School Buddies Program Suspended in Happy Valley Elementary

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwest Washington suspended its School Buddies program for the 2012-2013 school year, pulling volunteers out of nine Bellingham public schools including Happy Valley Elementary School.

The decision to suspend the School Buddies program was made by the board of the nonprofit when the total budget was reduced from $425,000 to $250,000, according to Colleen Haggerty, chief operations officer, who cited a decline in donations and grants as the reason for the reduced budget.

“Our revenue stream wasn’t keeping up with the program,” Haggerty said of the 10-year-old mentoring program, which matched adult volunteers to public school children who could benefit from additional adult interaction and guidance. The adult mentor spent one hour per week with the child either during or after school for a minimum of one school year, according to Haggerty.

“It wasn’t about tutoring the child. The focus was on the relationship,” Haggerty said. “Even one hour makes a difference.” 

Children were referred to the program by teachers or other staff members, and Happy Valley Elementary School usually had between 12 and 24 students enrolled out of its approximate total of 290 students, according to Principal Karen Tolliver.

“Our students benefited from having a positive role model and someone who spent time with them on a regular basis,” Tolliver said, “the school buddy was someone they could have a relationship with, [someone] they could talk to and have fun [with].”

Tolliver said Happy Valley students miss their mentors, and some matches had been together for several years. 

“They had formed a strong bond over time and this has been a loss for students who have often already experienced loss in their lives,” Tolliver said.

There is a buddy system within the elementary school, involving lower grade level classes paired with higher grade level classes to improve reading comprehension, but Tolliver said School Buddies filled a different need.

“A school buddy was someone that was older and had the maturity to relate to students on another level,” Tolliver said.

Laurel Kunesh, now match support specialist for community mentoring programs, was the School Buddies coordinator for Happy Valley Elementary School. She worked closely with teachers who referred students to the School Buddies program.

“A [Happy Valley Elementary School] teacher shared with me that the children came back to the classroom [after a mentoring session] with their emotional tanks filled up,” Kunesh said. 

Big Brothers Big Sisters is now focusing on community-based mentoring as well as its new Mother-2-Mother program, involving experienced mothers mentoring teenage mothers. Haggerty would like to see the School Buddies program return, but she says there is no rush.

“The wisest and most prudent way of using our donor dollars would be to set up a strategic plan and be able to sustain the [School Buddies] program,” Haggerty said, “and we’re not at that place right now.”

McKenzie Green Commons Joins Happy Valley's Co-housing Community

A new co-housing community, McKenzie Green Commons, will be completed in the Happy Valley neighborhood on McKenzie Avenue filling the block between 15th Street and 16th Street by early summer 2013, according to Tom Anderson, a future resident.

McKenzie Green Commons is the third co-housing development in Bellingham, in which residents contribute to the design process in building a community that encourages social contact and features shared facilities. Bellingham Co-housing on Donovan Avenue was built in 2000 and includes 33 units, and Millworks Co-housing on Mill Avenue was completed in summer 2011 with eight units. 

As opposed to the intergenerational concept of other co-housing communities in Bellingham, McKenzie Green Commons is intended for residents age 55 and older. Twelve separate and attached cottage-style condominiums will range from 900 to 1,800 square feet, according to the McKenzie Green Commons Vision Statement. These green-built homes will share open space, a vegetable garden, and a common house for social gatherings. Residents hope to share a common desire to reduce their expenses and environmental footprint, according to Anderson, who declined to mention his age.

“One of the appeals is that it’s less expensive,” said Anderson, explaining how sharing common facilities cuts down on personal cost. Residents in the community will have the option to use their own facilities, but the presence of a group kitchen and laundry room will encourage residents to share some of the activity, Anderson said. 

“It’s nice to imagine a cooperative community,” Anderson said, “and I hope to gain neighbors that I’m comfortable going for a walk with or socializing with on a local scale.” Anderson grew up in a small community, and wants to replicate that living situation by creating an intentional community through co-housing.

