and all the businesses that provided raffle items.
To the main team members – Fred, Lee, Maude, Anne, Lovel, Doris, Jane, Carrie, Louise, Michael, Betsy – there is no way to thank you for your heart, hard work and enthusiasm.
Thank you Friday Harbor and, if you missed the dinner, come on the 27th (6 p.m. Nov. 27 at the San Juan Island Grange Hall) to hear Daniel!
Joanruth Baumann and Dick Coffey
Many thanks to the Citizens and Businesses of Friday Harbor
Dear Editor,
posted 11/19/2007
Yesterday (Nov. 16, 2007) we took 112 boxes of locally donated goods - including clothing, school supplies, books, toys, shoes, car seats, tools, bedding, house wares, toiletries, candles, gifts, and even a TV, bike, highchair, tables, 10 new rugs and a microwave - to Conway Western Express in Mt. Vernon today to be shipped to Jonestown, Mississippi ( one of the poorest counties in America.) Many Islanders and Local Businesses helped with these contributions which included brand new merchandise from many businesses (listed below) in Friday Harbor. It took a dozen people 5 hours to organize, pack and box these items.
These donations will have a tremendous impact on the work of Sister Theresa and Sister Kay – who dedicated their lives 25 years ago to educating the people of this community. One nun directs a Learning Center which educates toddlers through sixth grade and utilizes parents and aids for training and teaching. The other nun organizes volunteers to teach music, computer and carpentry skills while helping teens and adults with homework enrichment, GED’s and young adult living skill courses called "Girls to Women" and "Boys to Men."
We sincerely thank all those who have helped make a difference through the years in this poor little pocket of Jonestown Mississippi. My family has had the opportunity to visit Jonestown three different times and we have personally witnessed the changes that education can make. You have helped the nuns continue their amazing work. Once again our town has demonstrated the true meaning of "caring and sharing" even reaching beyond our own community. Thank you!
The recipients of our Mississippi Mission project express their gratitude to
- Ace Hardware,
- Cotton-Cotton-Cotton,
- King’s Marine Center,
- Second Act,
- Pelindaba Lavender Farm,
- The Toy Box,
- San Juan Office Center,
- Osito’s,
- Browne Lumber,
- Harbor Books,
- Friday Harbor Drug Store,
- Best Western FH Suites,
- Roche Harbor Resort,
- Frank Bruch Associates,
- M & W Auto Sales,
- Surf San Juan,
- Diesel America West,
- Con-Way Western Express,
- St, Francis Parish,
- Friday Harbor High School and Elementary School "Lost & Found."
You have touched and enriched many lives. God Bless you.
Mary Smith
Rusti Van Rooy
Historical Auction's Success Due to Many Hands
Dear Editor,
Island events happen because of many behind the scene volunteers. This Autumn's Historical Museum Auction was just such an event. As the happy bidders left at the end of the evening, carrying away auction items and full tummies from our first "Taste of Friday Harbor" food extravaganza, few may have thought about what it took to bring the fundraiser together.
The San Juan Historical Society Board and Staff would like to acknowledge the following volunteers for their dedication and willingness to put in the time to bring all the necessary details together.
It takes special people to agree to be on an Acquisitions crew. It isn't easy to step forward and ask for Auction donations. Sometimes because of the many fundraisers on the island, it means facing rejections, stalling or sometimes just having to make many follow up calls. Mary Jean Cahail, Edith Dickinson, Barbara Fry, Romona Jones, Sue Madden, Kitty Roberts and Richard Walker deserve medals for their efforts. Our final list of items up for bid was a great mix of donations that revealed imagination and creativity on the part of our Acquisition committee.
Jane Buck turned the Friday Harbor Grange into a Fall Fantasyland with her "Pottery Barn Over the Top" decorations. It looked like an Autumn wind had blown through and dropped bright red and orange leaves among the items up for bid. Her assistant Sam was indispensable in the after event clean up. Guard Sundstrom filled the hall with pumpkins and cornstalks.
