Thanks to everyone who came to our presentation last night. We’re working on compiling all of the great feedback we received and gathering pictures. I’ll be posting a summary and the feedback soon. In the meantime, you’re welcome to view our presentation and provide comments via the blog or send email to eastballard@gmail.com.

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“February Night Out Event on Parks and Planters”
Thursday February 18th, 6:30pm
St. Alphonsus School Cafeteria
5816 15th Ave NW
(entrances on 58th and 59th toward 14th Ave NW)

Check out my earlier post for more details.

I’ll also be posting a preview of the slideshow we plan to present this evening for those who will not be able to attend, so stay posted.

See you all tonight!

The Ballard District Council is concerned about the state of street lights in Ballard, especially on arterial streets, and is compiling a list of lights that aren’t working to be sent to Seattle City Light to be addressed. The Ballard District Council has asked the ebca to help out by providing input on street light conditions along certain arterials in east ballard. When you’re taking a stroll in the ‘hood in the evening between now and the 31st, we’re asking that you take a little extra time to jot down any lights you see out and click on the link below to fill out our form.

Click HERE to fill out the form.

The Ballard District Council is most interested in the following arterials in east ballard:

• NW Market from 3 NW to 15 NW
• NW Leary Way from 3 NW to Ballard Bridge
• NW 65 form 3 NW to 15 NW
• 14 NW from NW Leary Way to NW 65

Click HERE to view current results.

“Planter Partnerships on 14th Ave NW Kickoff”
Wednesday December 16th, 6:30pm
Nervous Nellie’s Espresso Company
1556 NW 56th St

The east ballard community association invites you to a fun & informative evening in celebration of community. The Dept of Neighborhoods has awarded us a grant for a project that will enhance the quality of life & sense of belonging in east ballard.

You’ll meet the players whose pledges & donations deserve recognition and make this project possible…You & your neighbors◦ Ballard Market◦ Cedar Grove Compost◦Excavators NW◦ Nervous Nellie’s◦ ReStore◦ Salmon Bay Sand & Gravel◦ Swanson’s Nursery◦ PlantAmnesty◦ Ballard High School◦St Alphonsus School◦Dept of Neighborhoods◦Seattle Dept of Transportation

You’ll see the playbook with our drawings and work plan to bring together our community to make 14th Ave NW a safer and more beautiful street.

You’ll join the team…Please! Do you enjoy planning events?How about counting money? Born to scribe? Have a green thumb? Enjoy getting the word out? Have some time? How will you contribute to the success of this project???

You’ll start playing by bringing your family, friends & neighbors to enjoy good food, a toast, and great company.

For additional information about the Planter Partnerships on 14th project, check out this previous post on our blog.

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I received an ominous letter in the mail last Saturday from the Office of the Mayor that caused my hands to tremble a bit as my husband handed it to me. The letter was so thin, which brought me back to those long ago days of applying for college. You knew it was going to be good news if it was a big package, but those thin little envelopes were always ominous and more times than not  contained that dreaded rejection letter. That’s what I was thinking as a I quickly tore open the letter to just get the anguish over with. I had been sitting on pins and needles for almost 2 months waiting to hear about this grant and the suspense was just killing me! I  unfolded the letter while holding my breath,  and to my relief, the first words were “Congratulations!”. WooHoo!  We got the Grant and the full $14,576 we asked for! We were one of 42 (out of 66) applications to receive this Small and Simple Grant from the Department of Neighborhoods!

Thanks again to Shannon Dunn and Stephanie Shelton for working together, with me, to write this grant and in gathering all of the pledges and donations needed to secure this grant. And thank-you to all of you who made your pledges and to those who’ve already started cashing them in by attending committee meetings and work parties. Your next opportunity to participate in this project will be at our next monthly EBCA meeting Nov 18th 6:30 pm at 1111 NW 60th St.

Thanks to the 12 brave souls who showed up in the pouring down rain to help us clean up 14th Ave NW last Saturday during our EBCA twice yearly Adopt A Street Cleanup Event. Since it was so wet, we decided to just focus on cleaning up 14th from Market St to 65th. We also put in some back-breaking work to clean up weeds in some of the median ends in preparation for our planter project. Check out more pics from our event here!

Thanks also goes to David Smith at Blowing Sands Glass for offering up his studio to stage our event and to Steve Williams at the Ballard Market for donating breakfast and lunch for our volunteers! If you missed Saturday’s event, mark your calendar for our next Adopt A Street Cleanup Event on Saturday April 17th, 2010.

Another way to help keep your neighborhood streets clean throughout the year is to consider carrying a little trash bag with you when you’re walking your dog or running errands, and pick up trash on your way home.  It’s the small gestures like these that add up to make a really big difference in the end!

