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Our local Habitat for Humanity site (4015 MLK) will be hosting the opening ceremonies for Habitat’s 1st Annual Build-a-Thon. This FREE festive event will feature an all you can eat breakfast, kids corner with arts and crafts, Habitat inspired games (how fast can you hammer that nail?), Build-a-Thon updates and much, much more! You won’t want to miss out!

Saturday, Sept. 19
10:30am - noon

Please RSVP to Jillian at jgross@seattle-habitat.org if you would like to attend!

For more information about the Build-a-Thon or to register to volunteer, visit: www.habtiatbuildathon.org

Just a reminder that the first gathering of the NRV Community Kitchen will be Monday, August 24 at the Neighborhood House at 6:30pm.  Come cook with your neighbors!  Bring a large bowl, a baking dish, a spice to donate to the Kitchen’s spice collection, and $5.

There will be a Tools 4 Schools event at the Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club on Friday, August 28 at 4:30-7:00PM.  Register for a new membership ($20 a year!) and receive a backpack filled with school supplies.  Get there early as supplies will be limited!

After you’ve got your Tools 4 Schools, stop by the Neighborhood House for story readings and bookmark decorating on Friday August 28, at 4:30pm (4410 29th Ave. S.).   Free books and resources!  This is for kids of all ages!

Just a reminder to all NRV Homeowners that the August HOA Board meeting will be on Tuesday, Aug 25, at 7pm (promptly!) in the McBride Court Community Room (usual place).

Eat well, celebrate, live well! Please come and enjoy an evening of community, a youth dinner performance and wild salmon. Open to all and proudly provided by the Experience Food Project, the Austin Foundation and the Boys & Girls Clubs of King County, Rainier Vista Branch.

Thursday, Aug. 20
5-7 p.m.
Rainier Vista Boys & Girls Club
4520 MLK Jr. Way South

There’s work afoot to transform part of the Cheasty Greenspace into a real City Park (across Columbian/Alaska) from NRV). The folks working on it have been doing clean up and reforestation for a while. Now, they are submitting a proposal for the Dept of Neighborhood’s Small and Simple Grant to hire a landscape architect to design a trail system over 10 acres and create a beautified park entrance at the dead end of S. Alaska Place.

These grants require “match” volunteer hours dedicated to this design phase. These volunteers would attend design review meetings, community review meetings, set up meetings, canvas the neighborhood with promotional information and the likes. If awarded the grant, these activities would take place from January-June 2010.

Would you be willing to dedicate volunteer hours to these efforts? If so or if you want info on the forest restoration work, please contact Mary DeJong via Tom Phillips (tomphillips6@msn.com) with your name, address, phone number, pledged number of hours and for what specific task. This is what the City is looking for for a competitive grant application.

The local La Leche League meets here at NRV in the WAMU Room upstairs in the Neighborhood House. The next meeting will be Wednesday, 8/12, at 10:15am. The topic will be Improving Family Nutrition, but the discussion will first focus on the needs and questions of the moms that attend the meeting.

La Leche League meetings are a gathering of mothers and babies who are breastfeeding, struggling with breastfeeding and interested in breastfeeding. We will discuss the questions/needs that moms come with and a planned topic if time allows. If you are struggling with a breastfeeding issue, come and get support from fellow mommies. If you are enjoying breastfeeding, please come share your experience and support the other moms in your community! If you are pregnant, come and hear the tidbits of info we all wish we had known before our babies were born!

Children, pregnant women, partners, dads and grandmas are all welcome!

For more info, please contact the leaders of the South Seattle La Leche League, Emily (LLLemhealy@gmail.com) and Erin (erin.lalecheleague@gmail.com).

Just south of the new Boys & Girls Club, at 4626 MLK Jr. Way S, on Monday, August 10,11:45 am – 12:30 pm. Snacks and beverages provided.

Special guests include

• Shaun Donovan, Secretary U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
• United States Senator Patty Murray
• United States Representative Jim McDermott
• Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels
• The Boys & Girls Club Drill Team

Sponsors include: Recovery.Gov, SHA, Foster Pepper PLLC, SvR Design Company and Tonkin / Hoyne Architecture and Urban Design.

The Voice Resident Advisory Committee meets monthly to discuss The Voice newspaper. If you read The Voice, you’re already a VRAC member!

The next meeting of the VRAC will be at 2 p.m. Aug. 5 at the Epstein building, 905 Spruce St. We’ll meet in the first-floor conference room; an accessible entrance is located on the east side of the building. Please ring the buzzer for entry.

For more information, please contact the Voice Editor, Tyler Roush, at (206) 461-8430, ext. 227.

Our street curbs are scheduled for painting this week, which should hopefully make it clearer where the No Parking Zones are around the Vista. These areas to be painted include around fire hydrants, post box units, Columbian Way medians, and the curve areas where roads turn. Areas that are already painted will be touched up.

Please be sure that you are not parking in any of these areas! Not only is it risky and illegal, this week you could also get yourself a bonus of curb paint on your car!