All Posts in "Bonnie Dickson"

Volunteers glean a rhubarb crop.

Fred Robbecke, a volunteer with “Senior Scene,” knows that with summer gardening comes summer overabundance.  You’ve heard about places that lock their cars only during the summer because people don’t want other people’s excess zucchini?  That’s what Robbecke thinks about in the spring of the year when everyone is so gung ho about planting.  Last year, Robbecke’s son was injured and unable to harvest his garden and all that waste frustrated him.  There is a solution though.  It’s called the Gleaning Project and it’s run by Emergency Food Network (EFN).

The Gleaning Project is a collaborative effort to rescue local produce waste and to get it to people who need it the most, said Emily Boston.  Boston is the Gleaning Coordinator with EFN and she spends her time trying to convince folks to do something about the amount of food that never gets eaten.  Some estimates suggest that in the U.S. somewhere between 20 to 50 percent of commercially-grown food is thrown away each year.  There’s no estimate of how much home grown food receives the same treatment.

So the result is a multi-prong approach to taking that food that would have ended up in landfills and “capturing it” to feed food bank clients.

Boston encourages fruit tree owners to register their trees.   “We’re looking for healthy fruit trees in the backyards of people who can’t harvest or can’t eat all of their harvest.”  When owners notify the gleaners that the fruit is ripe, a group of volunteers harvest the trees and leave the owners 20 percent of the harvest and the rest goes to a food bank or shelter in the area.  Last year, the volunteers “captured” 30,000 pounds of fresh fruit in this manner.  EFN doesn’t physically get the fruit.  It goes directly to a food bank in what Boston called “tree to table.”  Owners can register their trees online at www.piercecountygleaningproject.org or by calling (253) 584-1040.  Some examples of fruit trees they’ve harvested in the past include apples, grapes, kiwi, pears, figs and lots of plums.  They don’t harvest berries because they require too much time.

“In addition to harvesting fruit, we also harvest farmers markets and encourage gardeners to plant an extra row,” said Boston.  To find the closest food bank, suggestions for harvesting and ideas about what kinds of produce the food banks are able to accept, go to www.piercecountygleaningproject.org and click on Where To Donate.

EFN also does farm gleans.  Boston connects with farmers and when they have an abundance of produce they contact her to send out volunteers.  Volunteers consistently go every Friday to EFN’s Mother Earth Farm in Orting but crops usually don’t become ready with any kind of consistency.  It’s more normal to suddenly need volunteers such as a recent glean when someone called to say they had a lot of peas.  To sign up to volunteer as a gleaner, email Boston at Emily@efoodnet.org.

Bonnie Dickson by — July 30, 2012 in Everything Else

Eric Dobner, activities director at Narrows Glen, rides a stationary bike to earn money for the Alzheimer’s Association Walk.

The rest of the country is sweltering but this is Tacoma on a July morning so you know it’s cold. Cold enough that the residents of Narrows Glen and Laurel House that brave the cold do so for only brief periods of time usually to drop a bill in a jar or to give Eric Dobner, the activities director at Laurel House some advice or offer treats. No one wants to spray him with one of the two soaker guns he has sitting in a bucket of water because no one wants to make him catch a chill despite the fact that after an hour of riding his stationary bike, Dobner would welcome the opportunity to cool off if even just a bit.

This is the second year Dobner and his team from Narrows Glen have raised money for the Alzheimer’s Association by selling opportunities to soak him with what surely must be a quart of water wrapped up in the colorful plastic shell of a water gun.  Last year, the team raised $1600.  This year’s goal is $2000.   Dobner said he got the idea from someone that does something similar at Safeco Field all the time.  “It took me about a year to suggest it to my team,” he said.  Last year he was training for the Seattle to Portland (STP) and so the long ride (8:30 to 3 p.m.) was just more training on top of the 22 miles he rides to work a couple times a week.  But the weather was even stormier last year so that he had to ride while holding down the canopy set up over his stationary bike.  This year, it’s just cold but only if you are just standing around.  Under the canopy, Dobner and the rest of the team hold their morning roundup and while talking about what’s for lunch, staffing, and getting ready for a new resident, Dobner sheds his lightweight jacket and breaks open his first energy drink and hopes someone will come along willing to shell out the $40 to soak him.

Bonnie Dickson by — July 30, 2012 in Everything Else
First ever Pierce County event recognizes “Angels on earth”

Karen Lueshen
Karen Lueshen examines the award she received in recognition of her caregiving at a HCPC event in May.

On May 23, Healthcare Providers Council of Pierce County (HCPC) honored 35 Pierce County caregivers at an award ceremony at The Weatherly Inn in Tacoma.  Lynessa Tinglum, a community outreach coordinator with Advanced Health Care and Kelly Smith Chambers, owner of Visiting Angels in Tacoma both belong to organizations in Thurston County that recognize the contributions of caregivers in the community.  They also belong to HCPC, a non-profit organization made up of individuals working in organizations that provide services to seniors in Pierce County.  They pushed for the first ever recognition event in Pierce County and began taking applications two months ago.  They received 55 nominations with one nominee, Jennette Moore, receiving 13 nominations.  Thirty-five caregivers were chosen for recognition and six were chosen as special honorees.  They were Hipolito Ciriaco, Lolita Howard-Canty, Karen Lueshen, Jennette Moore, Denise Ramsey, and Jay Webb

It takes a special sort of person to be a caregiver.  In the nomination letters, clients’ families regularly used the word blessing to refer to the care given a loved one and caregivers spoke frequently of the gratitude they feel towards the people they care for.

