Community Cafe Bainbridge

In this 19-minute podcast conversation, two Bainbridge women who are parents of local public school students explain their confidence in the importance of public education on our island, and why they support the two levies on the February 14th ballot that provide more than one-fifth (22%) of our local school budget.

Erin Cyger and Anna Steen are two of the many volunteers serving in the Bainbridge Island Public Schools Supporters organization. They explain why they're voting "Yes" for each of the two levies that fund our local schools: the Educational Programs and Operations Levy and the Technology Levy.

They point out that the levies are not new taxes. Instead, "yes" votes for levies this month would replace two school revenue sources approved by local voters three years ago, and which are set to expire this year.

They distinguish this year's education levy from last year's school bond request that voters approved, by saying: "Bonds buy bricks; levies are for learning." And they urge that the levies provide essential funding to attract and retain excellent professional educators, in a state where the Supreme Court has ruled that the legislature has not fully met the State Constitutional mandate to adequately fund public K-12 education.

They describe the educational needs that would be funded by each of the levies, such as basic instructional programs, compensation and benefits for teachers, and technology for teachers and students.

They explain that we Bainbridge voters have received our ballots in the mail, and they urge local voters to submit their ballots not later than the February 14th (Valentines Day) deadline.

Credits: BCB host, audio editor and social media publisher: Barry Peters.

In this 18-minute community podcast for this holiday season of generosity, we meet a high school student leader, a City employee and a street ministry volunteer who have made it easy for you to donate dry, clean, warm socks to the nearby homeless folks who need them in this wintry weather.

Their "Boxes of Socks" donation program enables you to bring socks -- either new or freshly laundered -- to metal drop-off boxes that look like blue newspaper stands in numerous locations like:

• Bainbridge Island City Hall
• the Bainbridge ferry terminal
• Island Fitness, south of City Hall
• Wildernest, on Winslow Way
• Buckley & Buckley Real Estate, in Winslow Green, or
• Harley-Davidson in Silverdale

The idea was hatched during a recent conversation between the City's Communications Manager Kellie Stickney and Steve Rhoads.

As you'll hear on this podcast, Steve is a competitive cyclist and local volunteer for fundraising for good causes like Helpline House and Housing Resources Bainbridge. Steve has ministered to street people for the past four years, and knows their needs first hand as a formerly homeless person himself.

Joining our podcast conversation is Julia Gray, who is the student president of the Social Justice League of Bainbridge High School. She and her fellow students have focused their generosity this year on a series of activities for the homeless. For example, she and her fellow students have traveled to Compass House in Seattle to help provide warm meals to the downtown homeless. Her Social Justice club is asking for your help in reaching their goal of 1,500 pairs of donated socks this season.

For further information about donating, contact Kellie Stickney at the City of Bainbridge Island. The program is working in cooperation with a Seattle nonprofit called WeCount.

WeCount is a Seattle based 501c3 organization founded by tech entrepreneur Jonathan Sposato and community activist Graham Pruss. Using web and smartphone technology, WeCount.org enables people experiencing homelessness to ask for items they need to survive, and enables the community to make direct donations on a hyper-local basis. WeCount also works closely with social service organizations to help people transition out of homelessness permanently.

Credits: BCB host, audio editor and social media publisher: Barry Peters.

From BCB... https://www.bestofbcb.org/cafe-052-healthy-youth-and-socializing/

How can we help our youth create and sustain positive, healthy relationships?  

It’s an important question for all of us, adults and youth alike, and yet we all know how messy and challenging relationships can be. Who among us is able to navigate all of our relationships well? To be successful at relationships, we need a number of skills: active listening, compassion, boundary setting, collaboration, and the ability to regulate one's emotions and impulses. It is a lifelong journey.

In this podcast, BCB host Christina Hulet explores this ability to create and sustain healthy relationships--what psychologists call sociability--with soccer coach Ballan Campeau of BIFC club soccer and the Bainbridge High School team, and two of his athletes, Tyler Moravec and Quinn Millerd.

In sharing their experiences of creating solid relationships on the soccer field and beyond, they encourage us, as parents and community members, to think about what we might do from the sidelines to foster these skills and better support our youth.

