It’s time for a new quarter of Spanish classes at El Centro de la Raza, for adults at the beginner to intermediate levels. Winter quarter classes start on Tuesday, January 17, and run on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 p.m., through March 22.
Classes are taught by native Spanish speakers in an interactive, community-based setting. The class fee is $300, and fees are used to help support El Centro’s human service and community-building programs. For more information, please call (206) 957-4605 or email execasst@elcentrodelaraza.org.
This coffee-colored building near El Centro is about to become a coffee shop, "The Station." Photo by Joel Lee in the Beacon Hill Blog photo pool on Flickr.The Seattle Weekly‘s food blog, Voracious, reviewed one of our favorite hidden food gems on Beacon Hill: the Beacon Avenue Shell Station. Yes, a gas station. The reviewer got a disappointingly old filet of catfish, but we know that if you get there at the right time the stuff is dee-lish.
The Beginner (Plus) classes begin Monday, April 5, and will continue on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm until June 9. The class fee is $300, which goes to support the programs at El Centro. If you have questions or want to enroll, call Enrique Gonzalez at (206) 957-4605 or email execasst@elcentrodelaraza.org. Registration deadline is March 31.
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We are told that on March 1020, the PLOP! Cabaret Performance Series will come to “an intimate house setting” somewhere on Beacon Hill, featuring poets Kate Lebo, A. K. “Mimi” Allin, and Jennifer Borges Foster. More info here.
“I am interested in putting together a small craft show in the Beacon Hill neighborhood this spring. I am posting to see if other crafters are interested in getting involved. I already have a venue (it’s a great place that I am super excited about!) and ideas for putting on the show. Please email me if you are interested in being a part of planning or if you would like to be a vendor at the event.”
Go to the Amazon WebStore Beta Invitation page. Look at the image in the lower right, featuring a retailer named “BH”. According to Techflash, “BH” stands for Beacon Hill; it’s a fake retailer that Amazon uses when they want to show off their new features without using a real company’s name. Amazon may be leaving the Hill soon, but perhaps they will keep a little bit of Beacon Hill with them for a while.
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The Filipino Community Center in the Rainier Valley is hosting a Community Forum on the 2010 Census on Thursday, March 11 at 6:00 pm. The forum will offer people the opportunity to ask questions and review the census forms. The Filipino Community Center is located at 5740 Martin Luther King Jr. Way South.
Making tamales. Photo by Noema of Intercultura y Cocina, via Creative Commons.El Centro de la Raza has a lot going on in upcoming weeks at their building at 2524 16th Avenue South, including cooking and language classes, free tax prep, and electronics recycling.
Graciela Gonzalez, El Centro’s Human Services Director, is teaching a class on making tamales. The class fee is $50, and students will be able to take home a dozen tamales along with the recipe. Each class is limited to six students. The class dates are Saturday, March 20, from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm, or Saturday, April 17, also from 10:00 to 12:30. Sign up at Brown Paper Tickets.
El Centro’s conversational Spanish classes will begin on Monday, April 5, and will continue on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm until June 9. Students will be able to learn Spanish with other adults in a relaxed, yet professional setting. The class fee is $300. Here is the registration form.
All proceeds from these classes go to support El Centro’s human service, child and youth, and education and skill-building programs.
As we wrote in January, United Way of King County is providing free tax preparation services to low-income taxpayers at El Centro. Tax assistance is provided in English and Spanish by volunteers who are trained and certified by the IRS. The free tax prep services will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:00 – 9:00 pm and Saturdays from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm until April 15.
Those eligible for the free service include anyone whose household made less than $50,000 in 2009, and who is filing a basic tax return only (no rental income, business taxes, or sale of property or stock).
Lastly, El Centro has joined up with Cartridges for Kids to collect used electronics. Cartridges for Kids recycles the used goods, and then gives a
small donation to El Centro. You can contribute old iPods, cell
phones, video game consoles, printer cartridges, digital cameras, DVDs, and more.
