Large screen rear projection of the World Cup Final in the courtyard of Empire Espresso - 3829 A South Edmunds.

Large screen, great outdoor space, enthusiastic neighborhood soccer fans, and delicious coffee and waffles. Sounds ideal to me.

When: Artist’s Reception for both exhibits: Saturday, June 19, 5 – 8p
“Strength through Unity” bids accepted: June 16 – June 26, 2010
Exhibits Glue and the heArt of Haiti: June 16 – August 1, 2010

Where: Columbia City Gallery
4864 Rainier Avenue South
Seattle, WA 98118
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About Columbia City Gallery:
Since 1999, Columbia City Gallery has provided crucial exhibition and community arts space as the only nonprofit artists’ cooperative in Southeast Seattle. The gallery has been showcasing the work of its Seattle member artists as well as a diverse selection of local guest artists. The Columbia City Gallery is a program of SEEDArts and receives generous funding from the City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday, 12 p to 8 p, Saturdays and Sundays, 10 a to 6 p. For a complete schedule, visit www.ColumbiaCityGallery.com.

More About the Artists:
Please visit Columbia City Gallery’s artist web site.

***Learn more about the story behind David Pierre-Louis and L’Union Fait La Force by searching at www.examiner.com.

Please join us! All are welcome to attend!

Date: Thursday June 17, 2010

Time: 6:00 p.m. (refreshments will be served)

Location: Southside Commons Auditorium

Admission: $2 suggested donation

Sponsors: NWFCO and Social Justice Fund NW

Film Summary:

Maxed Out takes us on a journey deep inside the American debt-style, where everything seems okay as long as the minimum monthly payment arrives on time. Sure, most of us may have that sinking feeling that something isn’t quite right, but we’re told not to worry. After all, there’s always more credit! Maxed Out shows how the modern financial industry really works, explains the true definition of “preferred customer” and tells us why the poor are getting poorer and the rich getting richer. By turns hilarious and profoundly disturbing, Maxed Out paints a picture of a national nightmare which is all too real for most of us. -Written by James Scurlock

www.southsidecommons.org

Friday, June 18, 7:30 pm

Come join your friends and neighbors at the Columbia City Community Choruses' first concert. The show will be a benefit for Real Change Newspaper in honor of vendor Robert Hansen, who passed away this past April. Read here about how Robert's heart and humor touched the lives of so many of us, you probably knew him too!

Real Change article about Robert

What: Spoken word, poetry, performance, and music by Voices Rising LGBTQ of Color

When: Saturday, May 29, 2010 – Doors Open at 7:30 p.m., Show at 8 p.m.

Cost: Sliding scale – $10-$25

Advance Tickets: Purchase online at Brown Paper Tickets

Location: Southside Commons, 3518 S Edmunds Street, Seattle, WA 98118

About Southside Commons: Southside Commons is a new space in the former Southside Church in the Columbia City neighborhood that seeks to be a home for grassroots and community organizations to gather, perform and showcase their work.

Performers: Mami Watu & Avery Young, Storme Webber, Chad Goller-Sojourner, Malkia Cyril, Mikeya Jackson Harper

*http://voicesrisingseattle.org/**

Date: Thursday May 20, 2010

Time: 6:00 p.m. (refreshments will be served)

Location: Southside Commons Auditorium

Admission: $2 suggested donation

Sponsors: Got Green, NWFCO, and Social Justice Fund NW

Film Summary:

How much do we really know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families? Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here. –Text from www.foodincmovie.com

Date: Thursday May 20, 2010

Time: 6:00 p.m. (refreshments will be served)

Location: Southside Commons Auditorium

Admission: $2 suggested donation

Sponsors: Got Green, NWFCO, and Social Justice Fund NW

Film Summary:

How much do we really know about the food we buy at our local supermarkets and serve to our families? Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation’s food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government’s regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Food, Inc. reveals surprising—and often shocking truths—about what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here. –Text from www.foodincmovie.com

Please contact Meredith at gro.snommocedishtuos|ofni#gro.snommocedishtuos|ofni for more information.

Guest Speaker
Darryl Smith, Deputy Mayor City of Seattle

May 5, 2010
5:30 PM— 8:30 PM
Asian Counseling and Referral Services
3639 Martin Luther King Jr. Way S
Seattle, WA 98144

Come Celebrates our Community’s Success
$2 Million in Loans to Small Businesses
25 Permanent Jobs Created
141 Construction Jobs Created
$7.33 Million in Real Estate Development Loans

RSVP gro.fdcvr|notsuoht#gro.fdcvr|notsuoht
206.722.5280 Ext. 104

*Join your neighbors as we welcome back the regional farmers you've come to rely on for nutritious, sustainable foods and meet this year's newest vendors.