This podcast is part of the Bainbridge Healthy Youth Alliance’s 9-month educational campaign called “Beyond the Report Card: Cultivating What Matters." Designed for local parents, educators and other adults who care about teens, the campaign focuses each month on a different attribute–such as sociability, empathy or curiosity–to help our youth thrive. These attributes are based on a framework called The Compass Advantage, which was developed by our very own Marilyn Price Mitchell, PhD, a local developmental psychologist and researcher.

To sign up for weekly resources or to learn more about the Bainbridge Healthy Youth Alliance and specific things you can do to support our youth, visit BIHealthyYouth.org.

Credits: BCB host: Christina Hulet; BCB audio tech: Channie Peters; BCB audio editor and social media publisher: Diane Walker.

Madi Williamson is a young Bainbridge woman who, at age 21, took leave from her job for two weeks, and then for three months, to provide heartfelt hands-on care and comfort to Syrian refugee families in Greece.

In this podcast, Madi shares with BCB's Barry Peters her remarkable and beautifully told stories of the experience of helping refugee families, and then realizing that she had come away with a level of understanding, meaning and insight she couldn't have gained in other ways. She talks about visiting the Greek island of Lesbos where boats with refugee families stream ashore, and her extended stay at the encampment with over 100,000 refugees at the Greece-Macedonia border village of Idomeni.

Madi urged her step-dad, Andre Kamber, to take a break from his professional financial career for a similar experience of helping refugees. You'll want to sample the previous BCB podcast conversation with Andre, and with Alice Medoza and Ellin Spenser, who recently told BCB of their experiences helping refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos, similar to Madi's experiences.

Here, Madi explains the poignant moment -- the sight of a drowned 6-year-old boy whose body washed up on a beach on a Greek island -- when Madi decided that she needed to drop what she was doing in her life at age 21 and go lend a hand.

Madi offers a remarkably articulate and gripping description of the experience of being there, and the meaning of that experience when she brought it all back to Bainbridge.

She and her young friends then proceeded to create a website at KeepItInSight.com that offers resources for teachers to share the story with students, and also offers a starting point for anyone who would like to take a break from everyday routine and travel to where the refugee needs are greatest in and around Greece.

Please also listen to BCB's previous podcast interview with three other Bainbridge Islanders who traveled to Greece to help refugee families -- Madi's stepdad Andre Kamber, retired teacher Alice Mendoza, and realtor Ellin Spenser.

Credits: BCB host, audio editor and social media publisher: Barry Peters.

From BCB... https://www.bestofbcb.org/cafe-50-healthy-youth-and-curiosity/

In this podcast, we hear directly from two of our very own Bainbridge High School students, Emma Russell and Maya Hathan, on how we as parents, teachers and community members help encourage or, in some cases, inhibit the natural curiosity among youth.

Why is this so important?

According to local developmental psychologist, Marilyn Price Mitchell, “research suggests that intellectual curiosity has as big of an effect on performance as hard work. When put together, curiosity and hard work account for success just as much as intelligence. Another study found that people who were curious about a topic retained what they learned for longer periods of time. And even more impressive, research has linked curiosity to a wide range of important adaptive behaviors, including tolerance of anxiety and uncertainty, positive emotions, humor, playfulness, out-of-box thinking, and a noncritical attitude -- all attributes associated with healthy social outcomes.”

In her recent article, Marilyn also notes that “psychologists view curiosity as a life force, vital to happiness, intellectual growth, and well being.” 

Wow, that’s powerful.

And yet, while curiosity is innate in kids, it can also unintentionally be discouraged by adults. So how do we help our kids continue to wonder about the world, ask questions and actively seek out answers? And how do we foster that curiosity in a culture that prioritizes good grades and test scores?

Emma and Maya share their perspectives in this podcast, which is part of the Bainbridge Healthy Youth Alliance’s 8-month educational campaign called “Beyond the Report Card: Cultivating What Matters”. Each month, the campaign focuses on a different attribute--such as empathy or curiosity--to help our youth thrive and is designed for local parents, educators and other adults who care about teens.

