LESCHI
The Leschi Community Council potluck holiday party kicks off the month on Dec. 5, from 6 to 9 PM in the dining room at the Central Area Senior Center, 500 30th Ave. S. Some entrée items are supplied by generous local merchants, but bring your favorite dish to feed six to eight people.
There will be kids' activities, music, the ever-popular raffle, good food and even wine this year. The council will provide the permit, so everyone can bring their favorite vintage.
A more elegant holiday bash is planned for Dec. 12, again at the Central Area Senior Center. The Holiday at the Central features a meal prepared and served by Aramark Corporation, a sponsor of the center. The Mount Zion Ensemble will provide the music. Tickets are $35; seating limited to 80. Call 726-4926 for tickets.
Aside from the holiday parties, the Seattle Neighborhood Group recognized the Leschi Community Council with the Community Builder Award for its series of five community concerts over the summer. Council president Sharon Sobers accepted the award at the Oct. 28 ceremony at the Yesler Terrace Community Center.
- Diane Snell
MADISON PARK
The merger of the new Madison Park Community Council (MPCC) website with the Madison Park Business Association's (MPBA) is nearly complete. Please visit our site at madisonparkseattle.com. You will be able to view the restaurants, menus, services, shops and the council's activities and minutes. (Thank you to Lindy Wishard for all her hard work.) Let us know what you think via e-mail at council@madisonparkcouncil.org. We'd love to hear from you about your concerns and our neighborhood.
One of our concerns is the apparent increase in crime. We recently had a guest speaker, Benjamin Kinlow, of the Seattle Police Department. He is a crime-prevention coordinator who urged us to establish a block-watch program for the neighborhood.
The Madison Street-End Park Expansion Committee has adopted the working title of the project: Love Our Lake Access (LOLA). We have worked with Seattle Parks and Recreation, Department of Neighborhoods, Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) and the Department of Natural Resources to fulfill the conditions on our Department of Neighborhoods Matching Funds' Small and Simple Grant. The grant was awarded in mid-October, and conditions related to contact with Parks and Recreation, SDOT and Department of Neighborhoods have been met. Also, the council has named a fiscal agent.
The council, through the LOLA Committee, will contract with the Department of Neighborhoods to hire a landscape architect (designer) to develop a design concept, based on study of the site and community input. Community input will be gathered through specific meetings: a series of small focus groups and three large public meetings. Focus groups will be made up of people with a particular interest or knowledge base related to the possible uses for the area to be developed. These might include garden/flora, historic references, ADA compliance, education, environmental impact and others. The open public meetings will allow members of the community to review the design concept as it develops, to respond to the ideas presented by the designer, to make suggestions and to ask questions.
We are eager to facilitate the sharing of ideas among community members and to work with professionals in the design-development phase of this project. To make direct contact with the LOLA Committee, call Kathleen Stearns at 568-2074 or Linda Cody at 328-4169.
We are also excitedly awaiting the visit from the Christmas Ships on Dec. 19 from 4:55 to 5:15 p.m. Coffee, cocoa and cookies will be served. Hope to see you then.
- Ken Myrabo, MPCC president
MADRONA
A couple of weeks ago, a big truck was parked outside the glassybaby studio on East Union Street. While the 30 artists inside the Madrona workshop blew and shaped colored glass into a rainbow of signature glassybaby vessels, men with dollies rolled cases of their work on board the semi for a trip across the country. Their destination: the new glassybaby store in New York City.
The company has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Seattle-area charities, and it is bringing that philosophy along to New York. In November and December, 10 percent of sales from the New York store will go to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Epiphany School and Sellen Construction continue to make remarkable progress on Madrona Hall, the new classroom building for Epiphany students. Over the last few weeks, the team has completed the underground parking garage, framed most of the first floor of classrooms and delivered a skybridge that will connect Madrona Hall to Spock Hall.
It's obvious from the honors awarded the Total Experience Gospel Choir that choir director Patrinell Wright is a musician of wide acclaim. Besides that, she's a generous Madrona neighbor. About a month ago, she encountered an old friend, Fordie Ross, a member of Madrona Presbyterian Church, who asked if the choir might be able to donate a concert to assist the church in its struggle to raise $100,000 for furnace repair. Pat readily agreed, and the result: a concert to take place on Monday, Dec. 7, at 7 p.m. at the church, at the corner of 32nd Avenue and East Marion Street. Music will include gospel music, seasonal selections and works from "The Black Nativity." An added attraction: church members will donate baked goods for sale before and after the concert. Tickets ($10 suggested donation) may be purchased on-line at www.madronachurch.org or by calling the church office at 328-2704 and leaving a message; tickets will also be available at the door.
The church has no parking area, but St. Therese Catholic Church, three blocks away, has offered its playground, which doubles as a parking lot, on 35th Avenue and Marion. (Enter at the southeast corner.)
- Kimberley Herber, Matt Neely, Sara Levant[[In-content Ad]]
