Empty Bowls 2014

Burien

2014 EMPTY BOWLS

Join us for a meal and help fight hunger in our community!

Friday, January 31^st

Lunch:   11am-2pm

Dinner: 4-8pm

Burien Community Center, 14700 6^th Ave SW

$15 minimum donation, $10 for children

Empty Bowls events can be found around the country raising money to combat hunger in our communities.  Moshier Art Center Potters have donated bowls to be filled with soup at this fun event...all are invited! Your donation will get you the opportunity to pick out a beautiful handmade bowl, as well as a simple but wonderful meal of soup, bread, dessert and drink; all donated by local businesses.

Proceeds go to Highline and White Center Food Banks. 

Event brought to you by Burien Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services and Discover Burien.

 

www.BurienParks.net

parksinfo@burienwa.gov

206-988-3700

Rob... Super Jock?

Well I ran walked sorta fast in the local Brat Trot. Didn't do as bad as I thought - came in 80th (out of 84 finishers) in the 1 mile race. And I had two dogs with me. Never go racing with dogs- they want to stop and smell the roses! (and then pee on them). Anyway it was all for charity (The Highline Schools Foundation) so I guess that is a Win-win.

BUSY WEEKEND- Marathons, dogs and water Oh My!

 Pretty busy weekend... on Saturday, we held our 2nd "Park & Bark", we (B-Town D.O.G.) are holding these monthly to show the need that we need an Off-Leash Dog Park in the city of Burien, so our four legged friends have some where to run and play! And on Sunday Yours truly volunteered to work a "watering station" for the annual Cove to Clover" Half marathon, 10K, 5K and "Wee Race". I think the dogs running was better, although my hats off to all those who chose to run in the C2C!

Some of the dogs and humans that came out to Park and Bark 

The cove to clover is a neat thing because so many charities benefit from it, including A.A.R.F. (Animal Aid and Rescue Foundation) the folks who let me adopt Buddy! And they where out in force as a running team

Here comes the Runners... Here is the water!!!

The TEAM AARF Running Team!

Farewell My Valiant!

Time to put away childish things. I bought my 1966 Plymouth Valiant sedan in/about 1996. I suppose I was trying to relive my teen years, when I drove a 1964 Plymouth Valiant. I rebuilt it somewhat to a nicer car than it was. Installed "new" seats, new headliner, trim and Fender skirts.  It was a lot of work and learning for me. Now today it just sits. So I donated it to Cars Helping Veterans. I could sell it, but I would rather an organization that could use it to do some good pick it up. So good bye old paint. It's been cool knowing and driving you!

Saying goodbye is never easy!

Either this was planned or the 70's were very good to me!

Imagine you are walking along a shopping district. Then all of a sudden this 6'2" Austrian woman starts yelling Ketch-up! Ketch Chup Chup Chup! and 50 Giant dancing Brats show up... Either the 70's have been good to you or It is a Flash Mob of dancing brats promoting the upcoming Brat Trot Charity 5K in Burien! Manuela Horn provided the singing, and I have no Idea who provided the dancing brats. Just a normal day in Burien, my fair city!

Video courtesy of the B-Town Blog

Empty Bowls 2011

Click on pic to make larger

Empty Bowls

OK Go Video raises Money for ASPCA

This just brings a smile to my day.
Thanks to Ikeahacker I had an afternoon with 4 guys with a lot of Fniss. Seriously, if Ikea could sing, it would probably sound like OK Go. But it's not just the tune, the music video is charming (you can't go wrong with cute dogs) and the song is White Knuckles. My favorite part is near the begining the two dogs on the tables that appear to be closely watching something overhead... just too funny. Proceeds from the video will go towards the ASPCA and doggie rescue. You can read more about OK Go's canine cause here.

Good Things Green Things

I was reading the Greenists last week, and they had had a guest post from Andi, the owner of Good Things Green Things. She was telling the story of Audri who was diagnosed with Embryonic Rhabdomyosarcoma a very aggressive form of soft tissue cancer, and it requires very aggressive treatment as well.

So that's where I got the cool little candles, some home made soap and a home made kitty toy for Sammy Kat. Hey Christmas is coming! Turns out that this month at Good Things Green Things, it’s all about Audri. September 1st through the 30th, they are donating 50% of candles sales and 25% of all other sales to Audri’s charity- www.ladybughugs.org. Once more the entire order came shipped in eco friendly packaging.

So do some early Christmas shopping and help out a kid. A Twofer. Now that's what I am talking about!

