Search Results for "feed"
Emergency Food Network receives $15,000 from Harlequin Books
Posted on January 31, 2012
After more than 111,000 online votes and 7,800 Facebook shares, the 2012 recipients of the eighth annual Harlequin More Than Words award are Mindy Atwood of Hilliard, Ohio, who runs Patches of Light, a nonprofit organization where anonymous angels pay the rent for parents of desperately ill children; Helen McGovern of Tacoma, Washington, who oversees Emergency Food Network, which distributes food to 67 food banks, meal sites and shelters, including those with health restrictions; and Sally Spencer of Toronto, Ontario, who manages a mentoring program that rescues at-risk children.
Lakewood Community Collaboration - health department survey seeks feedback on efforts
Posted on January 30, 2012Admittedly, it was nice to get power back this week. Every time we experience a loss of sorts, it provides an opportuniy to reflect on the fortunate aspects of our lives. I spent part of this week working to relocate a gentleman who lost everything in a house fire last weekend. Through a grant human services secured, assistance the City provides through human services funding to help support the Tillicum/American Lake Gardens Community Center, and case management services and support provided by LASA, this man has been provided with relocation assistance, replacement of much needed items, and he has hope. While he'll never recover all the things he lost in the fire - he has an attitude of gratitute and a heart filled with hope. It's an amazing and encouraging story that supports so much of what we all do. Pictures like this truly put a loss of lights into perspective!
Chili feed will raise money to honor returning single soldiers from war
Posted on January 25, 2012Doing something about the high number of suicides among young soldiers and airmen, the local chapter of the Association of the United States Army is spreading the love the moment single service members return home to base. AUSA provides welcome home baskets in the rooms of each returning single soldier and airman to Joint Base Lewis McChord. Prior to this program, it was common for returning warriors to spend their first night back from war in an empty barracks room without their possessions (because they travel in a different shipment), devoid of even sheets and a shower curtain. Typically, only those married soldiers and airmen with families living here are greeted by loved ones after stepping off the airplanes back in the South Sound. Our single troops' families usually don't travel for this homecoming because arrival dates are too last minute to coordinate flights. It is also too expensive for some families to travel here. Finally, these troops often arrive after duty hours, so food services are closed down on the base.
Steilacoom’s weekly update, Jan. 23
Posted on January 22, 2012The last week saw a significant winter storm impact the Northwest in general including Steilacoom. Crews spent the week preparing for and reacting to emerging situations. The highlights include:
Street Restrictions:
- As of Friday morning, Steilacoom Boulevard through the tunnel of trees is closed due to low hanging branches and falling debris.
- Balch Street between Rainier Street and Lafayette Street is also closed due to icy conditions.
Lakewood Community Collaboration seeks input from members
Posted on January 16, 2012By Kim Dodds, Human Services Coordinator, City of Lakewood
Dear Collaboration Members:
I participate in a coalition facilitator learning group convened by the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department. The Health Department has offered, and I would like us to participate in, a survey monkey questionnaire that will help evaluate the strengths of our Collaboration, and where we can make improvements. The survey will also ask one question about what if any value the Health Department adds to our Collaboration. The results of this survey will: Read More→
Emergency Food Network Meets the Need in 2011, A Challenging Year For County’s Hungry
Posted on January 10, 2012At the end of year, Emergency Food Network (EFN) Director Helen McGovern looked at EFN’s food distribution numbers and was able to quantify the state of the emergency food system in 2011. Our emergency food system had surpassed its 2010 total by more than 2 million pounds. For all of 2011, area food programs had distributed 19,396,885 pounds of food. That translates to 15,517,664 meals, more than 1 million more meals than the prior year. Emergency Food Network provides 80% of Pierce County’s emergency food.
The demand continues to increase, and EFN continues to keep pace with the demand. “We are ending the year at EFN with hope, as we faced the largest challenges we have encountered in the near 30 years of Emergency Food Network,” says McGovern.
Area food programs see an average of 147,000 visitors each month. Demand for emergency food in our community increased 43% from 2008 to 2010, and then grew an additional 6% this year. Total visits to food banks, meal sites and shelters topped 1,285,000 visits, an increase of 74,000 over 2010.
