Category Archives: Local Events

Local Events

Chobo-Ji invites neighbors to visit, learn, celebrate

Members of the Dai Bai Zan Cho Bo Zen Temple, or Chobo-Ji, would like to invite Beacon Hill friends and neighbors to classes and an open house celebration this month to see their grounds, learn about Zen Buddhism, and celebrate the group’s one-year anniversary in their space on South Horton Street.

The classes in the Introduction to Zen series will run each of the next three Tuesdays from 7:30-8:30, followed by a Sunday retreat. Here is the schedule of the remaining classes (the first class was this week):

  • Tuesday, October 9: Meditation in Action: chanting, bowing, walking, working
  • Tuesday, October 16: Zen Meals: preparing and eating food mindfully
  • Tuesday, October 23: Roots of Rinzai Zen: koans and the Zen Master with Rev. Genjo Marinello Osho
  • Sunday, October 28: 5:00-11:30 a.m. Half-day Zen retreat, or sesshin

Neighbors are welcome to attend all or part of the series. There is a suggested donation of $20 for the Tuesday night series, and $40 including the half-day retreat. If you have questions, contact Muken Rick Proctor at 206-817-4410.

On Sunday, October 14, the group will host a One-Year Anniversary Celebration and Open House from 10:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Here’s the invitation from Chobo-Ji:

Beacon Hill friends and neighbors are invited to come celebrate one full year at Chobo-Ji’s new Zen Temple and Residential Zen Practice Center. We will chant the Heart Sutra and Four Great Vows at 10:30 and will serve refreshments and have an open-house afterward.

The temple is located at 1733 S. Horton St. in North Beacon Hill, about three blocks north of Spokane Street and one block west of Beacon Avenue.

The temple courtyard. Photo courtesy of Chobo-Ji.
Local Events

Rainier Valley Co-op Preschool celebrates Fall Festival 10/13

A table of baked goods for sale at the RVCP Fall Festival in 2009. Photo by Jason Simpson.

It’s fall festival season! The Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool‘s annual Fall Festival is Saturday, October 13 from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Roberto Maestas Festival Street in north Beacon Hill.

The festival will have lots of activities, including bike hay rides, a bike parade, face painting, costume dress-up, a photo booth, cider pressing, pumpkin decorating, and more. All ages are welcome.

There will also be food for sale including baked goods and grilled food for both carnivores and vegetarians.

Proceeds from the festival will benefit the preschool.

Local Events, Volunteering and Giving

El Centro to celebrate 40 year anniversary this weekend; volunteers needed

Local non-profit group El Centro de la Raza‘s 40th anniversary celebration is this Saturday, September 29 at the Seattle Westin Hotel. There will be a reception, historical art walk, live and silent auctions, awards, and more.

The keynote speaker will be New Mexico Congressman Ben Ray Luján, the second Vice Chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Co-chair of the bipartisan Technology Transfer Caucus.

Volunteers in multiple areas are still needed to help the event run smoothly. The most help is needed between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m.; dinner will be provided for volunteers. If you’re interested, contact Taylor Skoglund, volunteer coordinator, at volunteer@elcentrodelaraza.org or call (206) 957-4602.

To register, donate, or find out more about this event, see the website here.

Local Events

ROCKiT benefit yard sale this Saturday

Betty Jean Williamson sent us this notice:

“A long time neighbor and ROCKiT supporter is moving away and helping to support ROCKiT by donating the proceeds from a farewell yard sale.
Saturday, 9/29 8:00-3:00 3412 Beacon Ave. S. (between Spokane & Hinds)
If you have great stuff you would like to add to the sale, bring them to that address Friday 9/28 (that’s today! — ed.) between 11:00 and 4:00.
All proceeds go to support ROCKiT programs like Beacon Rocks, Tots Jam, Garden House Blues, Sunday Folk Club, BeaconBards Poetry readings and more.”

