Tuesday, February 26, 2013

More info on Shelter at Lake City Baptist

DPC received more information from Lake City Baptist about volunteering and screening at the Lake City Baptist Church UGM Winter Shelter. The following is a response from Hannah Olufs from the church. You can reach her at houfs@gmail.com

Thanks for posting our hosting of overnight guests starting Wednesday. We do need volunteers to come in at 5:00AM-7:00AM to fix a simple breakfast, serve our guests, and clean-up. To clarify, we serve our guests the hot portion of our meal (oatmeal), and they can help themselves to coffee/juice. We set the table for our guests. Guests are not allowed in the kitchen. If they want something heated, we use the microwave and bring it back out to them. Our kitchen is not large, so we have that rule for everyone's safety.

We are very excited about this opportunity to help people in our community.Your readers could help us fill "to go" bags for the morning. We would like to send our guests with a lunch bag with energy bars, bottled water, trail mix, nuts, small packages of crackers with peanut butter, or anything healthy, with protein if possible, that is easily carried. Those food items are just a suggestion. If anyone cares to contribute, they can knock on the church door, and if anyone is there, we will open it. If it is between 7:00PM and 7:00AM, the back door of the church is open. If none of the above, anything left on the front porch of the church is safe.

In regards to screening, Hannah said that all guest must have a Washington State ID. In addition, all guests will be checked against the Registered Sex Offender database. If they are on the database then they are escorted off the property, given a bus ticket and directed to the downtown Seattle Union Gospel shelter. Whether they would accept intoxicated individuals is still an open question.

DPC has requested that the church and their operational partner - UGM - provide us with information about any individuals that are turned away so that we may be aware of their presence in our neighborhood if they decide to linger.

Monday, February 25, 2013

PHOTO: Crows fly overhead at sunset

The sky is filled with crows passing over Lake City on Monday, Feb. 25th.

We see them every night. Just as the sun starts going down, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of crows make a daily trip over our neighborhood.

But the mystery is where do the flocks of birds that pass overhead like clockwork fly to roost every night?

If you know where they fly to, tell us in the comments.

Update: A commenter below said there is a large roost of crows in Kenmore. UW Bothell will host a talk on Thursday, March 15, 2012 with John Marzluff about the roosting behavior and other interesting aspects of crows that live in the Seattle area.

More info about the talk can be found here: www.facebook.com/events/233173693442016/

Thanks for the info! 

Update: It has also been noted that the talk invite says 2012 on it. So don't add it to your calendar yet until we can confirm the date.