BHV Thanks
Dear Editor: We had an outstanding turnout for our Brave Heart Volunteers Bowl Fundraiser last Saturday and raised $15,000! Thank you to everyone who attended the event, and to all the businesses, potters, and volunteers who helped make it happen.
Foremost, we owe a tremendous thanks to the ceramic artists who crafted and donated over 300 bowls for the event: Carina Armendariz, Gregory Benn, Michele Friedman, Shanti Friedman, Auriella Hughes, Clare Jurczak, Kathleen McCrossin, Sadie Oswald, Ritch Phillips, Josh Ragnes, Robert Rose, Katie Sill, Marge Steward, and Liz Zacher.
An extra special thanks goes to Liz Zacher and UAS-Sitka for donating studio space for the potters to create bowls. This fundraiser would be impossible without these kind supporters and we cannot thank them enough.
Another big thank you goes to the businesses that donated delicious soups and rolls to go: Beak Restaurant, Ludvig’s Bistro, Nugget Restaurant, Pizza Express, and Sea Mart. The soups and bread were a scrumptious hit and total crowd pleasers. Thank you!
Three BHV volunteers also donated their time on a sunny Saturday: Kim Hunter, Nan Metashvili, and Rain VanDenBerg. We sure appreciated their extra hands and smiles.
Adding even more joy to the day was the fleet of corgis who charmed BHV supporters waiting to enter the Bowls event. Thank you to Trish White for coordinating the pup parade, and to all the corgi owners who participated.
We are also grateful to the staff of Harrigan Centennial Hall for their excellent assistance, and the Daily Sitka Sentinel and KCAW Raven Radio for their constant, invaluable promotion of BHV events—for which, we are endlessly grateful.
Lastly, thank you to our dedicated Board of Directors and staff, who consistently go the extra mile to make our fundraisers a happy success: Dr Ellie Jansen, Michele Friedman, Gloria Pies, Jenny Klejka, Jerrod Galanin, Tonya Venneberg, Lacey Tuten, Dr Drew Thompson, and Kathryn Winslow. Thank you all for loving Brave Heart as you do.
Angie DelMoral, executive director
Fireworks
Dear Editor: For the past week our family has received so many gracious thanks for the fireworks display on July 1, which has warmed our hearts. It’s truly a joy to contribute to all the Independence Day festivities. We’d like to give a special shout out to Beverly Caldwell of Caldwell Properties, LLC. Beverly is a generous benefactor here in Sitka and she offered to co-sponsor the fireworks with us. We noticed that her business name was omitted from some of the publications and announcements surrounding the fireworks and want to make sure she gets credit where credit is due!
Thank you to everyone who came out to watch the spectacle that night. We’re already beginning to plan next year’s show with Matt Brown of Fire Art Pyrotechnics of Big Lake, AK!
Mary & Roger Hames
Hames Corporation
Police Shortage
Dear Editor: I read your July 3 article concerning the Police staff shortage in Sitka. I was very surprised to read that Sitka is trying to police this city 24/7 with only seven officers. Even the 14 that are allowed seems to be asking a lot.
I am a lifelong insurance agent and have always found that the safest way to test any situation is to apply a worst case scenario. Any real emergency and Sitka will find that it has a real problem. How can the police department cover day and night shifts and weekends with only seven officers? And with the thousands of cruise ship visitors added in, everything has to go perfect every day.
It seems to me that what officer Christner, who made the report to the city Assembly, was saying is: the city of Sitka should seriously consider offering better wages and hiring bonuses to keep and attract more officers before a risky situation gets worse.
Randy Dayton, Sitka
Moose Lodge
Dear Editor: The Sitka Moose Lodge #1350 is celebrating its 110th birthday. As our lodge building gets older it takes a great amount of upkeep. We’d like to thank Darryl Howard and Sitka Ready-mix for donating the use of a lift for our painting project. Donations of this type allow us to continue our community service/cash donations i.e.: Families in need, youth academic activities sports youth and adult, Salvation Army food bank, and more. I would also like to acknowledge our Past President John Bartlett for his unending dedication for keeping our lodge systems running and the new paint being completed. Our organization is totally run by volunteers from the cook crews to the social quarters staff. Again, many thanks to all who continue to support our mission and local lodge.
Faith Lee, President
Cluster Munitions
Dear Editor: I am deeply saddened by Presidents Biden’s decision to provide Ukraine with cluster munitions. The generals have argued for their strategic necessity, but families will grieve their lethal legacy for generations to come.
From 2010-2013, I worked in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. I managed programs funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement and the Leahy War Victims Medical Fund. The focus was to address the tragic consequences of the U.S. secret bombing of this landlocked country during the Vietnam War. For a nine-year period, there averaged a bombing run over Laos every nine minutes giving it the distinction of being the most heavily bombed country per capita in the world.
Since the bombing stopped in the early 1970s, more than 50,000 Lao people have been killed, injured and maimed by the remaining unexploded ordinance (UXO). Most of these accidents have been caused by cluster munitions. It is estimated that at the present rate of clearance, it will take another 100 years to rid Laos of this nightmare.
During my time in Laos, I would regularly travel to the provincial hospitals to visit the victims of cluster munition accidents. More often than not they were children who had mistaken a small bomblet found in a field for a toy. Their injuries were horrific. The parents, who were often at these bedsides, had not been born when the bombs that had torn into their children had been dropped.
President Biden’s cluster munition choice will similarly haunt generations of Ukrainians.
Mark Gorman, Sitka
Sister Sitka
Dear Editor: It has been almost a year since I first stepped foot in Lingit Aani. Since I first breathed in the cool, crisp, sea brine air into my lungs and smiled. There was no part of me that could have possibly imagined the adventure awaiting, the unique challenges that I was to face and overcome, and the friendships that would undoubtedly become a solid foundation for my own heart.
As an AmeriCorps member, with limited resources and connections, there follows a purse of lessons that, for me at least, will forever be carried.
Living here in Sitka, from my own experience, leaves one irrevocably changed. It has left me stronger and more resilient, likely because of the weight of such lessons learned. Sitka has gifted me with a new lens which I now use to both see and experience the world, but I do not know if I would be where I am today with this outlook without the solid friendships I have made within the community, especially not without my cohort members that served alongside me this year.
Sitka provides a powerful and old healing energy that has always struck me as feminine and knowing. There has never been a moment surrounded by trees or water on this island where I did not feel such ancient power radiating love, even if the land itself and the people inside it still endure echoes of pain, which I will never fathom to fully comprehend. Doubtless if I will forever try to.
What I have found most interesting is the people that this magical island attracts, the individuals who come from the most dramatically contrasting climates and cultures to Sitka.
Locations like Florida, New Jersey, and New York, to name a few. I’ve wondered many times if there is something there in the east that my cohorts and I have raced to escape – and come here to find. Perhaps, if there is some unseen force that has pulled us like magnets across this sick concrete country to a land full of such light and hope, and darkness and struggle. I have begun to wonder if the forces that have pulled me here are the friends I have come to love and call family.
The women here that I call my sisters have rallied and stood steadfast through every unimaginable storm, showing up for each other, facing the ugly, and remaining true. There is never a moment where I have felt turned away, alone, or bereft. The feminine energy on this island, I hope, will always remain strong. I do not believe that the ancient power of this land would allow it otherwise, not if we choose community, the wild spirit of Lingít Aani, and the wisdom that exists within us, however deep it may be buried. Not if we always choose love.
Thank you to every spirit that has guided me on my journey, human or otherwise.
Gunalchéesh.
Rachele Quarnaccio
AmeriCorps 2022-2023