Smith Chambers read a list of skills and practices she said were the theme of the nomination letters HCPC received.  Things like smiles, sees something and gets it done, and punctual were interspersed with personal touches like cooks from scratch and brings fresh flowers.  “If you need a copy for some training materials,” Smith Chambers offered the businesses that attended, “I can send it to you.”

Every nominee received an award and a copy of the nomination letter.  Cobb was touched by her nomination letter as was Lueshen who seemed overwhelmed and was still teary eyed an hour after receiving her award.  While most of the individuals nominated worked in the senior care industry, Lueshen was nominated by the Bonney Lake Senior Center for her work with seniors especially her neighbor, Florence.  Towards the end of Florence’s life, Lueshen took her to a Jazz festival so that she could be around the “music that she loved one last time.”  Lueshen said she’d completely forgotten the trip but Florence had been so excited she had bought three new outfits, one for each day of the festival, and she’d insisted on wearing strand after strand of beads each day of the festival.

Lolita Howard-Canty receives a caregiver recognition award from Darol Tuttle and Kelly Smith Chambers.

Bathing is a big deal for many clients as many caregivers know so it wasn’t surprising that Jennette Moore from Charlton Place in Tacoma won praises for the “best shower I’ve ever had.”  Hipolito Ciriaco, the owner of Grace Joy Adult Family Home in University Place was nominated by a family that was having trouble with an elderly father that refused to bathe and was angry about being moved.  Ciriaco showed up wearing scrubs and convinced the man to come with him, eventually the man became comfortable enough to bathe for the first time in six weeks.

Lolita Howard-Canty and Denise Ramsey’s clothes hide wings.  Ramsey’s nomination letter said, “God sent us an angel.”  Jesus speaks of abundance the letter went on to say and “Denise put that abundance into our lives.”  Howard-Canty’s nomination letter called her “our angel on earth.”

Bonnie Dickson by — July 3, 2012 in Spotlight
Charles Skagg, letter man

Charles Skagg sits in front of some of his work on display at the Lillian Pratt Art Gallery at Franke Tobey Jones.

Charles Skaggs began his career early.  “When I was in high school, I arranged my schedule so I could get off at noon.” He apprenticed himself to illustrator, Bob Richey in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.  “In those days, good typesetting was expensive,” Skaggs said.  “My hand lettering was less expensive.”  He left Kentucky for Cincinnati after high school to work for Kroger Grocery and Baking Company.

From Cincinnati, Skaggs went to Chicago to work on advertising including ads for Wrigley gum and Schlitz beer.

“It was an exciting, fertile time for the graphic arts,” said Skaggs.  In Chicago and later New York right after the war, hundreds of talented young people “eager to do something” entered the city.  “There was this creative explosion of music and drama.”

Skaggs worked on book jackets for Knopf and for a “very fancy and exclusive publisher called Peter Pauper Press” as well as Simon & Schuster, Harper Row and Macmillan publishing companies.  His favorite book  to design was “Dracula” although he also loved designing “The Go-Between” by L.P. Hartley and David B. Wharton’s “The Alaska Gold Rush”.  “A lot of people looked down on lettering,” but Skaggs loved absorbing the history of typography and forms.
During this time he became acquainted with Frederick Goudy and W.A. Dwiggins, leading figures in calligraphy, type and book design.  Dwiggins was Knopf’s prime book designer.  “Fred Goudy and W. A. Dwiggins became my idols.  They were a treasure beyond description. I like to say that it was like sitting at Christ’s left elbow,” said Skaggs.

Skaggs said, he had designed and collected books since I was about 30.  He also collected wood engravings and etchings.  In 2001, Skaggs donated his considerable library of books, printed materials, articles and letters to Smith College.  The school exhibit includes an online exhibit located at http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/rarebook/exhibitions/skaggs/.

A retrospective exhibit of more than 60 years of the art of Charles Skaggs is on display until Aug. 3 in the Lillian Pratt Resident Art Gallery at Franke Tobey Jones, 5340 North Bristol in Tacoma.  The eclectic exhibit includes book covers, articles and abstract artwork, is free and open to the public.

“All of these were an excuse to include different styles of the alphabet,” Skaggs said as he waved his hand indicating the two walls of displays.  “The layman image of an artist is someone who does pretty pictures and I don’t do pretty pictures.  I’m appreciative of extraordinary illustrative as distinct from fine art.  I love using colors.  I love the feel of burlap and canvas.  When you choose to do brushwork, those surfaces are so receptive to the brush work,” he said.  burlap and canvas.  When you choose to do brushwork, those surfaces are so receptive to the brush work,” he said.

Cover illustrations by Charles Skagg
Book covers designed by Charles Skagg Photo by Ruth Daugherty
Bonnie Dickson by — June 5, 2012 in Everything Else