America's Grow A Row

Yesterday I talked about the annual Mail Handlers Food Drive. Well why change a good topic I always say. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1 in 8 households in the United States experiences hunger or the risk of hunger. Many frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for an entire day. Approximately 33 million people, including 13 million children, have substandard diets or must resort to seeking emergency food because they cannot always afford the food they need. The demand for hunger assistance has increased by 70% in recent years, and research shows that hundreds of hungry children and adults are turned away from food banks each year because of lack of resources.

America's Grow a Row matches volunteers to small farms to help pick vegetables that is then donated to food banks all over. But one way you can participate is dedicate a row/bed in your own garden. Last year, sustainable Burien started the community garden at the BIAS, which was for sense of a better word/phrase a Demonstration garden. All the produce grown there was donated to the local food bank. over 50 pounds. And consider we didn't even get the garden started until June! And that was just from 6 4' X 8' beds! This year I plan on one of my Kiddie Pool gardens to be designated for the food bank. So plant a row for the hungry in your area.

The Garden Writers Association Plant A Row or PAR Campaign was started in 1995 when the PAR began in Anchorage, AK, in the garden column of Jeff Lowenfels, former Garden Writers Association president. He asked his readers to Plant A Row of vegetables for Bean’s Cafe, an Anchorage soup kitchen. The program was so successful, he introduced it to GWA as a national program.
It took five years to reach the first million pounds of donated produce. The next million was reached in only 2 years, and in the next 8 years, more than a million pounds of food was donated each year. This is a significant contribution considering that each pound of produce supplements 4 meals.
Since 1995, over 14 million pounds of produce providing over 50 million meals have been donated by American gardeners. All this has been achieved without government subsidy or bureaucratic red tape — just people helping people.

Other sites featuring Plant A Row programs:

• America's Grow-A-Row
• Canada's Grow-A-Row
• GWA PAR Program
• Ample Harvest.org

Ample Harvest.org is a web site that helps match gardeners to food banks and pantries

Letter Carriers' Food Drive

This Saturday is the annual Letter Carrier's Food Drive it is so easy to participate

WHAT: Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive by the National Association of Letter Carriers

WHEN: Saturday, May 8th

WHERE: Leave bag(s) of non-perishable food items at your mailbox for pickup.

INFO: Suggested food item donations include canned meats, fish, soup, juice, vegetables, pasta, cereal and rice. Please do not include items that have expired or are in glass containers.

Place non-perishable* food products in a bag.

1. Leave at your mailbox on Saturday, May 8th.



2. Your letter carrier will pick up and deliver to local food banks or pantries.

The food banks experience a slow down in the non- holiday times of the year, and it is so important to help them out.

APRIL IS NATIONAL VOLUNTEER MONTH

Did you know April is recognized as National Volunteer Month?

Sherri Osborn, who writes the About.com Family Crafts blog has some great ideas on easy volunteering
Volunteer to go down to a local park and pick up litter. Even little kids can do this, not hard all you need is a garbage bag.

For more ideas on easy volunteer ideas for kids, check this post at "How Stuff Works" And just because April is about over, doesn't mean you can't go some nice things in May or the other 11 months in the year!

Empty bowls Filled, then empty again...Delicious!

The lunch bowl- great size for oatmeal in the morning

Well I took Mom up to the Empty Bowls event. I got a nice handmade bowl filled with Tortilla Soup. The soup was donated by local restaurants (mine came from the Mark restaurant) and cafeterias and all looked and smelled good. Mom had a Squash soup (came from the 909).Would have been perfection, and the event certainly was. And many were impressed with the real spoons (no plastic) and everything disposable was compostable. Paper napkins, paper coffee cups (yes I took muggsly but it seemed wrong to fill up my gargantuan mug. Anyway would have been totally perfect- But I wanted to walk from Mom's to the event- (It is simply across the field in the park next to Mom's building- but Mom wanted to drive as she wasn't all about walking an "uneven field" with her knee. "Uneven?" I said "That is an athletic field, trust me it's one of the most even surfaces in town.
Well I lost that argument. So we drove 4 blocks to the Community Art center. You pick your battles. Anyway I got a nice bowl. They even washed it after. But later in the day I got hungry- I was finally putting in the new light fixtures in the garage, and had on my Carhartt work coat. So i went in and cleaned up, put my work coat back on and went for the supper sitting and met up with some friends.

The Supper bowl- Hmmmm... Ice cream???

I got another great bowl, this time I chose Chicken Noodle Soup (from Kennedy High School). A tad salty for my taste- but then Chicken Noodle usually is. But very good. Good thing I wore my working coat- one of the gals working the event passing out the bread and cookies said You look like you are a working man and found me a good sized roll to eat with my soup! It pays to advertise! Anyway- Good day- I got light in my garage, filled up on soup, and was able to support the Highline area food bank and the local art community. Guess that's more than a two-fer. Sounds like a three-fer to me. I even got some work done on a couple of items that will appear on my etsy shop! Any way, it looked like they were on their way to a sell out. The local potters donated 1006 bowls. That should come out to $10,060 raised! 90% will go to the food bank and 10% goes to fund children's programs at the art center!

