"Hoops for Heart" Returns to Whatcom Middle School

A trip to the Rose Bowl, a weekend with a Porsche and a Lego-based interpretation of “Old Glory” were all available for purchase at the 12th annual “Growing Great Kids” auction on March 3. The auction is a fundraiser for Assumption Catholic School, this year’s event being the most successful to date.
    “We brought in $190,000 this year, the most we’ve ever done. After the costs of holding the event we should be able to take in $160,000,” first year principal Monica Des Jarlais said. This is a significant increase from last year when the event raised roughly $110,000.
    The sold-out event was held at the Bellingham Golf and Country Club.This was the first year that the auction had major sponsors, although businesses have made contributions every year.
    “We went through a new system this year, a sponsorship system. We give [businesses] advertising, and the sponsorships help pay for the costs of holding the auction,” Des Jarlais said.
    Des Jarlais hopes that eventually, with the help of the new sponsorship system, some money raised from the auction can be saved for future use.
    “The money from the auction is being raised for this years budget, but we want to get to the point where we’re using it in the future. Father Scott [Connolly] asked for donations that would be saved for the future, and we brought in $28,000 with that alone,” Des Jarlais said.
    The first portion of the event was a silent auction, featuring nearly 300 items supplied mainly by parents of students at Assumption. Classroom projects were also auctioned off during the silent auction portion of the event.
    “All the parents are required to give an item worth a hundred dollars. One of the things that does really well is dinners at parents houses. I myself auctioned off a Hawaiian dinner,” Des Jarlais said.
    Parents don’t just contribute items to the auction, but also look for Bellingham businesses and residents to contribute to the event.
    “The procedure for getting items starts with asking each Assumption family, as well as members of our parish to either donate directly, or procure a donation. The auction committee then supplements the donated items with what they think would be a good accompaniment to it.  We have volunteers who will ask local business for donations, and most are happy to oblige,” Laurel Collins said. This is Collins’ second year as head of publicity for the event.
    After the silent auction and dinner was a dessert dash where dinner parties at the event pooled money, with groups who paid the most getting the first choice of dessert. This portion alone raised $9,000. The conclusion of the evening was the live auction, which is when the most exciting items are sold.
    “There were 30 items available at the Live Auction, which feature the larger, pricier items. This year's live auction included a number of week-long trips to Hawaii,  Mexico, the San Juans, a side of grass fed beef, and a 2 person kayak,” Collins said. One of the school projects, a first-grade classrooms Lego recreation of the American flag, was sold at the live auction.
    Tickets to the Rose Bowl were available for the first time at this years auction, and a weekend with a Porsche was available at the live auction for a second straight year.
    “I'd have to say that they were the most highly coveted items in our live auction, and it was exciting to see the bidding wars unfold,” Collins said.
    Planning the event is nearly a year-round task says Des Jarlais, because the fundraiser is so vital to the school. Planning for next year’s event will begin before this school year is over.
    “We try so very hard to keep a Catholic education within reach, and this auction goes a long way toward meeting that goal,” Collins said.
    Des Jarlais wasn’t only impressed by the financial success of the event.
    “It’s also just a fun event, between dinner, dancing and watching people bid against each other. It was really exciting, and it certainly made me feel good about being in such a wonderful community,” Des Jarlais said.

BOAT Fest Kicks Off For 4th Time

    Beginning on February 20th and running through March 3rd, the Bellingham Theatre Guild is hosting the Bellinghamster One-Act Theatre (BOAT) Festival. Unlike other shows at the Bellingham Theatre Guild which are produced internally, the BOAT Fest serves as a venue for regional artists to perform.

“This is the 4th year of the BOAT Fest, the first one was in 2004. We also did it in 2006, 2008 and this year,” Festival Coordinator Sean Walbeck said. “If the world was perfect it’d be annual.”

Walbeck has been the festival coordinator each of the four years, but recently financial constraints have impacted the festival and how often it can be organized.

“It doesn’t really make money, it’s a break even kind of thing, which is why we can’t afford to do the BOAT fest every year. Bellingham is still a small town,” Walbeck said.

Plays for the festival aren’t selected critically, as Walbeck wants the BOAT Fest to remain very open to the public for participation.

“It’s a non-jury, non-invitational festival. We have a core contingency of groups that we contact when the applications are out. About one-third of this years acts are put on by returning groups,” Walbeck said.

Local theatre companies have about two months to write and direct their own works, and perform their productions three times over the two week timespan. For Kari Lee the BOAT Fest is rare opportunity to perform in a play rather than improv.

“I have been doing improvisational theater as part of the Upfront Theater's mainstage ensemble for about 6 years. I have only periodically done scripted work, mostly sketches in Upfront shows and a few projects at the Idiom,” Lee said. Lee makes up one half of S & K Productions, along with Sally Unger, and this is the first year S & K productions have participated in the BOAT Fest.