Jacki Riley, Peggy Sue Mc Rae, Shirley Zyph, Diane Ludeman, Gerry Jameson and Vikky Dauciunas were new Auction and Museum volunteers who cheerfully took on any task requested of them. They created new forms, publicity posters, signs, filled in forms and performed even the simplest of tasks. We asked and they came through.
Mike Cohen, known on the island for being part of the musical group "Sugar on the Floor" provided period music as the evening began. We caught our feet tapping on several occasions.
Auctioneer Michael Adams and his assistants Michael Nash and Michael Vouri kept the bidding lively all evening with their quick humor and comments on each item up for bid.
Leisha Holmes, the chair of our Refreshments crew, brought the restaurants of Friday Harbor together for our first "Taste of Friday Harbor". Nothing but rave reviews were heard from those who feasted on the repast. Everyone returned for more. San Juan Vineyards and Front St. Ale House provided the liquid refreshment that went down well with the food.
Finally, the San Juan Historical Society Board and Staff wish to thank our many Donors who made it all possible. Their generosity is so appreciated. Also, a thank you to all who attended. We appreciate your support of our organization and hope that you enjoy the items you carried away with you at the end of our event.
Often your need to declutter and our Auction event don't coincide. We are going to begin collecting for this event year around, so think of us and give us a call when it's time to get rid of your extra stuff.
Nancy McCoy
Dear Editor,
posted 11/19/2007
My hat is off to the Trashmasters and the San Juan County Road Department. I was driving on the Roche Harbor Road on 11/15/07. Between town and Consignment Treasures, I saw nine people with vests on picking up trash along side the road. I stopped to thank the 9th person and asked what was going on. I learned it was a group called Trashmasters and that the County provided the safety vests. What a heartwarming sight to see volunteers working so hard, and knowing that the local government is supporting them by providing safety vests. My thanks and admiration to all the volunteers.
Frank Penwell
Thank-you from Southern California
Dear Editor,
I was quite surprised to see a fire truck from Orcas Island near my home! Thank You for helping.
David Barrett,,
Santa Ysabel/Mesa Grande area
An open letter to our friends in the San Juan Islands
posted 11/03/2007
Those of us who reside in the San Diego area have been somewhat overwhelmed by the numbers of men and equipment that have come to our aid during last week’s fire disaster. This fact was brought to me personally on Saturday went I pulled over and gave the right-of-way to a convoy of fire trucks traveling east on US-94. They were headed toward a massive column of smoke, known as the Harris fire. As the vehicles rolled by my window, I glanced at the logo on their doors. Of the many that sped by, one stood out with great meaning, it was- San Juan Island Fire Department.
I have vacationed on your island, as well as Orcas, so there is no question in my mind that the presence of this truck and crew represented a major effort on your part to assist our community. Our local newspaper reported that 2,200 firefighters worked on the Harris fire. It burned a distance of 40+ miles, covered 140 sq. miles, leveled 450 buildings and injured 36 firemen. To the casual reader, these are just numbers, but they become very significant when you witness the monumental work by the fire crews.
It is fair to say we have attempted to show our appreciation to those that gathered to assist us. There are "Thank You" signs posted on our freeways, mailboxes, and car windows. People wave at passing fire crews. Our newspaper reported that a group of firefighters entered one of our local restaurants, and the place erupted in a standing ovation. I'll bet dinner was on the house?
I don’t know the names of your crew, or those from other islands that may have also assisted, but when their truck/s roll off the island ferry, I certainly would appreciate it if you would pass along our thanks from those of us that live on the US-94 corridor. The presence of San Juan Island equipment and firefighters in San Diego was an amazing demonstration of friendship and assistance between our communities.
Greg Bailey
Rancho San Diego
Thanks to Town of Friday Harbor crew
Letter to the Editor:
On behalf of the SJI Chamber of Commerce Downtown Forum and the Anti-Litter Initiative, I want to thank Mike Wilks, Utilities Superintendent, and Dave Smith, Street/Parks Dept. Lead, for making litter control in Friday Harbor a priority for 2007.