*Shop to the beat of folksy, funky music by the Convergence Zone Blue Grass Band!

*Fresh Sheet for Opening Day…
Organic veggies
Pastured meats
Fish & Shellfish
Dried Fruits
Cow & Goat Cheeses
Honey and handcrafted sweets
Take-home Soup & Pasta
Plant Starts and Flowers
and many other outstanding market goodies!

See you at the Market!

Six Weeks of art projects designed to further the development of skills in design,
color, and patience. Each week concentrates on a new material to bring excitement
and interest while learning fine art concepts.

Former RVHS executive director Mikala Woodward will report on our education project – “Bringing World Religion Home”. Also speaking will be garden historian Kathy Mendelson on the Gardens of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. We will present the first annual Buzz Anderson Volunteer of the Year Award. Named for RVHS founder and former Board President Buzz Anderson, this award will be given to one of our many outstanding volunteers. Lunch to follow!

There is a very interesting piece that Kathy Mendelson wrote in the Washington State Historical Society’s Columbia Magazine this spring issue about the 1909 AYPE (Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition) grounds- “From Wilderness to Wonderland.”

http://columbia.washingtonhistory.org/magazine/articles/2010/0110/0110-a2.aspx

for more info on RVHS, visit our website: www.rainiervalleyhistory.org

Hope to see you Saturday!

When: 2–4 p.m., Saturday, April 24
Where: Rainier Community Center, 4600 38th Avenue South, Seattle

• Free and open to all area residents, ages 18 and over
• Guest panelists on hand to answer your questions
• Light refreshments provided
• Hosted by Pacific Science Center

Bring your kids!

• Free educational activity, “Harvesting Science/Cosechando la Ciencia,” for children (ages 5+) whose caregivers attend the forum
• Toddler play room open (unsupervised)
• Call Rainier Community Center at (206) 386-1919 to register children for educational activities

For Langdon Cook, foraging is not just about finding food, it is a way to reconnect with the landscape. Join Langdon as he describes how gourmet delicacies abound, free for the taking, if we just open our eyes and look around us. Structured around the seasons of the year, each chapter of his book focuses on a specific food type and concludes with a recipe featuring his hard-won bounty, a savory stop to each adventure-filled morsel. For more information on Langdon and his book, visit http://fat-of-the-land.blogspot.com.

Register for Langdon’s presentation on https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/99938.

Date: Thursday April 15, 2010

Time: 6:00 p.m. (refreshments will be served)

Location: Southside Commons Auditorium, 3518 South Edmunds Street

Admission: $2 suggested donation

Film Summary:

Papers is the story of undocumented youth and the challenges they face as they turn 18 without legal status. There are approximately 2 million undocumented children who were born outside the U.S. and raised in this country. These are young people who were educated in American schools, hold American values, know only the U.S. as home and yet risk deportation to countries they may not even remember. Sixty five thousand (65,000) undocumented students graduate every year from high school without “papers” and the doors to their futures slam shut. It is against the law to work or drive. It is difficult, if not impossible in some states, to attend college. Currently, there is no path to citizenship for these young people.-Text from www.papersthemovie.com

For more information visit www.southsidecommons.org or e-mail Meredith at gro.ocfwn|htiderem#gro.ocfwn|htiderem.

BeatWalk returns for our 15th season on May 14th at 7pm. There are a few changes I'd like to let you know about.

First of all, the new website is up! For those of you that don't know, our web host went out of business last September and took all our files with them. So we went dark for awhile, but we're back. Check it out: http://columbiacitybeatwalk.org. Still some tweaks to come, but the basic info is there, including how to volunteer or submit a demo to be considered for booking.

I'd like to announce that Julie Dillon will be taking over for me this season. I've had a great 5 years, and it's time for a break. Julie's very involved in the Columbia City neighborhood, has some creative ideas and will do a fabulous job. You'll still see Sally Chamberlain working during the event, too. Great team we've got.

Two more announcements. We're moving to 2nd Fridays so that we don't collide with 4th of July and Labor Day weekends. Those are low attendance weekends for us, and 2nd Fridays will help us out with that. Also, to keep on keepin' on we needed to raise our price for the first time in 15 years. It's now $7 for all the venues, and kids are still FREE.