    Although some shows are completed and performed long before the BOAT fest begins, many aren’t rehearsed until after the December entry deadline.
    “Sally Unger and I started to write ‘The Devil In Room 12’ a couple months ago. Admittedly, we procrastinated fine-tuning it until a few weeks before showtime. The first time we performed was last week at the BOAT fest.”
    While some performers honed their skills at workshops and theatre companies, others came directly from WWU.
    “I went to WWU trying to play soccer and they told me that I would be able to play after a couple years on the team, on the bench and stuff. I knew a couple people that were in the theatre department and I decided to try out for a play. I got a part, and I didn't have to wait on the bench to act,” Matthew Riggins said.
    The BOAT fest is the first opportunity for Riggins to produce work under his new Mount Vernon business, Redfoot Theatre Company.
    “We started Redfoot Theatre Company about a month ago, I wrote some plays so I didn't have to pay royalties. It's like living the dream a little bit. I have to give Western a lot of credit for the knowledge I have and the stuff I'm able to teach people,” Riggins said.
    One obstacle posed by the BOAT festival is the difference in subject matter between all twelve shows. The mature nature of some productions has caused a unique rating system to be instituted.
    “As with any sort of fringe show, there are people who want to see some vulgarity and others who don’t. We ask people in the play to rate them on the “chili scale”, which is 0 to 4 chilis. We tell them that if someone complains that the rating wasn’t appropriate, we will point you out to the person complaining. We also start the kid friendly shows earlier so that parents can leave right after the show,” Walbeck said
    Walbeck says the BOAT Fest not only provides a cheap venue for aspiring playwrights, but can ideally create new theatre fans.
    “This crosses off a lot of long term goals for the theatre guild, and it brings in people who normally don’t watch theatre,” Walbeck said.
    According to Walbeck, few WWU students participate in shows at the Bellingham Theatre Guild, which is a problem for directors like Riggins who need actors.
    “I was just lucky in that I was able to find actors very quickly. Unless directors have people they know, it's hard to find people sometime to fill the slots, because those actors are wanting to be in bigger shows.”

Aside from performing whenever possible, Riggins has advice for theatre majors at WWU.

“In college, we learned a lot of good rules and things to follow, but when you get out there, people are in theatre and do theatre for different reasons. There's great theatre everywhere. Look for theatre in your church. There's great theatre in the courtroom. My advice would be to look for theatre in places that you wouldn't expect,” Riggins said.

Tickets for the BOAT Fest are available at the doors of the Bellingham Theatre Guild, located at 1600 H Street. For more information, contact Sean Walbeck at 360-647-9242.

Whatcom Creek Hatchery Enters its 36th Year

The Whatcom Creek Hatchery building has 20 vertical stacks of trays, each stack holding roughly 100,000 eggs. Roughly two million salmon begin their lives each fall in the hatchery, located in Maritime Heritage Park. Earl Steele is an instructor at Bellingham Technical College, and runs the hatchery.
    “I’ve been the instructor and hatcher manager here for 33 years,” Steele says, in an office painted with documents and maps of fish populations. The Whatcom Creek Hatchery was established in 1976, and Maritime Heritage Park was established two years later to boost area salmon populations.

Chum, coho, and chinook salmon are all native to the Whatcom creek area. Hatcheries spawn fish based on what species are native to the area in order to avoid negative impact on the existing fish population.

“We released 1.1 million chinook salmon a year at one point, but politics changed that,” Steele says.

Although chinook salmon are on the endangered species list, Steele is not allowed to spawn them due to federal restrictions.

    “We haven’t raised fall chinook here for about six years. The federal government stepped in and told us not to spawn anymore, because they may stray and go into the nooksack river. Then they could spawn with spring chinook and create a hybrid, which could potentially mess up their genetics.” Steele says.
    Regulations are imposed by a yearly “brood document”, which determines target fish production goals and imposes restrictions on the production of certain species of fish.
    “The state has recently told us not to spawn anymore coho salmon, which is a problem because this is a college program and we want as many species as possible,” Steele says. “I think some of the tribes and the state are still battling over that.”

The educational impacts are not the only concern for Steele, as coho population can be impacted significantly by both commercial and sport fishing.

