jan) so I suspect we could have earned two smiley faces. Fooey. Anyone seeing this on their bills yet? Have a picture? Please share.

Like many people, I spent MLK Jr Day working, as I have for many, many years. A national day of service is a nice idea, but employers tend to think of MLK Jr Day as “Monday.” Maybe the idea will take off over the next four to eight years, and everyone will get the day off (paid, please!), but for now a quick search at www.usaservice.org produces a list of inauguration parties– no community service or volunteer projects.

Various studies (by the UN & Johns Hopkins U, among others) have estimated that volunteer work contributes about 5% to a country’s GDP (although GDP studies don’t usually include volunteer and other unpaid work, such as home-keeping and child-rearing, in their measurements. I’ve read studies that estimate the total contribution of unpaid work to GDP as high as 30%). When President Elect Obama and his team talk about volunteer work, or service, as a vital contribution to the nation’s economy, they aren’t kidding.

Seattle has as many programs that could use some free labor as any other city. Google “volunteer” and “seattle”—I got over 3 million hits. That’s a lot of volunteer opportunities! Concerned about the city budget crunch and how it will affect your quality of life? Schools? Parks and recreation facilities? Help close the gap. Let me tell you how!

The city of Seattle has it’s own page of volunteer opportunities, from “Adopt-A-Drain” to the Youth Tutoring Program. Turns out SPL could use both adult and teen volunteers… Hmmm. I think I’m going to have to put my time where my mouth is.
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Do you have kids? If so, you probably have little time for volunteering, and less energy, but Seattle Public Schools could still use your help. Well, when SPS say “help” they mean, “please, we desperately need tutors and mentors!” If you are comfortable with kids and enjoy teaching in a small group or one-on-one setting, this might be your thing.
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Seattle Art Museum is looking for people who are passionate about art and can make a six-month commitment. I know people who’ve never had a romantic relationship that lasted six-months, but if you are not commitment-phobic, and get all intense and starry-eyed about art, inquire. I bet you get free passes to exhibits and stuff, too.
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The Seattle Community Network maintains a list of organizations seeking volunteers. Work with Queer youth, teach kids chess, Adopt a Grandparent…
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