HEALTHY SCHOOLS GRANT APPLICATIONS OPEN
Health and academic success go hand in hand. And since 2010, schools and school districts in Pierce County that seek to improve the health climate for their students can get help making this connection with a Healthy Schools Grant from Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department.
The Health Department will award up to $5,000 per year to schools and up to $10,000 per year for districts. All Pierce County schools and districts are eligible to apply. Multiple schools from the same school district may apply, but each school must submit a separate application. Applications are available at http://www.tpchd.org/healthyschools; the deadline to apply is Friday, April 10, at 4 p.m.
“Schools play a critical role in promoting the health and safety of students and helping them to establish lifelong healthy behaviors,” said Frank DiBiase, Environmental Health division director. “We’re making the Healthy Schools Grants available to help Pierce County educators advance this mission.”
The grant program is especially focused on promoting increases in physical activity, improved nutrition and preventing tobacco use because studies show these are some of the most critical areas of concern for school-aged youth.
According to the 2012 Washington State Healthy Youth Survey, 27 percent of Pierce County 12th-graders were overweight or obese. The same survey indicated that 15 to 17 percent of 12th-graders had used candy-flavored tobacco products, cigarettes or hookah pipes. And preliminary results from the 2014 Healthy Youth Survey show an alarming increase in adolescent use of electronic cigarettes.
Direct questions about the Health Schools Grant Program to Linda Graves, health promotion coordinator, at lgraves@tpchd.org or (253) 798-3817.
GO2 PROPERTY SERVICES STARTS WORK ON PLAYGROUND
Go2 Property Services, a full-service landscaping company operated by Goodwill, is starting site work this week on the new Lakewood Family YMCA’s playground that will service 8,000 children in the community.
Later this month, the outdoor nursery space and some parking adjacent to the YMCA will be transformed into a kid-designed play space in less than eight hours, thanks to 250 area residents, employees and volunteers from the YMCA of Pierce and Kitsap Counties, Disney, Club Penguin and KaBoom. Playground design is based upon children’s drawings incorporated into final design.
Go2 Property Services was developed by Goodwill as a non-profit revenue generator to help fuel their job training and placement programs throughout their 15 county region. Offering custodial services, carpet cleaning, full-service landscape work, maintenance, floor polishing, painting and general handyman work, the company now employs 48 people http://www.go2propertyservices.com/ (253) 627-7660. Revenue from the business, combined with a catering company and thrift store operations, generate free job training and job placement for more than 9,600 people per year. Goodwill’s Go2 Services has seen a 75 percent increase since last year in residential and commercial clientele throughout Pierce County.
BOARD OF HEALTH URGES TOUGHER E-CIG LAWS
Tacoma-Pierce County Board of Health passed a resolution urging the state legislature to pass tougher laws to regulate electronic cigarettes.
It was the second time in four years that the local public health agency has taken a leadership position on efforts to prevent youth access to tobacco products, e-cigarettes and related vapor products.
“Our Board of Health is taking a tough stance on alternative tobacco products and the harmful impact they have on the health of our youth,” said Director of Health Anthony L-T Chen, MD, MPH. “We urge the legislature to regulate and tax these products in a fashion consistent with other nicotine products,” Chen said.
The resolution states that the Board is prepared to adopt additional local regulations to prevent youth from accessing electronic cigarettes and related vapor products in Pierce County if state legislative action does not adequately protect the health of youth, according to Chen.
Currently, Washington state legislature is considering several bills that would:
Prohibit the sale of electronic cigarettes and related vapor products to minors.
Tax such products at levels similar to tobacco products.
Impose limits on the marketing, labeling and distribution of electronic cigarettes.
In 2011, the Board of Health became one of the first local health jurisdictions in the state of Washington to adopt regulations prohibiting the sale of e-cigarettes to minors and limiting the use of e-cigarettes in public places. Since then, the impact of e-cigarettes has worsened. A recent statewide report found that 8 percent of eighth-graders, 18 percent of 10th graders, and 23 percent of 12th graders had used e-cigarettes within 30 days of the survey. Locally, calls from residents to the Washington State Poison Control Center concerning e-cigarettes have increased 15-fold, from two in 2012 to 29 in 2014.
E-cigarettes are products that deliver a nicotine-containing aerosol (commonly called vapor) to users by heating a solution typically made of nicotine, unknown and potentially toxic chemicals, and flavoring agents. Nicotine is harmful to youth because it impacts normal brain development. However, e-cigarettes continue to be marketed in a variety of flavors meant to appeal to youth – such as chocolate and cotton candy.
FOSS WATERWAY DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY SEEKS VOLUNTEERS
The Foss Waterway Development Authority is seeking Volunteers to serve on its Urban Design Review Committee. This committee reviews development projects on the Thea Foss Waterway for compliance with the Foss Design & Development Plan, and acts as advisors to the FWDA Board.
Applicants must have expertise in one or more of the following disciplines: architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, planning, or development of a scale/type similar to existing Foss projects.
