Tsunami Wrestling
Dear Editor: The Sitka Tsunami Wrestling Club would like to thank all who made this season possible. Thank you to the parents and families who brought the wrestlers to practice and assisting during matches.
Thank you to AC Lakeside for the food donation, Sitka Youth Basketball for hosting concessions, Mt. Edgecumbe and Sitka high school students and wrestlers who helped during matches and tournaments, Mike Kimber for tournament assistance, Jim DiGennaro for hours of refereeing and coaching support, and the Methodist Church for housing during tournament.
A big thank you to middle school coach Karl Jordan for helping navigate gym time. The club plans on performing several fundraising events during off season and hope to see family and community support of these incredible young wrestlers.
Kat Richards, President, for the Sitka Tsunami
Wrestling Club Board
Student Allocation
Dear Editor: We are writing this letter in strong support of Alaskan schools continuing to receive the $50 Base Student Allocation for the 2016/2017 school year. The BSA is 67 percent of what Sitka School District depends on for their annual revenue. This includes not only teachers’ salaries and benefits, but also curriculum, staff pay, classroom supplies, water, sewer, utilities and other school expenditures.
A $13,231,011 budget for Sitka School District may seem high: Alaska’s children are worth the investment. This funding pays for teachers, specialists and programs implemented by experts for our children. These professionals in our students’ lives are there to teach not just math and science, but how to live in this world, how to interact with others and learn to compromise and communicate; they teach compassion and the understanding we should share what we have to make our future civilization better than our past.
As members of this community, whether or not you have children in the schools, it is important to uphold the integrity of educational programming with adequate funding. Understanding this, one might wonder how he or she might do something. During the most recent School Board meeting at the ANB Hall, Board President Tim Fulton urged those who want to help, to write to their legislators to continue to support the $50 BSA. We must convince our legislators to consider all of our children a top priority in the budget. Please share your support for the $50 BSA (Base Student Allocation) for 2016/2017 school year by writing to Sen. Bert Stedman, State Capitol Room 30, Juneau, AK 99801, and Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins, State Capitol Room 426, Juneau, AK 99801.
#StrengthenSitkaSchools #DoSomething #ParentsForSitkaSchools
In the spirit of collaboration,
Christy Anderson, Katie Mulligan
Sitka
Food Waste
Dear Editor: Can you believe that every year in the U.S. more than 133 billion, yes billion, pounds of usable food is thrown away? That’s 31 percent of our country’s food supply and enough to feed 175 million people for a whole year. On a per person basis, it’s about 20 pounds of usable food thrown away every month.
It’s an astounding amount of waste that could be put to use to feed hungry individuals. These tough budget times have us all examining how we use our resources, and being wasteful is not an option. In Alaska, 1 in 7 of our neighbors struggles with food insecurity. By creating more opportunities for unused food items, discarded food can be used by food banks and food pantries to feed those in need.
Certainly we can do better. Last fall U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the first ever food waste reduction of goal of reducing food waste by 50 percent by 2030. And in December the federal government changed tax laws to make it easier for businesses to donate food. I’ve joined with Secretary Vilsack and food banks and other food organizations to launch the “Alaska Food Waste Challenge” by introducing HCR 11, to raise awareness about this issue and to call for action to do better.
Our Alaska Food Waste Challenge is the topic for discussion next week during our second annual Food Security Awareness Week where the movie ‘‘Just Eat It’’ will be shown in communities across the state. This award-winning documentary tells the story of a couple that lives for six months on discarded food and explores our current system of expiration dates, perfect produce and portion sizes, and helps viewers understand how this seemingly insignificant issue is having devastating consequences around the globe.
‘‘Just Eat It’’ will be shown in Sitka on Tuesday, March 24, at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Hall at 7 p.m. This is a free family event and I hope you’ll be able to attend and learn more about how we can all be a part of the solution.
Rep. Geran Tarr
State Capitol, Room 409
Juneau, AK 99801