To learn more about the Bainbridge Healthy Youth Alliance, including specific things you can to support our youth, or to sign up for weekly resources, please visit BIHealthyYouth.org.

Credits: BCB host: Christina Hulet; BCB audio editor and social media publisher: Diane Walker.

In this 13-minute conversation with Cezanne Allen, learn about the upcoming 8-month live and online campaign of the Bainbridge Healthy Youth Alliance, called: "Beyond the Report Card: Cultivating What Matters".

Participation is being offered at no charge to parents, grandparents, coaches, teachers and anyone else interested in helping kids thrive.

The campaign, which starts October 4th, includes a print booklet, weekly blog posts, relevant articles, weekly Facebook posts, monthly BCB podcasts, and handouts at events.

In addition, on Nov. 9th, there will be a guest lecture by Michele Borba PhD, author of "Unselfie".

The aim of the Alliance is to create an 8-month learning adventure leading to a community culture where every child has what they need to thrive, connect, contribute, learn and prepare for a fulfilling career.

The Healthy Youth Alliance is a collaborative partnership of organizational leaders, teens, parents, teachers and individuals working together for positive youth development. For this project, Raising Resilience (where Cezanne comes from), joins with the School District, Rotary Club, Bainbridge Community Foundation, Bainbridge Youth Services and the local Boys and Girls Club.

From October to May, the campaign will devote a month to exploring -- online and in live events -- each of eight traits of a healthy state of mind: empathy, curiosity, sociability, resilience, self-awareness, integrity, resourcefulness and creativity. Those traits are derived from a framework developed by local developmental psychologist Marilyn Price-Mitchell, PhD.

Much of the learning will focus on practical ways that those 8 healthy traits can be nurtured by parents, guardians, teachers and anyone working with youth.

National trends show that 12th graders with “high” quality of life scores, reflecting their perception of their own mental and physical health, is trending downwards. These trends are reflected in the UCLA American Freshman Survey, which shows that the emotional health of incoming college freshmen is at its lowest level in three decades.

Bainbridge Island is notable not just for academic excellence in its schools, but also for being a community that cares about the wellbeing of its kids. That caring goes beyond external success evidenced by grades, extra-curricular achievements and accomplishments. This campaign is designed to help our youth discover their basic goodness and understand that “success” is not just what they do, but who they are.

Because participation is mostly online, with coordination of all resources through BHYA’s web page, there are no prescribed meetings or workshops requiring attendance. Participants can access materials online at their own time and convenience.

For further information, visit the website of the Bainbridge Healthy Youth Alliance.

Credits: BCB host: Channie Peters; BCB audio editor and social media publisher: Barry Peters.

In this 26-minute podcast conversation, we learn what's special and what's significant about the City's just-finished update of the Comprehensive Plan for the Island's 10-20 year future.

The public is invited to attend either of two September open house and public hearing events to hear about the final draft or offer comments: (1) Saturday Sept 17th from 10am to 11:30 (plus a hearing), or (2) Thursday, Sept 22nd from 4:30 to 6pm (plus hearing).

During this podcast, comprehensive planning expert and adviser Joe Tovar summarizes the salient features of the 10-element revised and rewritten document that represents two years of intense work by island residents, City staff and representatives of the Planning Commission. And Jennifer Sutton, the project coordinator and a Senior Planner for the City, is on hand to add her thoughts.

As Joe Tovar points out, the report's main conclusions about land use are notable -- namely, that our City of about 23,600 people already has adequate zoning and infrastructure to accommodate the next 20-years' forecasted population growth of about 5,000 additional residents. The state's Growth Management Act requires that we be prepared to accommodate that share of the state's potential growth. The update continues to envision most of our growth being in Winslow and centers like Lynwood and Rolling Bay, rather than causing sprawl in the 90% of the Island that is planned to remain mostly green and open.

Joe also highlights ways in which the completion of the update paves the way for implementation steps for the City Council -- such as the adoption of water conservation measures for our underground water aquifers, and activities to reconcile the City's ordinances to the goals embraced by the Plan.

This City Plan update is also notable for taking note of climate change and including provisions for coping with its effects, as recommended by Island-based nonprofit Eco-Adapt. It was funded by Bainbridge Community Foundation to provide science-based assessments and advice.

