Quilter’s Auction
Dear Editor: The Ocean Wave Quilt Guild would like to express our heartfelt thanks to all who helped make our 17th Annual Scholarship Auction our most successful fundraiser yet! Publicity was the key! Shannon Haugland at the Daily Sitka Sentinel, Peter Apathy at Raven Radio, and Larry Snider on Problem Corner were especially terrific in helping us get the word out. And Jill Scheidt created an eye-catching window display at Abby’s that further generated interest. This year we ended up moving our event to the auditorium at UAS and what a wonderful room it was. The gracious staff at UAS were very professional to work with.
This year we would also like to recognize two extra generous donations featured in the Silent Auction portion of our event. Ruth Culp donated one of her beautiful handmade porcelain dolls complete with outfits, bedding, and her own quilt! And Becky Charlton donated two impressive large vintage quilts.
Several guild members including Megan Pasternak, Dana Pitts, Sabra Jenkins, Marie Murray, Linda Swanson, Mary Levesque, Karen Boyer, Angela Pirtle and Jan Lovett worked to keep it all running smoothly. While additional members of the guild stepped up to provide a great variety of food, donated items, and 26 creative miniature quilts.
We loved having community members attend our event and join us in bidding. Thanks to all who donated, attended and bought, over $3,000 was raised to be given in scholarships to local high school students.
Annette Blankenship,
Ocean Wave Quilters, Sitka
Cold-Water Safety
Dear Editor: In the month of February, Blatchley Middle School seventh grade students participated in the Sitka School District’s cold-water safety events at the Centennial Hall and Blatchley Pool. The events are part of the Cold-Water Safety program, which also included class presentations and pool instruction. At the Centennial Hall, the students rotated between five hands-on stations and watched a flare demonstration. The district feels fortunate to have the expertise of so many community resources and individuals who so willingly give their time to educate the students on valuable cold-water safety skills and techniques.
A huge thank you is extended to Alaska Marine Safety Education Association instructors Hope Merritt and Mike Morris, for pool, damage control instruction and first aid kit construction. AMSEA also provided the damage control trainer for the Centennial Hall activity, not to mention gear for the pool unit. We would also like to thank United States Coast Guard Aids to Navigation Team personnel Joshua Michael, Charles Bowman, Dylan Smith and Kyle Gravelle for assisting at the pool and the obstacle course at Centennial Hall; USCG Rescue Swimmer personnel David White, Chris Austin and Matt Silvious for instructing the rescue basket station at the pool; USCG Auxiliary members Joe and Carol Meador for presenting signals; Tim Fulton for small boat safety; Alaska State Trooper Corporal Lance Jamison-Ewers for teaching the mountain search and rescue; Dan Dunn for having his boat, F/V Eigil B, dockside and for providing commercial boat safety information; Centennial Hall employees; Harbormaster Stan Eliason; Pool Director Mandy Summers; lifeguard Shelley Dunn; teacher instructor Jarrett Hirai; and all seventh grade teachers, paraprofessionals and parents.
Also, a huge thank you is extended to Northern Sales and Agave Restaurant for their generous donations to provide lunch for the volunteers. The students enjoyed the event while learning cold-water safety. Again, thank you to all who took part, Sitka is truly a unique town and the Sitka School District’s Cold Water Safety Program is an excellent example of community involvement in our schools.
Hector Hurtado,
Cold-Water Safety Program,
Sitka School District
Farm to School Funding
Dear Editor: As the Legislature continues swinging its scythe at the state budget, one of the programs about to be felled is Farm to School. And in case you don’t have kids that can tell you firsthand the benefits of the program, or if you’re not an Alaska grower that finds a market in supplying school cafeterias with Alaska Grown produce, let me tell you what the Department of Natural Resources, Division of Agriculture, Farm to School Program does: It provides expertise and support for those working to increase the connection of students, teachers, and school food service providers with products grown and produced in Alaska. This connection most commonly happens in the school lunchroom or in a school garden.
Yet, in a state that prides itself in self-reliance, consider these striking facts:
1. Alaskans spend $1.5 BILLION dollars on imported food each year.
2. Only 5-10 percent of food consumed is produced or harvested in state, but great swaths of arable land remain uncultivated.
3. About 15 percent of Alaska households are food insecure.
4. Alaskans spend about $450 million dollars on treating medical conditions related to overweight/obesity – i.e., diet-related diseases.
5. We have a population that is largely disconnected from the food system – most kids can’t tell you what lies beneath the frilly green of a carrot top coming out of the soil.
These figures might sound gloomy, but they highlight the immense opportunity that we have to become healthier, wealthier, and more food secure. What if we spent that $1.5 billion on Alaska Grown products and kept that money in local economies? What if we produced more healthy foods in quantities that could meet the demands of our school cafeterias? What if we provided our children with the tools and knowledge necessary to make healthy food choices and avoid joining the two-thirds of the population that is overweight or obese?
We already have a key mechanism to achieving these goals – it’s the Farm to School Program. The Farm to School Program helps to prioritize getting locally produced, healthy goods into cafeterias; raise a generation of food leaders and consumers; and create a large, reliable market for increased in-state food production.