The location for McKenzie Green Commons is also convenient, according to Anderson. The co-housing development will be a few blocks away from attractions in Fairhaven such as markets, the library and popular restaurants. 

“The distance is very walkable, and I [will be able to] live easily without a car,” Anderson said. Vehicles will be shared among neighbors in the community to lower impact to the environment, according to Anderson.

The co-housing development will be built by Aiki Homes, a company that specializes in sustainable design and construction. Aiki Homes worked with Millworks Co-housing from design to completion. 

Each condominium will be resource efficient, and will include recycled and reused materials, said Rob Straveland, Aiki Homes president. Straveland mentioned design features such as permeable concrete and custom-designed storm water systems. Straveland estimates the entire project will cost $4 to $5 million, and individual condominiums will sell for $300,000 to $400,000. 

“It will be a combination of individual bank financing and individual equity,” said Straveland, explaining that residents will carry their own mortgages.

The project has moved from initial stages almost two years ago to the final site design, according to Straveland. The next step involves a marketing push to attract people to sign on to the project and purchase condos. Currently, six people intend to live in the new condominiums, and the McKenzie Green Commons community hopes to have 12 to 20 residents once the development is completed, according to Anderson. 

“The site plan [of a co-housing community] is built deliberately so that residents bump into each other daily,” said Karen Sheldon, a resident of Bellingham Co-housing for the past eight years. According to Sheldon, the site plan usually includes walking paths between houses, and parking lots are built on the periphery of the community property so residents have to walk into the heart of the community to reach their front doors. Within the community, there is support and friendship among neighbors and an ability to grow with the neighborhood, Sheldon said. 

“We’ve had small families grow into large families, and move to larger houses in the community,” said Sheldon, explaining how many residents have lived in multiple houses within the community.

“We switch around all the time,” said Carol Butz, another resident of Bellingham Co-housing, “it drives the poor postman nuts.”

Sheldon characterizes the co-housing community as neighbors who become family.

“It’s like Thanksgiving dinner multiplied by 33 homes.” 

Old Fairhaven Parkway Bridge Construction Starts Spring 2013

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) is gearing up to start construction in spring 2013 on a new bridge located on Old Fairhaven Parkway west of 20th Street.

The bridge is the first construction step in the Padden Creek Daylighting project, which involves re-routing approximately 2,300 feet of the creek into a natural stream bed. That section of the creek passes underneath Old Fairhaven Parkway in a brick tunnel stretching from 16th Street to 22nd Street that was built in 1892 in anticipation of the ending of the Great Northern Railroad, according to Wendy Scherrer, a resident of Happy Valley and a member of its neighborhood association. Scherrer said she has worked on the restoration of Padden Creek since 1985. 

“The tunnel doesn’t function well anymore,” Scherrer said. The removal of the creek from the tunnel will help stimulate fish passage and reduce flooding in Happy Valley. Once the creek is daylighted, the creek restoration will include cleaning up the water and reducing bank erosion by planting vegetation along its corridors, according to the Happy Valley neighborhood plan. Steep slopes in the northwest and southwest corners of the neighborhood lead to flood plains between 16th Street and 22nd Street. Once the bridge is built, the tunnel will remain as a stormwater wet vault and an overflow bypass to ease flooding in those areas, according to the City of Bellingham. 

The main concern for residents is the inconvenience of construction around this project. Richard Sullivan has lived in Happy Valley since 1978, and his home on 22nd Street is no more than 100 feet from the opening of the tunnel. 

“I’m going to have to find a new place to park,” Sullivan said, noting that traffic diversions and road closures will be a major problem. 

Once construction starts this spring, the plan is to re-route traffic around the building site and temporarily close one block from Old Fairhaven Parkway north on 20th Street, according to Craig Mueller, Project Engineer for the City of Bellingham. Approximately six months later, Mueller will lead the daylighting phase of the project as the WSDOT permanently closes that one block in order for the stream to run through it and under the new bridge. Construction should be finished by the beginning of summer 2014, and the restoration of the creek should take another two years, Mueller said. 