Adopt A Street Cleanup
Oct 17 10am – 1pm
Sign in: Blowing Sands Glass
5801 14th Ave NW

It’s a beautiful October in East Ballard, and it’s time again to help make 14th Ave NW beautiful, too. Please join your neighbors this Saturday for a fun morning spent tidying up the street and cleaning out the medians in prep for the big planter project.

We’re still waiting to hear from the Dept. of Neighborhoods on the status of our grant application (we should be hearing any day now), however, all volunteer hours that go toward our project NOW can be applied toward the matching portion of the grant! This means, that volunteering at the Adopt A Street Cleanup this Saturday will be your first opportunity to cash in your pledges! Plus you’ll get free breakfast and lunch courtesy of The Ballard Market!

If you have any questions, send us an email at eastballard@gmail.com or call Shannon at 206-781-4398.

Speaking of having fun, last Thursday, Shannon, Steph and I went on a little planter recon mission. We had seen drawings and some small pics of our planters, but we wanted to see them, we wanted to put our arms around them. Only then, would we really be able to visualize our plans. Ok, I know, it sounds a bit kooky, maybe a little romantic, but I thought it was pretty cool to get to walk through SDOT’s “Sunny Jim” storage yard (named after the former peanut butter plant on Airport Way) where they store all of their traffic signs, a bazillion bike racks, those funky bike lane stencils,  barricades, and of-course, temporarily, our planters.

We fell in love with our planters on first sight! You could tell they wanted to make a good first impression by sitting so neatly stacked and surrounding themselves with brightly colored wildflowers. For you engineers, like me, these aren’t your everyday ordinary concrete planters. These are Glascrete Dura Stone Dresden Planters that are 5′ diameter and 17” high. From what I can find on the web, Glascrete (TM) is a simulated cast stone where polyester resin, fine aggregates and glass fibers are combined to provide the cast stone look. The green factor about glascrete is that the glass fibers come from post-consumer waste! Reusing recycled planters. Ya gotta love that!

Steph, me, Shannon & the planters

Let me start with a whole-hearted THANK-YOU to all of the incredible neighbors and businesses of Ballard who have stepped up and pledged to volunteer time, professional services, food, cash, and so much more in support of our median planter project on 14th Ave NW. Thanks to your generous pledges, we were able to successfully submit our application for a Dept. of Neighborhoods Small and Simple Matching Grant!

We received 45 responses from our online survey which totaled to over $8,500 in pledges! Swansons Nursery then added $1,000 in wholesale cost for plants. Our planter steward program is going to receive top-notch educational training pledged by Cass Turnball at PlantAmnesty. Our volunteers won’t go hungry thanks to a $500 pledge in food from the Ballard Market, and thanks to Nervous Nellie’s Espresso for offering us free meeting space and helping us maintain our buzz throughout this project! We’re also looking forward to collaborating with our local East Ballard schools, St. Alphonsus and Ballard High on some very cool art and planting projects.

Thanks also goes out to the folks who work for the city who helped us put together what we hope is a very strong application. Thank-you Rob Mattson, Darren Morgan, Laurie Ames and Jennifer Britton!

Last, but not least, a very personal thank-you goes out to Shannon Dunn and Stephanie Shelton who co-authored the grant application with me. We worked really hard on this grant together, but working with you two has made every moment a lot of fun. I wouldn’t be doing this stuff if it wasn’t fun!

Here are links to our completed grant application forms:

Application Question Responses
Work Plan and Budget

Stay tuned for status on our grant and opportunites to cash in those pledges!

A few months ago, SDOT removed over 30 planters from 3rd Ave in downtown Seattle and asked the folks in Ballard if they would be interested in finding them a new home. Immediately, 14th Ave NW popped into our heads.  Why is this such a great idea? Let us count the ways….

• Beautification – plantings and art along the medians would instantly and affordably transform 14th Ave NW into a more beautiful and walkable boulevard.
• Collaboration – the design, planting, and maintenance program would deepen connections between neighbors, local businesses and our schools, fostering pride of ownership and a sense of belonging in the community.
• Recycling – reuse of the discarded planters keeps them from sitting in storage, or worse, from being sent to the landfill.
• Safety – the planters would be installed at the median ends to create a buffer between the parked vehicles and those crossing at the intersections.  Maintenance parties will also provide the community with an opportunity to regularly monitor and address safety concerns.

Help us right now with your volunteer pledge!

To kickstart this project, we’re applying for a Department of Neighborhoods Small and Simple Matching Grant due at the end of August.

We need pledges for volunteer hours, services, and/or material donations from our community to provide with our grant application. We have already received verbal pledges from local businesses and schools for materials, consulting and meeting spaces, but we need more to match what we’ll be asking for our grant, which could be a max of $15,000!

Please take a moment right now to make your volunteer pledge online at SurveyMonkey. There’s no money necessary, just your time!

If you already plan to donate a few hours in October this year and April next year for Adopt A Street Cleanup on 14th, you can include these hours in your pledge!

Click here to pledge volunteer hours, services, and/or materials for our matching grant application