The Cartridges for Kids box is in room 304, on the top floor of the El Centro building at 2524 16th Avenue South. If you have a large amount of stuff to drop off, or if you are unable to come up to the top floor for medical reasons, please call Elliott Jones at 206-957-4652 to work out the logistics.
After my article was posted on the Beacon Hill Blog, I heard that a fellow Beacon Hill International School parent had seen translated materials about the Student Assignment Plan. I contacted her, and she said she had handed them out at one of the community information meetings, and they’d had interpreters, too. She referred me to Bernardo Ruiz, who is the Family and Community Engagement Manager. I wrote to him and heard back the next day, a thorough answer. To make a long story short, he said, “The following link will take you to the website where these translations have been posted and are available: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/newassign/resources.html.”
I looked, and backtracked to see how one would get there. I found that someone would first go to the New Student Assignment button, which is big and bright on the home page. That would take them to a page entirely in English. They would need to know somehow that “Learn More”, which is one of 15 generic-looking small buttons, would lead to the translations. Very most likely, one would come to the conclusion, as did I, that the info is not available. I suggested to Mr. Ruiz that they not hide the translations under pages of nothing but English and an undescriptive label, and then I asked him if he’d please tell the District office where to tell callers to find it.
He wrote back right away, saying that he’d talk to the English Language Learner Department about posting these materials more accessibly in their website. And he said, “Also, I will talk to our Customer Service Department to ensure that we provide accurate information to our families and stakeholders.”
Where was this guy when I was looking for him?
(Do you have an opinion about a Beacon Hill issue? We are always interested in opinion posts from the community. Send us your thoughts at blog@beaconhill.seattle.wa.us.)
Garfield High School Class of 1969 is celebrating its 40th class reunion August 7-9, including bowling at Imperial Lanes, food and entertainment at Yesler Community Center, and a family picnic and potluck at Othello Park. The registration fee is $69 per person for the weekend. For further information, see the reunion website, and RSVP to (206) 499-9624 by July 15.
A.C.E. Summer Language Camps in Arabic, Urdu, and Persian language for kids 10-14 are being held on July 13-24 at Northgate Elementary School in Northeast Seattle. Classes are free (with a $25 registration fee), and all teachers are native speakers. For more information, contact Maka Janikashvili by email at makaj@cultural.org, call (206) 217-9644 ext 201, or visit www.cultural.org/wlp/camp.php.
The comment period for Seattle’s draft Pedestrian Master Plan has been extended to Friday, June 26. You can view the plan on the web, here. Comments on the plan may be made through an online form, via email to mostwalkablecity@seattle.gov, by phone (206-733-9970), or by mail (Pedestrian Master Plan Comments, Seattle Department of Transportation, P.O. Box 34996, Seattle, WA 98124-4996). There will also be a public hearing on the draft plan on Tuesday, July 21, from 5:00-6:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 600 Fourth Avenue.
Atlantic Street Center is partnering with Seattle Public Schools in offering a Class of 2013 Math Academy this summer. The Academy will be at Aki Kurose Middle School, July 6-July 30, and is intended for “8th graders-rising-to-9th who struggle in math.” It will include morning math-focused academics, and afternoon enrichment activities. Cost is free to families. For more information, contact Samara Louton, Education/Activities Coordinator, 723-4073 x108 or samaral@atlanticstreet.org.
Is this your kitty?Are you missing a cat? This cute tabby was spotted at 13th Avenue South and South Spokane Street at around 11:15pm last night hanging out on a front porch. The neighbor who saw him didn’t bring him inside, but just wanted to get the word out where this cat is hanging out, in case someone’s missing their kitty. (Thanks, Robert!)
The Seattle Times has a lovely feature today on Beacon Hill’s Dolores Veliz. Veliz realized several years ago that she was unable to chat with many of her neighbors because they didn’t speak English well. Instead of merely wishing things could be different, she took action to demolish the language barrier directly by offering free English lessons. In three years, she’s taught about 500 students, aged 5-75, and made about 500 new friends.