Funds for the project include $1.44 million from a state-revolving loan, $500,000 from a state grant and $700,000 in allocated city funds, Mueller said. The total amount of $2.64 million contributes to the cost of construction engineering, project bid award and sales tax, according to the WSDOT.

“After construction the bridge will be on the same alignment and be the same width as the current highway.  Probably most drivers will not even notice a difference when we are done,” said Chris Damitio, Project Engineer for the WSDOT. Damitio said that traffic obstructions will be minimal and the department will try to maintain two-way traffic for most of the construction.

“Overall I think the local residents are fairly supportive, as there is a strong consensus [for] the restoration of Padden Creek,” Damitio said, “and they are willing to deal with the inconveniences, as they recognize the long-term benefits being provided.”

“We’re friendly to all critters,” said Sullivan, explaining how the environmental benefits to the project outweigh the inconvenience of construction for the neighborhood. 

“We are doing everything possible to impact this to the least [number] possible while getting this bridge done as quickly and efficiently as possible,” Damitio said.

Market Closure Still Affecting Happy Valley Residents

The Market at Fairhaven closed nearly a year ago, but the lack of a grocery store in the southern part of Happy Valley still affects residents who do not have access to cars.

Several of Bellingham’s main grocery stores are located north of Lakeway Drive, and are not easily accessible for residents of south Bellingham neighborhoods. The Market was the only full-service grocery store to serve the southern Happy Valley neighborhood, and its location allowed the neighborhood association to promote its overall goal of becoming more pedestrian, public transit, and bicycle-friendly, according to the Happy Valley neighborhood plan.

“People try things there, and they haven’t been particularly successful,” said Wendy Scherrer, a member of the Happy Valley neighborhood association. The Market was the third grocery store to fail in the 40,000-square-foot building at 3125 Old Fairhaven Parkway since 1995. It was preceded by the South Side Food Pavilion and an Albertson’s. 

The Market was less expensive than other grocery stores in the area, said Scherrer, also noting that it provided a great service to residents in the southern part of the neighborhood. The proximity of the store enabled shoppers to leave their cars at home.

“It’s a 10-minute walk to where that market used to be, whereas it’s almost an entire mile, and it’s a really hilly kind of mile to go to the [Fairhaven] Haggen, which is the closest [full-service] grocery store,” said Sarah Richards, 30, speaking of the duration of the trip from her home to the former grocery store. She used the trail system in Happy Valley to walk to the Market and noted its accessibility as its main draw. Richards represents a great number of low-income residents in Happy Valley who do not have access to vehicles to complete their grocery shopping trips.  Richards mentioned that she usually does the grocery shopping for herself and her son in short, small trips. If she chooses to take a bus to the Fairhaven Haggen, it is still four blocks to the nearest bus stop.

“If you don’t have bags, you have to buy these paper bags,” said Richards, “and if it’s raining, you don’t want to be walking around with tons of paper bags.” The other grocery store option, the Sehome Haggen, is in the opposite northwestern corner of Happy Valley, which from the southern half of the neighborhood requires four buses, $4, and a total travel time of 54 minutes for Richards and other residents to get there and back. 

Recently, the location at 3125 Old Fairhaven Parkway has been replaced with the Whatcom Farmer’s Co-op, which provides home, farm and garden supplies to shoppers. This is the company’s second store in Bellingham, adding to its Meridian Street location. 

“There are still people that walk in here and ask where all the food is,” said Travis Smith, an employee of the new store. The Whatcom Farmer’s Co-op serves a different purpose in filling the need for a hardware store in the Fairhaven area, but does not solve the lack of a full-service grocery store in the neighborhood, according to Richards.

“We’re working on taking customers’ advice and asking what they want,” Smith said, adding that the store employees are trying to meet the needs of the community.

Currently, there are no future plans for a new supermarket in Happy Valley.