Whenever I attend an event like this, I am always reminded of one of my favorite T- Shirts- "It will be a great day when the schools and libraries have all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to build a bomber!" I love productive days!

2nd Blog-iversary Giveaway No 2- A Solar powered work lamp

Anyone who might follow this here blog knows I am a big supporter of alternative energy. In my world, President Obama's economic stimulus would go beyond finding alternative sources of energy and the economic stimulus would provide solar and wind power for all. Screw the fat cats on wall street and car makers in Detroit. Anyway, enough of my political ideology rambling, and on to the give-away- I will send the lucky winner their own little piece of Solar power, An IKEA "Sunnan" work lamp. And since IKEA does the following, it is a TWO-FER!!! (You know how Rob likes the TWO-FERS!):

"Now at IKEA stores worldwide, for every SUNNAN solar-powered lamp sold, one lamp will be given to UNICEF to light up the life of a child.

The first shipments of donated lights are destined for Pakistan, helping
children in camps for people who had to flee their homes, and remote villages in
Balochistan and the North West Frontier province. This unit will enable children
to play, read, write and study at night, even if their homes have no
electricity. Millions of children can’t draw, write or read after sunset,
limiting their horizons and possibly their futures. IKEA hopes our lamps are a
small but important contribution to improving the lives of children in
developing countries.

IKEA has made an especially sturdy SUNNAN for the
developing world, designed to resist the wear and tear of difficult living
situations, including a battery capable of withstanding high temperatures."

from the IKEA Website-Seattle Community and Enviorment page

So you win, a child in a developing country wins! To enter all you have to do is enter a comment, If you have a blogger account with email info- great! If not, please leave a way of contacting you (email addy) - Give-away ends at midnight PST on January 24th. Winner will be picked by Random Number Generator

Changing Cell Phones

Dude, your cell phone should be in the Smithsonian. That's usually what I hear from folks. "Specially the younger set. I have to admit not being to in tune with the latest electronical do-hickeys, in fact I would put myself just above Electronically Challenged. But it's not my fault- I was just raised under different ethics. I mean why buy a new cell phone (LOL Now instead of "buy" you "upgrade") when the old one works just fine? Maybe if I text messaged more than I do Okay. But now I am told you can get new phones that you can search the interweb thingy, and with all the app's you can use your phone for your TV Remote, a GPS, lojack your pet. Cool.
OK I need an upgrade to my cell phone. But what about my old cell phone? Where does it go from here?
Places to recycle your old cell phones*:
Cell Phones For Soldiers- Recycles your old cell phone (in working order) and gives it to a Soldier overseas to use to phone home; They have drop off points all over the place

Pets Smart Charities/Recycle for life: Recycles your old cell phones and printer cartridges and the money raised goes to Recycling For Pets- a program that recycles the waste out of phones (precious metals et. al.)and raises money for Homeless Pet Charities throughout the US. Mailers are available at all PetsSmart Stores. And here is a list of eligible cell phones and ink cartridges.

Other charities that want your old cell phones: Wireless Recycling, Collective good, Eco-Cell
*source- the Daily Green.com

now since I plan to stay with verizon, I have a choice where my old cell phone can go. And hopefully do some good.

Postal Workers Food Drive is Saturday

Just a quick reminder that the National Association of Letter Carriers is holding their annual food drive on Saturday, May 9th. It is so simple to donate a gift of canned food- Simply leave in a bag on your mail box. According to the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC), this is the nation’s largest one-day effort to stamp out hunger. Also all food donations remain local so the local food banks should do well this week. The postal union is seeking to exceed last year’s record 73.1 million pounds of food delivered to community food banks and pantries, and this is an easy way for people to donate.

And for you all involved with the Independence Days Challenge, a good opportunity to earn your "Build Community Food Systems" badge. So leave a bag with canned food for your postal worker to pick up!

I'm Toast- My new favorite thing

I was perusing the web and found a new fun thing... The Bread Art Project. The neat thing is after you visit the Workshops and make a bread art, upload it to the gallery and they will donate $1 for every piece of art uploaded and chosen for their gallery. Not since "Free Rice.com", have I had so much fun playing with my virtual food. Bread art is the brain child of the Grain Foods Foundation to help raise awareness to the hunger problem in the united states. Fun and artistic- get your Creative Freak on and make some toast.

Romeo is toast, too

Sammy wanted a toast portrait, too!