To download your copy of the final draft of the Plan, go to the City's "Navigate Bainbridge" web page.

To join the City's email list for further announcements about the "Navigate Bainbridge" Plan update process, or other city issues, sign up here.

Credits: BCB host, audio editor and social media publisher: Barry Peters.

In this 30-minute podcast conversation, we learn about ideas and strategies to enable participants of all ages to make the most of the remarkable new creative space for artisanry, learning, making and doing, called Bainbridge Artisan Resource Network (BARN).

We meet Catherine Camp, the board member and vice president for operations at BARN, who introduces us to the new BARN project for engaging local youth in the activities and programs of BARN.

With her in the studio are three local high school and college students who share their thoughts on the great value of having an all-ages creative space for learning and mentoring. Those podcast participants are:

• Maya Nathan: a Bainbridge High School senior, who is this summer's BARN intern;
• Finn Mander: a Bainbridge High School senior who is a long-time volunteer at BCB (which is soon to be part of BARN), and who is also a leader of the 2-year-old BHS Radio Club. In the coming school year, Finn will be a leader of the new student club for video news production, called Spartan News.
• Madeline Corbin: who is going into her junior year at Seattle University, having graduated from Bainbridge High School two years ago. As a BHS senior, Madeline had served as editor in chief of the Spartan Standard newspaper at BHS.

The podcast conversation explains some of the activities being pursued with BARN Youth Engagement project funds granted by Bainbridge Community Foundation. For example, we hear explanations of the upcoming Teen Camp and the fledgling Youth Council.

The Teen Camp is scheduled for August 15th to 19th (six hours per day), and is open to teens age 14 to 18 who would like to experiment with glass, fiber, metal, wood and food. It's an exciting week of activities designed to explore the breadth of hands-on crafts available at BARN. It meets at the 2,500 square foot interim BARN facility in Rolling Bay.

Meanwhile, construction is underway on a 25,000 square foot two-story BARN center for craft and invention, just 10 minutes walk from Bainbridge High School, which is expected to open before next Spring.

Credits: BCB host: Barry Peters; BCB audio editing: Madeline Corbin and Barry Peters.

In this 20-minute podcast, Lara Hansen -- who is the co-founder, executive director and chief scientist of the Bainbridge-based nonprofit called EcoAdapt -- describes the Bainbridge Island Climate Impact Assessment report that she is presenting to our local City Council on July 26th.

The report is the culmination of a year's work for a project that involved collaboration by the City, funding by Bainbridge Community Foundation, and cooperation with organizations like the Bullitt Foundation.

The report assesses the impact that climate change is already having locally, how that impact will affect decision-making for public policy, business activity and actions by individuals for their home and daily living. The report goes on to make recommendations to the City, and to individuals, for actions that can now be taken to deal more effectively with those climate change impacts.

Lara is a member of the board of directors of Sustainable Bainbridge, and has discussed climate change issues in prior BCB podcasts such as:

CAFE-031 EcoAdapt helps COBI comp plan to adapt to climate change

CAFE-007 Lara Hansen on Climate Change

By proclamation, the City Council unanimously voted to declare the week of July 24, 2016 to be Climate Change Adaptation Week.

Credits: BCB host, audio editor and social media publisher: Barry Peters.

The Golden Rule, first launched in 1958 by a former U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and Quaker, with a mission to stop atmospheric nuclear testing, has only been recently restored after it fell into disrepair and sank in 2010. The vessel, slightly over 30 feet in length, is back in action  plying waters as a peace boat--but not after an improbable resurrection.

This summer, the vessel is touring the Pacific Northwest. One of its stops was the City Dock on Bainbridge Island, July 15 and 16. It plans to participate in Fleet Week in Seattle in August.

Helen Jaccard, who helped crew the vessel last year and is providing shore support this year, spoke with BCB’s Reed Price about the history, relaunch, and modern mission of the boat.

To learn more about the vessel and its voyages, visit https://www.facebook.com/VFP-Golden-Rule-Project-221122271247448/,  http://vfpgoldenrule.org or email [email protected]

Credits: BCB host and audio editor: Reed Price; publisher: Diane Walker.