Thank You, Ken Buxton
Dear Editor: Sad Day at the Animal Shelter.
Friday, May 7, 2021, marked the last day of work for Ken Buxton at the Sitka Animal Shelter. It was a very sad day for the current resident baby kittens, rescued kitties and loved pets people just couldn’t care for anymore. They will miss him. It was a sad day for the hundreds of little creatures Ken placed in loving homes here in town and across Southeast communities.
Over the years, Ken’s love and compassion for all creatures big and small was reflected in his Sitka Sentinel newspaper poems and stories that opened our hearts and our homes to welcoming new (and sometimes old) furry family members.
Ken made Sitka Animal Control and Shelter volunteers feel significant in their efforts and not only expressed but demonstrated his appreciation copiously. On behalf of the four-legged felines, canines and bunny rabbits, Ken thanked volunteers and he thanked families who adopted his little friends.
So now, on behalf of all these creatures, we sincerely respect your decision and, Ken Buxton, we thank you.
Bernie Gurule, Sitka
Quiet Rotarian
Dear Editor: This year’s Rotary District Governor Joe Kashi created a special award to recognize those who are effective in getting a lot done without fanfare or looking for credit. The Sitka Rotary Club was honored to nominate Dan Jones as such a “Quiet Rotarian”; and, I am pleased to announce he received this award for 2020-21.
Dan joined Sitka Rotary in September of 1979, in the classification of civil engineer. Tom Satre was his sponsor, and John Stein was then the Sitka Rotary Club president. Dan has since held virtually every Sitka Rotary Club office – including club president thrice! Dan is a person who can be counted on to not only show up for meetings, but make them fun. He gently helps out with questions and positive comments when he notices a speaker may be struggling. He also continuously works to keep many of Sitka Rotary’s trademark activities humming.
Dan is the guiding force behind Sitka Rotary’s annual Goddard Hot Springs Repair & Maintenance Program. This project entails rounding up Sitka Rotarians, Sitka’s AmeriCorps, and other volunteers to work. Dan arranges for everyone’s transportation by boat to and from Goddard Hot Springs (usually by an Allen Marine vessel and one or more private boats); organizes a full day of hard work repairing damage to the facilities and/or enhancing them; and then reports to the city on the work performed and his thoughts for the future. Dan not only does all of the advance planning for this work, but he acquires all of the materials and tools to make it happen. He does this quietly and effectively, year after year, without the need for fanfare.
Until we recently started using pop-up tents, Dan was similarly the “quiet Rotarian” responsible for setting up our annual Kids Fishing Day. Dan would organize a team of volunteers to assemble wooden booths for Sitka Rotary, Alaska Department of Fish & Game, and the U.S. Forest Service (the event’s three principal organizations). This, too, was a lot of selfless work. Year after year.
Dan has been one of the guiding forces in the Sitka Rotary Club’s annual Sitka Duck Race since it started in 1985. He regularly helps out by assisting with site preparation and, many times, has served as our “Duck Plucker” (the one who pulls the winning ducks from the water). In 2020, he developed a “Duck Delivery System” which allowed our growing stock of plastic ducks (then 3,500) to be delivered into Granite Creek in essentially one swell dump o’ ducks. This not only made the race more equitable, but it solved a social distancing issue we faced with the pandemic.
Dan truly epitomizes the Rotary motto of “Service Above Self.” Thank you, Dan, for all you selflessly do for our community and congratulations on your much-deserved award.
Catherine Rogers
President, Sitka Rotary Club
Homeless Coalition
Dear Editor: This is an informational letter from the Sitka Homeless Coalition to make known in the community that, after almost four years of supporting the unsheltered men on the street and working through the initial planning report with the Anchorage-based technical assistance agency, Agnew::Beck, (with appreciation of funding from the Alaska Mental Health Land Trust Authority) the coalition is ready to seek the Sitka community’s assistance.
The beginning of the search to meet the needs of about 15 local men was to locate building space for a winter night shelter. That was in 2017. When no space was available, the Laundry & Showers program sprang up in late 2018. This program was to show support for and stand in for still-not-located shelter space during winter months.
It wasn’t shelter but it was sure fine to see so many men cleaned up and able to stay spiffed with the L&S program, continuing now to operate twice weekly. Especially with the sun out in the summer months of 2019, noticing the men walking around downtown in clean clothes was a treat for the eye. Many of them walked with a renewed sense of pride.
Gradually, gradually there have been personal changes: one person makes plans to go to treatment; someone gets a job; one man is able to hold a job for half a year; one person gets a two-room apartment and begins serving as a volunteer; two men stay sober for months that turn into a year. There have been community changes also: several have volunteered with the L&S project, laundry and shower supplies continue to come in, one person gifted the men with hooded, lined ponchos for winter; another person ordered a case of waterless shampoo. With the easing of the pandemic, heavy blankets, sleeping bags and pads, rain gear, socks, jackets and boots from individuals and Sitka stores have come in.
Many changes for the men (and some women) and the community have made living outside feel to be a kinder life and we are showing more compassion as a community.
Along the way the SHC embraced the need to do more than shelter people in the winter night. Keeping to the rally call of “Enough, not more than what is needed,” SHC now envisions small, unattached bedrooms/dry cabins for individual men with a shower/laundry building and an on-site, live-in staff person. Request to lease the Mental Health Trust land at the top of Jarvis Street was made and two acres have been surveyed for homeless use.
One necessary item is now needed to move forward: an organization or a small collaboration of organizations to work together in order to build and manage the tiny neighborhood. In Juneau, the Housing First governing board includes representatives from the Glory Hall, Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes, Bartlett Regional Hospital, Juneau Alliance for the Mentally Ill, and City and Borough of Juneau. Representatives of this group are planning a site visit to Sitka soon.
In Sitka we must form our own collaboration to build and operate our own supportive housing neighborhood. It need not be elaborate; think “campground situation with live-in campground host.”
The Agnew::Beck initial planning report for housing Sitka’s homeless community can be viewed on the Sitka Homeless Coalition Facebook page under the section “About.”
Sitka Homeless Coalition
