The White Center Healthy Food Gift Certificate Program kicked off today in a big way! What we purposely didn’t mention in our press release was the creative way we planned on getting food bank clients to the markets. Sean Healy, a White Center CDA Community Building Resident Fellow, is also employed as a school bus driver and was able to donate his time to drive White Center Food Bank clients from the food bank to Samway Supermarket and Lee’s Produce, then back to the food bank. We were on hand to take photos of this great program in action:

Bus driver Sean Healy drove food bank clients safely from each location. Half of the clients shopped at Samway while the other shopped at Lee's. All the clients got an opportunity to shop at both produce markets.

White Center CDA Neighborhood Revitalization Director Patty Julio, left, speaks with White Center Food Bank Executive Director Rick Jump outside of Samway while residents shop for their food.

Samway Store Manager Billy Yin greeted each customer with flair. He was even seen giving customer free produce such as corn.

Each food bank client received this $5 gift certificate to be used for only healthy foods such as fruits and vegetables.

Mrs. Nasatka, owner of Lee's Produce, speaks with a customer. At one point, there were 20-25 customers jammed into the produce section. "I can handle 100 of them," exclaimed Nasatka.

Lee's Produce placed a couple of these nice thank you signs throughout their market. Lee's also offered food bank clients 1 free package of strawberries to go with their gift certificate. The affordable prices from both supermarkets allowed many clients to come away with much as 2 heavy bags of produce.

White Center CDA Community Building Resident Fellow Awet Ghebreyohannes helps a client with a heavy bag of produce while heading back to the bus. You'd be surprised to see what you can get out of that gift certificate!

The bus circled back around to pick up the rest of the shoppers at Samway to head back to the food bank.

White Center CDA staff briefly celebrated this great event in front of Samway. From L to R: Patty Julio, Neighborhood Revitalization Program Manager Nhan Nguyen, Awet Ghebreyohannes, and Community Building Director Virgil Domaoan.

Thank you to everyone involved, and thank you to the White Center Food Bank! For more information on how you can donate to this program, please contact the White Center Food Bank by clicking here.

Photos courtesy of Ian Dapiaoen for the White Center CDA. Photos are property of the CDA and are not to be used in any other way.

The White Center Food Bank, in partnership with the White Center Community Development Association, along with Lee’s Produce and Samway Market, is pleased to announce implementation of the White Center Healthy Food Gift Certificate Program. This unique program will provide $5.00 gift certificates to food bank customers that will allow them to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables through local produce vendors.

“Food bank customers often lack adequate access to fresh fruits and vegetables because of their high cost. As a result, low-income people frequently have higher rates of a variety of diet related health problems such as type 2-diabetes, high blood pressure, cancer, heart disease and stroke,” said Rick Jump, Executive Director of the White Center Food Bank.

“We’re excited to work with the White Center Food Bank to also support our two goals with our Fresh Marketplace Initiative: to increase access to healthy food options locally for residents as well support the economic development of our small businesses in White Center,” said Aileen Balahadia, Executive Director of the White Center Community Development Association.

Samway Market and Lee’s Produce were selected to participate in this pilot program because they specialize in produce that suits immigrants’ desires for traditional fruits and vegetables which are not always readily available in local supermarkets. The White Center Food Bank currently provides food for approximately 1,500 families each month, many of them immigrants and refugees.

This pilot project is funded by the WCFB and donations to sustain it would be greatly appreciated. To make a donation online or for more information about the White Center Food Bank’s many programs visit www.whitecenterfoodbank.org or contact Rick Jump at (206) 762-2848. Donations may also be mailed to WCFB, 10829 8th Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98146.

This program will be launched on May 6, 2010 at 10:00am at Samway Market located at 9811 15th Ave SW and at 10:30am at Lee’s Produce located at 9435 Delridge Way SW.

From the HSD website. Stay tuned to the CDA blog on how you can be involved in this community process, and educate yourselves and others on how the budget cuts will affect your family, your neighbors and your community!

Highline Public Schools will be forced to cut its budget for the 2010-11 school year due to a second consecutive year of declining state revenues. The district has already cut $10 million from programs and operations over the past two years, including an $8 million reduction to the current year budget.

The state legislature is still in session working on a plan to fill the budget gap for next fiscal year. Until lawmakers adjourn, the precise impact to Highline’s 2010-11 budget will not be known. However, based on the latest information available, it looks like Highline will have to cut more than $4.5 million in programs, services, and staff.

Over the past several weeks, the school board and school district leaders have developed funding priorities that will help staff identify areas to cut and areas to preserve. The school board has identified three guiding principles:

Support bold and innovative action to improve student achievement;

Align district initiatives with new federal mandates and guidelines while maintaining the district vision of college and career readiness for all students;

Ensure that equity drives practices and policies, leading to increased achievement for students from all backgrounds.

Superintendent Welch is compiling a list of potential cuts with the help of principals and other administrators. As he did last year, the superintendent will name a number of administrative cuts in an effort to reduce the impact on teachers and students in the classroom.

Parents, community members, and students will have an opportunity to prioritize additional budget cuts at two community budget forums. The forums are scheduled for:

Saturday, May 1, 9:00 a.m. Hazel Valley Elementary School
Tuesday, May 4, 6:00 p.m. Mount Rainier High School

In addition, budget cut options will be posted on the district website, and the public will be invited to give their input online at www.hsd401.org.

The superintendent will present a budget recommendation to the school board at its May 26 meeting. A public hearing will be held June 23, and final adoption by the school board is scheduled for August 11.