Health and Safety, Local Events

Part with your old prescriptions at National Prescription Drug Take Back Day

Photo by Dawn McIlvain Stahl via Creative Commons/Flickr.

Do you have a collection of partially-filled prescription bottles that you’ll never use? Or prescriptions well past their expiration date? You can turn them in for safe disposal on National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, this Saturday, September 29, from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at the Seattle Police Department South Precinct, 3001 S. Myrtle St.

A notice in the Seattle Police Email Community Newsletter this week said:

“The purpose of this National Take Back Day is to provide a venue for persons who wanted to dispose of unwanted and unused prescription drugs. This effort has been a huge success in removing potentially dangerous prescription drugs, particularly controlled substances, from our nation’s medicine cabinets.”

Intravenous solutions, injectibles, syringes, or medical waste will not be accepted for disposal.

Arts, Local Events

Spice Box art and variety show 10/5 at Skin Deep Dance

Skin Deep Dance will present Spice Box, a monthly art and variety show, on Friday, October 5, at the Skin Deep Dance Studio (in the El Centro de la Raza building).

This month’s Spice Box will include art by Kook Teflon, art and performance by Magi, and performances by Amazon Heart, Bollywood Bliss (Katrina’s Bollywood student troupe), Janelle Bel Isle, Lesley Rialto, Twilight, and Chloe Anderson.

Admission is $10/person, free for kids under 12. All ages are welcome, and the event is family friendly. Proceeds will benefit Skin Deep Dance’s SEEDS (Self -esteem, Empowerment and Education through Dance) program.

The Spice Box series will continue on the first Friday of every month. Performers and artists have already been booked for events on November 2, December 7, and January 4.

The studio’s address is 2514 16th Ave. S. #311. Enter El Centro through the North entrance.

Clean and Green, Local Events, Neighborhood Pride, Volunteering and Giving

Food Forest friends to celebrate “Ground Making” 9/29

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The Food Forest site was marked during July’s Jefferson Park Jubilee to show where the features of the park will eventually be. Photo by Wendi Dunlap.

Three years into the Beacon Food Forest planning, the site is still just plain lawn. That will change on Saturday, September 29, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. when the forest’s first trees are planted at the Beacon Food Forest Ground Making Day celebration. All are invited to this inaugural work party to begin the transformation of the site.

West African drums will be played by Katia Roberts and Friends, and there will be food provided by Tom Douglas, La Panzanella, and more. Volunteers should RSVP to Glenn Herlihy at glennherlihy@speakeasy.net, and bring their own gloves.

The next day, Sunday, September 30, a tree planting workshop is scheduled for the Food Forest site from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., taught by Jana Dilley, Seattle Public Utilities’ reLeaf Program Manager. There are 20 spaces available in this workshop to learn how to plant and care for fruit trees. RSVP to cramerjacqueline99@gmail.com to reserve a space.

Both events will be held at the Beacon Food Forest site, the southwest corner of Jefferson Park, at South Dakota Street and 15th Avenue South.

The Ground Making work party will begin by planting trees in a small area of the site. The rest of the site preparation and planting will come later, after the site is connected to a water source. The Friends of the Beacon Food Forest sent out an announcement explaining the delay:

“Hard working people at Seattle P-Patch (BFF is a Seattle P-Patch) are negotiating with several government agencies to find our point of connection to city water. Since we are starting with absolutely nothing but grass on our site we need to find where we will be placing our water meter and routing our water to the forest garden. Currently we are exploring two options: 1) Seattle Parks and Recreation allows us to tap into their Jefferson Park system or 2) we create our own point of connection by digging up 15th Ave S and running a new line up into the site. Seattle P-Patch, Seattle Parks and Recreation and Seattle public Utilities who are negotiating these terms are being asked to be as economical and ecological as possible in their final decision. When the point of connection is agreed, final drawings for construction will be delivered to the Conservation Corps who will be doing the construction beginning, we hope, later this month.”