In response to complaints and suggestions about litter on our streets and sidewalks, Mike and Dave put together a rotating schedule that allows the street work crew to dedicate 2-4 hours each day to litter control. They have also equipped trucks and a trailer with brooms, bins, grabbers, vacuums and blowers so that the equipment is handy to be used any time as needed.
To show our gratitude, let's all pitch in and help!
Debbie Pigman
Executive Director, SJI Chamber of Commerce
A Heartfelt thank you from the entire staff at Inter Island Medical Center
.
posted 03/13/2007
The Inter Island Medical Center Staff would like to thank the community for the outpouring of Love and support provided to us during a very difficult week following the loss of our friend Dr. Marcia Zakarsion.
Dr. Zakarsion was well loved and respected by all and she held a very special place in our hearts as a valued colleague and co-worker here at the medical center. We were blessed to have worked with her. The service of Thanksgiving for her life on Sunday was a beautiful testament to the passion and dedication she brought to her life and to her professional work with us. Many of us noticed the banners hanging on the wall of the church. "Self Control", "Peace", "Kindness", "Faithfulness", "Goodness", "Patience" and "Joy" and agreed they very aptly described Marcia and how she lived her life and carried out her work at the medical center.
Marcia Zakarison helped create our new mission statement "Caring, Healing, Serving, Our Mission is You", at the San Juan County Public Hospital District retreat in October of 2005. We all miss her terribly but know she would want us to continue on in the work of caring, healing and serving the community and the many of you whose lives she touched.
We appreciate your kind words of encouragement and will take them to heart as we go on with our work to serve you.
With heartfelt thanks
The IIMC staff
Thanks from Jamie Morrison's family
To the Editor:
posted 1/15/2007
Wow!! In combination with the Masonic Order brethern, you islanders showed your support for our older daughter's plight by joining us for a spaghetti feed upstairs in the Masonic Hall in Friday Harbor, and showed it in a big way. And this wasn't the first time, for you did the same recently when Michelle and Glenn's six year old daughter Hallie was attacked by a dog.
We were so touched by your thoughtful, caring questions about Jamie's progress with her cancer treatments, and how she's doing with new baby Liam. Jamie and Conor (an exceptional artist and, in Jamie's words: "The best of the good guys!") had found out after they had conceived their first baby that her melanoma had returned after a previous surgery. Treatment was the recommended action, but that's impossible with a baby "onboard."
Little (3lbs. 13 oz.) Liam was induced to make his appearance five or six weeks early so that his Mom could begin the unbelievably painful therapy that was so potent that the chemical has to be injected directly into the heart once each day for five days in a row.
Jamie's aunt, Linda Morrison, a recent breast cancer survivor, described a similar treatment as "being brought as close to death as possible in order to kill the cancer cells, then after a brief respite, doing it again, and again, and again."
Jamie has completed two of these sessions, and on the 17th of January will have surgery once again to remove the thankfully shrinking tumor. Due to her weakened immune system, she is also suffering with what I believe is called Pancreitis, a very painful infection of the pancreas that her body just can't shake off.
We don't know when she'll resume the chemo treatments after that, but in the meantime, bills are stacking up for her and her mother Phyllis who's watching over the baby (and Jamie between treatments) in a rented apartment in Denver where Liam was born and where the cancer treatment center is located.
Having grown up on the island and then graduated in 1990 from Friday Harbor High School, Jamie went out into the world with flare and style as an au pair in Switzerland, climbed numerous mountains, served again as a nanny on the island of Majorca and in Colorado, with a stint at Disney World in Florida in there somewhere! (It's hard to keep track!)
Roz and I, and the entire Morrison family from Uncle Dick, Auntie Linda and all the cousins, to those of Jamie's siblings on and off the island, thank those who joined us for lunch and brought tears to our eyes with their generous checks and cash to help out with expenses in Colorado.
A community coming together for a worthy cause is a wonderful thing, and kudos to Glenn Hargrove and the other Masons for putting on the event in a smooth, efficient, and caring manner. And thanks to Jamie's niece and nephews Hallie, Jess, and Austin for holding up signs out on the sidewalk, their little hands freezing in the effort! Like I said, WOW!
Jim and Roz Morrison