In three short years, the number of Alaska school districts involved in Farm to School has grown from zero to 68 percent! There’s been an 11 percent increase in school gardens statewide; 100 percent of the school districts are now serving at least one local food item in their meal programs; and there’s still tremendous room for growth. In fiveyears, the program has leveraged over $1 million from partner agencies. This is just the shortlist of accomplishments.
All of this and more has been achieved with an annual budget of about $190,000 dollars. Talk about bang for your buck! If the Legislature eliminates or cuts funding to the Farm to School Program, you aren’t cutting the fat out of the budget. You are cutting the carrots, the potatoes, the greens, and even the local fish out of your children’s lunches, and you’re cutting supports necessary to expand in-state production.
I implore the Legislature not to eliminate or reduce the funding for our Farm to School Program. It is an incredibly efficient use of a small amount of funds that has proven itself over the past five years and is one of the shining pillars of a state food system that is becoming stronger, more sustainable, and more resilient. Don’t let the Legislature undo our current progress, and don’t let it stand in the way of what more can be done.
Liz Snyder, Victoria Briggs
and Lisa Sadleir-Hart,
Co-Chairs, Alaska Food Policy Council and Past Co-Chair, AFPC
AN OPINION:
Sitka Citizens Can Help Make Case for Schools
By Tom Conley
Sitka School Board Member
With the sharp decline in the price of a barrel of Alaska crude, a steady decline in pipeline throughput, and the massive tax rebate given to Big Oil last year in HB72 and SB21, Alaska’s fiscal health is at a very low ebb and the state is facing a $3.5 billion deficit.
Aggravating the problem in the realm of public education are three distinct obstacles:
1) A partial rescind of HB278, a three-year program that was to increase the BSA (Base Student Allocation) $50 yearly for three years and provide $32.4 million in “one-time” funds outside the foundation formula. The funds were to be distributed to the various districts on a per-capita basis. The $32.4 million has been rescinded and the $50 yearly for 2016 and 2017 eliminated. For Sitka this amounts to a $494,616 hit.
2) Failure to reauthorize the federal Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act by the U.S. Congress. This has been a source of approximately $1 million annually with 50 percent or $500,000 going to the schools and 50 percent to the city and borough for roads;
3) Ill-considered and haphazard defunding and/or elimination of key programs in the schools. Instead of a comprehensive review of the whole education program to see where economies might ease the situation, the House Education Subcommittee on Finance has lopped off the low-hanging fruit including most of the pre-kindergarten programs.
This includes:
–$150K GF from the Statewide Literacy Program, eliminating it;
–$320K GF from the K-3 Literacy Program, eliminating the testing program;
–$1M GF from Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM);
–$850K GF from the Alaska Learning Network (AKLN);
–$5M GF from the Broadband Program;
–$359K ACPE receipts from the Answers data system program;
–$750K GF from the statewide mentoring program;
–$937K GF from Best Beginnings, ending state funding for the program;
–$307.5K GF from Parents as Teachers, ending state funding for the program;
–$2M GF from pre-K grants, ending the program;
–$762K GF from the Online with Libraries (OWL) program, eliminating state funding for the program; and
–$138K GF from Live Homework Help, eliminating the program.
Further complicating matters is the “Carey Decision” (1KE-14-00016 CI) wherein the Ketchikan Gateway Borough sued the State of Alaska claiming that the required local contribution to school funding was unconstitutional. The court decided in Ketchikan’s favor in November 2014. The State of Alaska has appealed the ruling but the effect of the ruling both in substance and timing is unclear with the court declining a request for a stay pending resolution of the appeal. It may cost the state as much as $328 million in lost income, and how the loss is to be “distributed” is completely unclear.
The Sitka School Board and other groups are working to have some of these actions and policies reversed but cannot do it alone. So far funding offsets from the Constitutional Budget Reserve and perhaps the Permanent Fund have not been discussed. Rather, legislators need to hear from constituents, especially at the local level. They particularly need to hear personal testimony from families about the consequences of cutting or eliminating specific programs at their school and the effects of gutting the provisions of HB278.
Writing to your representative or senator is most easily done via e-mail. The format is Representative.FirstName.LastName@akleg.gov or Senator.FirstName.LastName@akleg.gov. Capitalization and no spacing are important: Senator.Bert.Stedman@akleg.gov and Representative.Jonathan.Kreiss-Tomkins@akleg.gov for our local delegation.
U.S. Mail can be addressed to a Senator or Representative at State Capitol, Juneau, AK 99801-1182. In addition to emailing the local delegation, communication with House Education (Representatives Wes Keller, Lora Reinbold, Jim Colver, Paul Seaton, Liz Vasquez, Harriet Drummond, Jonathan Kreiss-Tompkins) House Finance (Representatives Lynn Gattis, Wes Keller, David Talerico, Mike Hawker, Neal Foster, Sam Kito, Dan Ortiz) and Senate Education (Senators Mike Dunleavy, Charlie Huggins, Cathy Giessel, Gary Stevens, Berta Gardner) and Senate Finance (Senators Pete Kelly, Anna MacKinnon, Peter Micciche, Click Bishop, Lyman Hoffman, and Donald Olson) would be helpful.