An application can be obtained from the FWDA’s website or by sending an e-mail to ldreyer@theafoss.com. Completed applications must be delivered to the FWDA office no later than 5:00 p.m. on Monday, March 16, 2015.
THREE DESIGN TEAMS WIN GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE CHALLENGE
On Thursday, March 5, three teams received top honors for their innovative visions in the first-ever “Tacoma Green Infrastructure Challenge.” During this sold-out finals event, held at the University of Washington-Tacoma, finalist teams presented to fellow competitors, spectators and a panel of judges consisting of local leaders in the field of sustainable development.
Capturing the award for green roadway design, for the City of Tacoma sponsored South Tacoma Way business district site, was the “Keep it Green” team from KPG. KPG is a local engineering firm in Tacoma known for sustainable Greenroad designs. This team also received the People’s Choice trophy for their Team 101 design board. Public voting was conducted online for a week and at the event, with over 900 votes received from around the country.
First place team for the design of an industrial redevelopment site, sponsored by the Port of Tacoma, was the ASCE Sustainability Committee. This team included members from Basalite, BergerABAM, Conestoga-Rovers & Associates, Jacobs, Paladino and Company, Ridolfi, and students from University of Washington and Colorado State University. A high bar was set by this team for water quality and sustainability for industrial sites with Envision.
Top honors in the urban redevelopment of the SERA Athletic Fields, the Metro Parks Tacoma sponsored site, went to Contour Engineering, Nature by Design and a student from St. Martin’s University. This team developed a clear strategy for integrating green infrastructure elements in a cohesive and cost-effective solution for the site.
The winning team in each of the three categories received a $5,000 cash prize and a trophy.
This was the first such competition in the Pacific Northwest. Similar competitions have been held in about a dozen other cities, but Tacoma’s desire for new ideas and innovation placed an emphasis on forming multi-disciplinary teams and integrating students from several universities.
This design competition was developed through a partnership between the City of Tacoma, Port of Tacoma, Metro Parks Tacoma, University of Washington Tacoma and the Center for Urban Waters. For more information, visit http://cityoftacoma.org/tgichallenge.
Look for highlights of these designs and the teams in the spring edition of Urban Green.
TCC STUDENTS TO OFFER FREE PB&J SANDWICHES
TCC’s student government is launching an initiative to give hungry students a bite to eat. “Food for Thought” provides the lunchtime basics for free during Finals Week, March 17-20.
“We’ll be handing out Ziploc bags with bread, peanut butter, jelly, and a plastic knife, so you can grab one and make it up yourself later,” said Associated Students of TCC (ASTCC) President Beau Jackson.
Jackson and the members of the PB&J Committee started working on the project this fall with the idea that having some basic food freely available on campus would make it easier for students struggling financially to focus on their work – maybe even make them less likely to drop out.
Jackson hopes the initiative will grow beyond a one-time event. He envisions a permanent staff position – perhaps a work-study student – devoted to passing out sandwiches in Buildings 7, 11 and 14.
The TCC Foundation is providing resources and staff time. Student and staff volunteers are pitching in. Community members or organizations wishing to support the effort should contact the TCC Foundation.
ASTCC has a history of supporting initiatives that help students save money and complete their programs. In 2011 ASTCC provided partial funding to develop Open Educational Resources (OER), free and low-cost materials to replace expensive textbooks in high enrollment classes. To date, the program has saved students more than $1 million. An event held in the Student Center March 10 at noon celebrates that milestone, along with Open Education Week.
SPRINGTIME MEANS FAMILY BINGO NIGHT
Its spring time and that means the sounds of family fun will be heard from miles around Chambers Creek Regional Park as Pierce County Parks & Recreation host the Annual Family Bingo Night on Friday, April 3 from 6:30-9 p.m. in University Place.
Doors will open at 6 p.m. Cost is $5/person (includes a packet of six bingo sheets). Pre-register by April 1st so you don’t miss out on the fun or take a chance and show up day of to register! Concessions will be onsite to fulfill your appetites. Doors will open at 6 p.m. Please bring a bingo dauber or crayon.
Take a peek at some of the prizes already donated by our outstanding sponsors:
Two cans of popcorn
Small luggage bag
Two VIP passes to any show at the Lakewood Play House
$25 Costco gift card
$25 Bath & Body Works gift card
Gift basket from Springleaf Financial
Three month family membership from the Lakewood YMCA
$25 Fred Meyer gift card
Coffee mug and coffee from Starbucks
Coffee mug and coffee from Blue Steele Coffee
Family fun pack at the Woodland Park Zoo
Three one-month taekwondo Lessons from Tiger Taekwondo in University Place
Skating passes from Sprinker Recreation Center
UPS HOSTS FREE SCI-FI, FANTASY CONFERENCE
Not so long ago the quiet junction where fans of science fiction and scholars of ancient classics came to meet was a lonely place. Some might go so far as to say it was a place “where no man has gone before.”
But in this 21st century of pioneering academics and pop culture aficionados that is changing fast. In recent years in Europe, conferences and papers about how Greek and Roman classics have played a role in popular authors’ visions of the future and the fantastic have been spreading at warp speed. And now in America, too, excitement about this overlooked pairing of interests is catching on.