***We've got season passes for $30, which save you $5 for the whole season. E-mail moc.liamg|klawtaebyticaibmuloc#moc.liamg|klawtaebyticaibmuloc for more info on how to order a pass.

Thanks, everyone! Hope to see you on May 14th when the fun begins again.

Joanne Kelly
Your outgoing coordinator

Living Room tonight at 7P, where writers read new work, lovers of writing read the work of someone else or come just to be in the engaging company of other writers and readers. (You’re a dwindling minority!)

4816 Rainier AV S, right next to Subway, across the street from Bank of America, in the 2nd floor lounge of the Columbia City Cinema. The smell of really good popcorn greets you & look for the SPLAB sign.

You may want to bring copies of a recent poem of yours to read for gentle critique. We’re averaging 6 folks a night, but sometimes more show up, so bring 8. We meet every Tuesday until the end of May.

Our guest tonight?

Flávia Rocha was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1974. She has a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Fundação Casper Libero and a M.F.A in Writing from Columbia University. She has worked as a reporter and contributor for various magazines in Brazil, including Casa Vogue and Bravo! She is currently the editor-in-chief of the poetry journal Rattapallax (www.rattapallax.com). Author of the bilingual poetry book “A Casa Azul ao Meio-dia/ The Blue House Around Noon” (Travessa dos Editores, Brazil, 2005), has just finished a second collection, “Quartos Habitáveis”.

Date: Thursday April 15, 2010

Time: 6:00 p.m. (refreshments will be served)

Location: Southside Commons Auditorium, 3518 South Edmunds Street

Admission: $2 suggested donation

Film Summary:

Papers is the story of undocumented youth and the challenges they face as they turn 18 without legal status. There are approximately 2 million undocumented children who were born outside the U.S. and raised in this country. These are young people who were educated in American schools, hold American values, know only the U.S. as home and yet risk deportation to countries they may not even remember. Sixty five thousand (65,000) undocumented students graduate every year from high school without “papers” and the doors to their futures slam shut. It is against the law to work or drive. It is difficult, if not impossible in some states, to attend college. Currently, there is no path to citizenship for these young people.-Text from www.papersthemovie.com

For more information visit www.southsidecommons.org or e-mail Meredith at gro.ocfwn|htiderem#gro.ocfwn|htiderem.

2010 Kids Bike Swap - May 8th, 2010 , from 10am to 4pm
at Genesee Playfield located at 43rd Ave. South and South Genesee Street

Click here to download the 2010 flyer – spread the word!

Come on down to Genesee Playfield and trade up or down for the next bike. Come watch how a field of big bikes mysteriously shrinks into a bunch of little bikes by the end of the day. Get there early to get a good deal!

How does it work?

Bike Works’ annual Kids Bike Swap event helps to facilitate the flow of affordable bicycles within the community while simultaneously preventing fully functional bikes from ending up in local landfills. This event provides families with a cost-effective opportunity that allows them to trade a child’s bike that has been outgrown for a larger bike that provides both a better fit and ride for their child’s next summer season of riding! Families looking to buy a bike, but do not have a bike to trade in, are welcome to come after 12 pm.

Throughout the year Bike Works receives bike donations, many of which fuel the Kids Bike Swap event in the Spring. Through their full-service repair shop and staff of volunteer mechanics Bike Works is able to maintain, repair and overhaul many of the bikes that come through their doors. This year, Bike Works has overhauled over 100 kids’ bikes to kick-off the swap.

“This event is a fabulous way to get kids and families on bikes and to keep them there as they grow,” said Dara Ayres, immediate past Executive Director of Bike Works.

At the swap, each bike that is brought to be swapped is assigned a trade value, which can then be applied towards a “new” bike. If the chosen bike’s value exceeds that of the trade value the “customer” is responsible for the difference. Typically, when a bike is exchanged, the “customer” is able to take home a newly recycled ride for no more than $12.

The 2008 Kids’ Bike Swap served over 120 families. Many of the families who attend the annual event are regulars who return year after year. Through their full-service repair shop and the numerous recycled bikes sold each year, Bike Works is able to fund a variety of community and youth programs and events.

“As an organization, Bike Works is committed to building sustainable communities by educating youth and promoting bicycling – and the Kids Bike Swap does just that and more by keeping kids and families on bikes as they grow!” said Ayres.