A New Year with New Programs from SBA
Posted on January 9, 2012By Calvin Goings, SBA Regional Administrator
Every January, Americans look ahead with the desire to start the New Year with fresh ideas and hopes to improve. The U. S. Small Business Administration is doing the same thing - regularly meeting with lenders and resources partners to get feedback on ways to improve our loan programs and services. And, this past year, the SBA engaged over 150 community lenders in all 50 states to provide comments on ways that the SBA’s CAPLines Program could work more effectively for both SBA lenders and small businesses, as this program has been underutilized.
SBA-backed Competition Yields Cash Prizes for Winners, Seven New Tools
Posted on December 22, 2011New Mobile Applications Offer Vital Information and Resources for Small Business Owners, Entrepreneurs
A new electronic application that quickly and efficiently finds loans, grants, and other useful small business resources, and its developer Somesh Kumar of Freemont, Calif., won first prize and $5,000 in a nationwide competition sponsored by the U.S. Small Business Administration. The competition and resulting seven “apps” are meant to put new and useful web tools at the fingertips of growing entrepreneurs.
Lakewood City Manager update to council, Dec. 12
Posted on December 11, 2011- 2nd Annual Fallen Officers Food Drive Update: Lakewood Police Department kicked off its 2nd Annual Fallen Officers Food Drive to benefit the Emergency Food Network (EFN) on November 29th. There was an outpouring of support from the community, with the drive collecting generous donations of $39,252 and 38,999 pounds of food during the one-week event.
Read More→
Obituaries
Posted onMarie Jean (Kerr) Brown Marie was born and raised in Tacoma, WA and resided in Kitsap County with her family. She passed away suddenly in San Diego, CA on Dec. 6, 2011 after a brief battle with cancer. Marie was a youthful, energetic, beautiful 59-year old woman. She was a faithful servant to God and radiated her love of him to others. Marie's passions were spending time with family and friends, traveling, and spoiling her two grandchildren. She is survived by her husband Steven G. Brown, and her four children, Natalie, Michelle, Troy, and John, along with her extended family members and many friends. Her smiles and gentleness will always be missed. Services will be held at 2:00 TODAY, Saturday, Dec. 10, 2011, in the Mountain View Valley Chapel, followed by a reception at Charles Wright Academy in University Place. Arrangements by Mountain View Funeral Home. (253) 584-0252. Please sign the online guestbook at www.mountainviewtacoma.com.
2nd Annual Fallen Officers Food Drive Update
Posted on November 30, 2011We’re off to a great start on the 2nd Annual Fallen Officers Food Drive! On the first day, we received 26,000 POUNDS of food and $21,600 in cash donations!! We’re on pace to reach or surpass our goal of 50,000 pounds of food and $50,000 in cash.
We really appreciate all the help we’ve received from the media in getting the word out on our Food Drive this year. It would not be a success without your help! Everyone did a fantastic job of covering our event yesterday and we received lots of positive feedback on the coverage.
High Speed Rail part 2 of 3
Posted on November 21, 2011By David Anderson
This just in:
Before part two of the train series that follows, a special request to help again with the porch rebuild project at Tillicum Manor, Saturday, Nov.19, 9-3 p.m. Contact Chelsea Muller, Program Director, Rebuilding Together South Sound, 253-238-0977; cmuller@rebuildingtogetherss.org .
This is part two of a three part series on the subject of High Speed Rail (HSR).
There are three questions this series seeks to address:
1. Separation - How acceptably does HSR alleviate concerns of safety – trains vs. pedestrians, and trains vs. traffic? Part 1 was posted November 14, 2011 in Lakewood Patch.
2. Motivation - How accurately does HSR present its information? In other words, is there information that HSR makes available for public consumption, while pursuing an under-the-radar purpose revealing an ulterior motivation?
3. Transportation - How affectively does HSR address the needs of transportation? Read More→
Tacoma Power advises customers to prepare for outages
Posted onWith windy and wet weather anticipated over the next few days, Tacoma Power recommends that customers prepare for possible outages.
One of the first and easiest actions to take is to put together an outage kit that includes the following items: Read More→
Moon Rise Café serves up a special day for EFN
Posted onLakewood -- Tucked away in the Lakewood Town Center, the Moon Rise Café doesn't necessarily stand out, except in the ways that are important: good food, good service, good prices, and good hearts.