    “Whatcom creek was dead when I started here. There are a lot of coho now, but fishing pressure would eliminate the entire coho stock within a cycle or two,” Steele says.
    Steele doesn’t have to leave his office to how popular fishing is in this area, and knows how quickly salmon populations can dwindle.
    “We get about 200 people down here fishing at a time in the Fall,” Steele says.
    All of the work at the hatchery is done by students taking the fisheries program at Bellingham Technical College. Steele also manages the hatchery at Whatcom Falls Park.
    “That’s where we spawn rainbow trout, which isn’t for the state but for our own projects,” Steele says.
    Spawning and raising fish is a multi-layered process, beginning with the fertilization of eggs.
    “Female salmon are cut open to get the eggs,” says Bellingham Technical College student Fernando Martinez. “Then you have to squeeze the male salmon to get the milt, which contains the sperm. The eggs are kept in trays until they hatch into alevins, which is a fish with the yolk sack attached.”
    Fish are killed after spawning because they will die anyways as a result of spawning. The carcasses are then donated to a company which processes the fish and then distributes them to local food banks. The amount of time it takes for a fish to mature after hatching depends on the species.
    “Coho and steelhead trout need a year and a half to mature, pink salmon take about 60 days and chum salmon take about 30 days,” Steele says.
    The survival rate of fish spawned in a hatchery is much higher than in the wild. Of every 3,000 eggs fertilized in the wild, 300 make it past the egg stage, while 2,700 eggs successfully hatch in the hatchery. Only 2 of every 3,000 eggs in the wild survives to become a spawning adult while roughly 20 hatchery salmon become adults, although this number can vary tremendously.
    “I’ve seen returns as low as 0.1 percent before and as high as 3 percent, but typically we see a 0.7 percent return,” Steele says. The hatchery produces roughly three million fish per year, putting the spawning adult fish return totals as low as 3,000 and as high as 90,000.

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New Lettered Street Businesses Succeed With Strong Local Support

“Now don’t tell all your buddies,” laughs Johnny’s Donuts co-owner Karin Koons, while selling a donut at reduced price to a young boy who didn’t bring enough loose change. It’s easy to see why the Lettered Street neighborhood has so readily welcomed the small, retro donut shop. Koons runs Johnny’s Donuts with her husband John, who has prior experience in the baking industry.
“Over the past four years, [John] has had a few bakeries. Donuts are cool right now, unlike the 80’s,” Karin Koons said.
John Koons opened the original Mt. Bakery in the 1970’s, before the Koons’ moved to Alaska to work in a fish camp.

“Then we worked in real estate and realized, like many other people in real estate, that we had to get out. We opened up Johnny’s and went back to doing what we know how to do,” Karin Koons said.

Johnny’s is located at 2201 Cornwall Avenue, a residential zone which requires a special permit to operate.

“We had to get a conditional use permit, with the consent of everyone within a certain radius, and received overwhelming support. The whole process has changed towards really supporting local businesses, very radically,” Karin Koons said.

The building Johnny’s occupies was a barbershop until 2006, and had been vacant until Johnny’s was started in August 2011.

“When we moved in, the place was a mess. I think most people in the neighborhood are just glad to see a new business here.”

Strong local support has been seen at other new businesses in the neighborhood, including art store “Sound Images” on Girard Street, which also opened in August.

“I like the neighborhood a lot, they really try to support us,” Sound Images co-owner Susan Moreau said.

Moreau and her husband decided to open their own business when finding other work became tough.

“[My husband and I] originally started in the motion picture industry, which was outsourced. Hollywood just isn’t Hollywood anymore. When you can’t find work, you make your own work if you have the creativity,” Moreau said.

The Koons’ decided to open Johnny’s for similar reasons.

“It’s interesting how many people are starting their own cafes and such. I suppose we could have gone back to Alaska, but Alaska is pretty harsh. If you don’t have a job, you might as well make your own.” Koons said.

One of these new businesses is Bellingham Flatbread and Bakery, located on 2500 Cornwall Avenue. Started in August 2010 under different ownership, Bellingham Flatbread and Bakery was acquired in February 2011 by Christie Jaquette and Ron Cupples. Local support has been crucial to their success thus far.

“Our business is about 75% local, but those numbers are changing constantly. It’s been word of mouth that’s really helped us. I could put out all kinds of advertising, but what’s kept us surviving to this point is word of mouth,” Jaquette said.

Jaquette wasn’t initially sure if the “buy local” movement would be as prevalent in the Lettered Streets as other Bellingham neighborhoods.

“You see the “buy local” stickers downtown by the Co-Op Market, but to find that same support in the Lettered Streets is amazing. We try to buy everything local ourselves, and support local restuarants.”

One reason for their success has been their wide selection of gluten-free products, which Jaquette describes as the biggest she’s seen in Bellingham.

“I had a guy that called from Miami who said we were highly recommended, looking for gluten free donuts,” Cupples said. “I figured out how to make them taste good, I just have to figure out how to make sure they taste good by the time they get there.”

Jaquette says people come in often to talk about how happy they are to be able to eat bread products again.

“During our second week of ownership, I talked to a woman who hadn’t had toast in 12 years,” Jaquette said.

“For the first 22 years of my daughter’s life, she was having upset stomachs,” said customer Stan Chronister. “I’m really glad there’s [businesses like this] out here who make great gluten-free products.

Despite their products reaching people far from Bellingham, Jaquette knows how important it is to keep the neighborhood in mind.

“The community supports the business that supports the community. That’s helped develop our reputation and get our name out there. We’re donating cakes to the Northwest Washington Community of the Deaf here soon,” Jaquette said.

Jaquette doesn’t want their community outreach to stop there.

“What we’re hoping to be able to do in the next couple months is offer Bellingham High School kids the opportunity to learn how to bake, and donate the products they make to the food bank.”

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