Photo courtesy of Sarah Weir, CDA Staff

The Office of the Education Ombudsman (OEO) is now offering Ombudsman Clinics at community sites for families of students in public schools who have questions about the education system, or are experiencing concerns about their children’s education.  Our first clinic was held at the Greenbridge YWCA in partnership with the King County Housing Authority.

After introducing OEO at a community meeting of Somali, Cambodian and Vietnamese residents, a group of Somali families requested an Ombudsman Clinic to express their concerns about their children’s  education.

During the two-hour clinic, one topic was identified as an area of concern for the families, and two parents offered to serve as spokespeople for the group in sharing their concerns with the school district.

The ombudsman later contacted the school district to share the nature of the families concerns and to schedule a meeting for the Somali parents, the school district and the ombudsman to discuss solutions.

The Ombudsman facilitated a successful follow-up meeting with school district personnel and two of the families. They were able to express their concerns, and the district immediately responded by offering several solutions.  A follow-up meeting with all the families is planned so that the families who attended the small meeting can share what progress has been made.

OEO will continue to meet with a variety of community groups and plans to offer Clinics for several of them over the next few months. For more information about the Ombudsman Clinics, click here.  If you are interested in scheduling a community group to meet with an Ombudsman for a Clinic, please contact Cathy Liu Scott at cathyliu.scott@gov.wa.gov.

“The Ways of the Owls” by Manoush Castaneda-Vizcarra
Book Reading & Signing
Thursday, April 1, 2010

2:30pm-3:30pm

Evergreen Campus Library
830 SW 116th St. Seattle 98146

Manoush Genet Castaneda-Vizcarra completed “The Ways of the Owls” at age fourteen and is working on her next novel. She is a student at the Health Sciences & Human Services High School (HS3) on the Evergreen Campus.

“Manoush Castaneda deftly conjures a powerful story vividly told, The Ways of the Owls deals with profound issues of gender oppression and personal freedom that draws the reader into the lives of the young Mexican girl Maximiana and those around her. Maximiana- her strength, courage, and life in Mexico a century ago - will inspire you.” - JOHN GRIFFITH, Associate Professor of English University of Washington

Books for purchase will be available at the event. This event is free of charge and open to the public.

Hosted by Community Schools Collaboration & Evergreen Campus Library

Burien, WA - Four Highline schools will be recognized with the 2009 Washington Achievement Award.  The Award celebrates the state’s top-performing schools and recognizes achievement in several categories: language arts, math, science, gifted education, graduation rate, and overall excellence.

The four Highline schools to receive the award are:

Aviation High School - Science, Overall Excellence

Academy of Citizenship and Empowerment (ACE) - Language Arts

Health Sciences and Human Services High School (HS3) - Language Arts

Marvista Elementary - Science

The Washington Achievement Award was created by the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the State Board of Education. This highly selective award is based on schools’ performance according to the newly created School Accountability Index, a comprehensive measurement of how schools in Washington are performing over time. Schools are selected for the award based on their state assessment data for the previous three years.

“The selection process for the Washington Achievement Award is very rigorous, and your staff, students, parents, and community can take real pride in being part of this elite group,” says State Superintendent Randy Dorn.

“These awards show the progress we are making in student achievement,” says Highline Superintendent John Welch. “We have seen that when we raise the bar and hold students to high expectations, they meet and even exceed them.”

The award-winning schools will be recognized at a state awards ceremony in Renton on May 5.

School Board Develops Equity Policy
Monday, March 15, 2010 10:36:05 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)

The Highline School Board is developing a district policy aimed at ensuring equity for students of all races and ethnicities in Highline schools. As part of this work, the board and staff are participating in a series of work/study sessions facilitated by Martin Friedman of the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, a national anti-racist training organization.

The school board decided to start work on an equity policy after board members and the superintendent’s senior leadership team participated in an Undoing Institutional Racism training presented by the People’s Institute.

Teachers and principals were represented at the last school board work/study session on March 8, in which participants viewed and discussed a video examining the roots of racism in our nation.

Through these sessions the school board intends to identify inequity in our school system and establish policy to correct practices that lead to equity.

Community members are invited to attend the next session on April 12, at 6:00 p.m. at the school district central office (15675 Ambaum Blvd. SW in Burien.)

Source: Highline Public Schools website

As of Friday, April 16, 2010, over 500 volunteers have signed up. We’re looking forward to a people-powered event at which last year, we painted one block-long mural previously plagued with graffiti, cleaned and painted art on 21 trash cans for the business district, removed invasive plant species at six parks, and hauled away two tons of garbage. Volunteers covered 70 neighborhood blocks, picking up litter and completing 19 individual beautification projects developed by local residents and groups.

This year, besides a complementary BBQ/burger lunch at the KCHA’s Greenbridge Plaza, you and your family will be treated to a host of family-oriented events:

1. Entertainment by the Suns and Stars Dance Troupe & Drumline Company.
2. Learn how to make spring rolls with Chef Nicki Nguyen (Banh 88 Restaurant) and buy ingredients from WC’s produce markets!
3. Participate in “pancake flipping race” - an old-time tradition in White Center: http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=8616
4. Swim for free at the Evergreen Swimming Pool from 3pm-5pm.
5. Buy delicious ice cream at discount from Full Tilt Ice Cream’s bicycles
6. 10% discount at DubSea coffee for volunteers
7. We will award the Clean & Safe award to a dedicated White Center resident/business/etc.

Registration for this event is now closed. For questions, please contact Nhan Nguyen, Neighborhood Revitalization Program Manager at (206) 694-1082 or at whitecenterspringclean@gmail.com.

Click on “Read the rest of this entry” below for more information about the White Center Spring Clean!

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