Restaurant owner Christine Curren believes in supporting local charities, but rather than hosting "takeovers" that offer a percentage of profits, or giving out coupons, Moonrise allows customers to "Pay it Forward." All of it. As in, every so often, food at the café is free for the entire day and diners can choose to contribute whatever they want or are able to contribute to the charity featured that day.
Neary-Sighted - The Departure Column: A Few Words on Retiring from the Council
Posted on November 17, 2011By Walter Neary
I started my blog desperate for exchanging information about Lakewood. I began this blog many months before the start of The Suburban Times and years before the start of Lakewood Patch. With their appearance, and of course continued coverage by The News Tribune, a lot of the reason for my blog went away. The good news about the situation is there's more ways than ever before, even if those ways are not in newsprint, to talk about Lakewood.
Of course in the past few years I've updated the blog, often about major issues, but this summer was not the time to do so. My day job became the most intense it's ever been, thanks to my employer's wonderful and extensive program to bring Internet and technology to the poor. There's no sign this workload will diminish, which is good because I love the work. As you can imagine, this increased intensity had something to do with my decision not to run for re-election.
Speaking of that decision, a sure sign my poor blog here got pushed to the side is that I never updated it with my departure column for the city council. That's embarrassing! This column was published in August in Connections, the city newsletter. This column belongs on this blog as well, and so I share it here:
This is the final year of my second term on the Lakewood City Council, so if you read only this one sentence, please accept my deepest thanks for the honor of serving you these eight years.
If you read this second sentence - and time is so precious, isn’t it? - let me thank you for reading this newsletter. Not everyone does.
So now, here on the fourth sentence, I know that whoever you are, you care enough to read the newsletter articles and not just the headlines. That makes you special because you clearly care about Lakewood. So let’s talk.
These past eight years have seen a lot of action. We started our own police department, which has reduced crime throughout our city. We shared Nov. 29, 2009, the day four of our officers were murdered. We’ve shared agreements and disagreements about parks, roads, sewers, businesses, and more. As I wrote in the Lakewood Journal in 1995 when we chose cityhood, we will never all agree on everything. But in our city we have a place to meet and discuss and share. That’s what cityhood is for.
So are the time and resources that we invest in the city worth it? Let me tell you how I measure success. If you remember my columns in the Lakewood Journal about my then-little children, this story has more meaning.
To help out my daughter and son-in-law, they’re living with Cindy and me. In this day, and age, the two of them have done something remarkable. They have jobs within a mile of their home. JoAnna is the smiling face who greets you as you enter Barnes and Noble. David works at Cartridge World. The two of them have something in the marriage that Cindy and I never enjoyed; they work within a couple minutes’ walk of each other.
Yesterday, they pre-qualified for a mortgage. These smart young’uns could live anywhere in the Puget Sound area. Where do they want to live?
Lakewood.
They like this place. Lakewood is a place to raise a family. That’s success.
So now you’ve read 29, nearly 30, sentences. You’re the person I ran to represent; the person I tried my best, sometimes well and sometimes badly, to serve. In front of you special people, I have a tear in my eye. Thank you for the honor of representing you on the Lakewood City Council.
Groundbreaking for new health sciences facility at Clover Park Technical College
Posted on November 15, 2011By Shawn Jennison, Director of College Relations, Communications & Marketing, Clover Park Technical College
The ceremonial gold shovels will dig on Wednesday at 2 p.m. as Clover Park Technical College celebrates the groundbreaking of its new health sciences facility located at the center of campus.
Highlights of the ceremony include remarks from President Walstrum, Senator Derek Kilmer, Chair of the Senate Capital Budget Committee, Veronica Marohn, Aide to Governor Gregoire, Charlie Earl, Executive Director of the State Board for Community and Technical Colleges, and Matt Lane, Principal at McGranahan Architects.
Read More→
Pierce County Empty Bowls events to raise funds for Emergency Food Network
Posted on November 14, 2011
With a new location and the addition of a three-dimensional “Vessels” art show, Emergency Food Network expects that two art-focused events will bring an infusion of revenue to help feed hungry people in Pierce County. Traditionally a one-day event, this year marks the first year that organizers at EFN have added the art show. “Vessels” will focus on works from regional artists which will be judged and auctioned the evening before Empty Bowls. Tickets are $25 and light hors d’ouevres will be served. The event will be held at Charles Wright Academy in the Performing Arts Center.