University of Puget Sound is contributing to this nascent movement by hosting the international conference “The Once and Future Antiquity: Classical Traditions in Science Fiction and Fantasy.” The free event, running from Friday, March 27, to Sunday, March 29, may be the first major scholarly conference of its kind in the United States.
Keynote talks will be given by noted classics professor and author C.W. Marshall and popular speculative fiction author Catherynne Valente. In all there will be presentations from 21 scholars from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, and Belgium; a Saturday-night screening of the beloved science fiction classic “Forbidden Planet” (1956); and roundtable discussions.
Academics, science fiction and fantasy fans, and the general public are all welcome to attend. Details and registration are available at pugetsound.edu/onceandfuture. There is no fee to attend the conference, thanks to its generous sponsors. Those who plan to attend the Friday evening opening reception and Saturday lunch should register for the conference by Wednesday, March 18. Registration for other events is not required. A link to a campus map and contact information are below.
C.W. Marshall, professor of ancient performance traditions and Greek poetry at The University of British Columbia, will speak on “Classical Reception and the Half-Elf Cleric,” from 7–8:30 p.m., in the Tahoma Room, Commencement Hall. In addition to many important works on ancient performance, Marshall has produced articles and collections on classics and popular culture. These include “Cylons in America: Critical Studies in Battlestar Galactica” (2007, edited with Tiffany Potter), which won a Popular Culture Association Book Award; “Classics & Comics” (2011, edited with George Kovacs); and “Son of Classics and Comics” (forthcoming, edited with George Kovacs).
Catherynne Valente, the prize-winning author of speculative fiction works, will speak from 4–5:30 p.m., on Saturday, March 28, in the Tahoma Room, Commencement Hall, on the topic “Just Your Average Tuesday Morning Minotaur.” A Seattle native, she is the author of “The Labyrinth” (2004); “The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden” (2006), which won the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award; and “Palimpsest” (2009), which won the Lamba Literary Award and was nominated for the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo Award; and other works. She is also a regular panelist on the Hugo Award-winning podcast SF Squeecast.
Other sessions at the conference will explore topics including how J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Passage of the Marshes” (in “The Two Towers”) borrowed from Roman wars; reflections of Vergil’s “Aeneid” in the superhero Captain America; the figure of Atlas in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show;” and the sighting of ancient building bricks in “The Lego Movie.” Speakers and participants also will explore what it might mean to consider antiquity – its art, history, literature, philosophy, and material culture – through the lens of science fiction and fantasy.
The conference is organized by Brett M. Rogers, assistant professor of classics at University of Puget Sound; Benjamin Eldon Stevens, visiting assistant professor of classics at Bryn Mawr College; and Laura Zientek, classics instructor at University of Puget Sound.
The event seeks to build on recent work in the area, including conferences on classics and science fiction in Rouen, France (2012), and Liverpool, U.K. (2013). It also aims to extend the discussions arising from the published talks “Antiquity in the Contemporary Imagination,” edited by Mélanie Bost-Fievet and Sandra Porvini (2014), and the just-published collection of essays “Classical Traditions in Science Fiction,” edited by Rogers and Stevens.
The conference is sponsored by the Catharine Gould Chism Fund for the Humanities and the Arts; Puget Sound’s alumni magazine “Arches;” the Departments of Classics, Art and Art History, Communication Studies, English, History, Religion, and Theater Arts; and the Gender and Queer Studies Program, Honors Program, and Science, Technology, and Society Program.
COUNTY COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW
A draft policy document intended to guide growth in unincorporated Pierce County over the next 20 years is now available for the public to review. The updated Pierce County Comprehensive Plan fulfills a state legislative requirement that is due by June 30, 2015. Pierce County must review its existing growth policies and update them if they don’t meet new state and regional requirements that have been established since the plan was last updated.
Major issues addressed
A number of topics are addressed through this update. Issues that may be of interest to the general public include:
Establishing new Agricultural Resource Lands designation criteria
Siting of schools in the rural area
Identifying rural commercial areas
Options for Accessory Dwelling Units in the rural area
Establishing criteria for adjusting the Urban Growth Area and the identifying potential annexation areas
The draft document and supporting information can be found at http://piercecountywa.org/realize2030.
A new look
The draft Comprehensive Plan has been reformatted in a way that makes it easier for a reader to understand the County’s position on growth topics. These changes, along with the ability to present the plan electronically, are also designed to provide citizens – in areas of unincorporated Pierce County covered by individualized Community Plans – a way to have a document that puts all of the information relevant to their community in one place.
Be involved
The public is invited to review and comment on the Draft Plan update through the public comment form, e-mail or letter. The public also has the opportunity to attend open houses and public hearings that are scheduled through the end of June, 2015. As they are scheduled, the public can view the list of opportunities for participating in this process on the County’s website, http://piercecountywa.org/realize2030 and can also sign up on the webpage to follow the update process on Facebook and Twitter.