Senior Meals

We are blessed to see this program thrive as a true community partnership. The school makes available a cook and their kitchen for meal preparation. The Lion’s Club, Presbyterian, Baptist and Assembly of God churches all donate dollars to the sustainability of this project, as do the seniors themselves. The meals are served at the Presbyterian Church twice a week, with some meals being delivered to those unable to attend. We have had anywhere from 10 to 28 seniors in attendance. Our average since we started has been about 19. We look forward to continuing these partnerships into the future for our senior population.

Back to Basics/Preparedness Classes

The Community Connections Center has been hosting a series of classes in the Annex Building starting last summer. A series of classes centered on Growing Healthy and Eating Healthy. BZ Israel educated us on how we are all Toxic Guinea Pigs; The Unsustainability of our Food System; Gardening in a Changing Climate; Seed Starting, Sowing and Saving; Growing Vegetables for Seed and Seed Cleaning. Bill and Janice Berman taught us Raw Foods Preparation, Basic Bread Making, Soy and Nut Milk Recipes and basic Natural Water Treatments for Health. Ruth Davis taught us Simple Herbal Remedies, Jael Regis taught us How to Make Rice Milk and Tomi Stark taught us How to Cook with Home Storage and How to Cook in a Dutch Oven over an Open Fire. Master Canner/Preserver Bonnie Stichart taught us food preservation with a Pressure Canner. Marlece Hart gave a presentation on starting a Gleaners Club in our area. This promptly enabled three different families to stop and ask people with trees of nuts and fruit if they were willing to share. Walnuts, Asian Pears, Apples and Chestnuts were harvested that would have otherwise gone to waste. This year we will be meeting with the Colville Chapter and starting our own Gleaner’s Club in Northport. We have been so excited to have so many community members share their expertise with others. The next classes centered on Basic Preparedness in case of natural disaster. Bob Garrow from Life Preservation Institute in Hunters hosted two classes that had us look at the possible disasters that could affect our area, what their likelihood is and what can we do to prepare. He facilitated a frank discussion about the basic lack of preparedness of most individuals to handle any disaster from an extended power outage to the possibility of one of the many dams above our town failing. He gave us much food for thought. Next in this series will be hosting a Community Meeting with our Town Council to look at our plans or lack of plans in case of disaster. This class along with the others has been attended by 35 to 40 people showing the desire and pertinence of the subjects. Finally, Smokky shared with us the idea of starting an Alternative to Money System, thus enabling many including those without a job to acquire the items and services necessary to survive and thrive. He will be hosting a workshop for further discussion and hands on experience April 10, 2011 at 2 pm. For any further information about upcoming events or to get involved contact Kathy Jones, President of NCPR (509) 732-4061.

Community Garden is Alive and Growing!

This year has gotten off to a slow start. Too much RAIN! One would wonder if you can have too much rain. Yes you can! Seeds die in the ground and it is hard to work when you are being drenched with water. On the brighter side so much is happening.

Just before school got out we had a tour of the garden by the Kindergarten through 3rd grade students. They wandered through the paths wondering what would be growing in each of the beds. Some said they would be back later in the summer.

We were accepted to get another VISTA (Volunteer in Service to America) position for the community garden. William Berman will be working between the Community Garden and the Northport Schools educating and training up young gardeners. He will also be working with our Homeschool group as they want to grow herbs and flowers for Christmas, Easter and Mother’s Day. We are all very excited about his addition to our town. He has a two year degree in Agriculture and a wealth of knowledge about Greenhouse Gardening. Even though his year does not start till October 1st he has been actively working in the Garden and with a youth, Austin Dombrowski. Together they have built boxes for our raised beds.

The wood for the beds has been graciously donated by Robert Raught. George Snodgrass donated a day and built several boxes for us also. A $10,000.00 grant was accepted with Hidden Valley Ranch to develop the relationship between the Garden and the School. We will be putting the finishing touches on the greenhouse, vent, electricity, heater and water system. All the supplies have arrived for the drip irrigation system and Thursday July 1st we will be meeting with a Master Gardener from Colville to begin the assembly. (Yahoo, no more hand watering!)

We met with the President and CEO of the Washington Health Foundation (they gave us a grant for our greenhouse) in June. He came out to review our Greenhouse and visit with us. What an encouraging meeting. We asked him if he could give us any advice. He told us we are doing it. What intrigued him to come and visit us were the lessons we have learned. He said in our yearly review that came across loud and clear. I cannot say enough about those lessons learned. What we as a community have been through during the entire Horizon Process and working with WSU has given us the tools we needed to succeed.

Again, partnerships are the word of the day. Thank you to the ladies group at the Baptist Church for purchasing two plots for a single lady with children in town. As we were choosing her site her daughter told us “My mom has a green thumb!” Another single mom in town purchased two plots; the neighbor who graciously gives us our water purchased 4 plots to grow corn. Then said he will donate it to the senior meals program and/or the Food Bank in town. Another lady joined us purchasing 4 plots, someone bought a plot as a memorial to her and her husband’s moms, a family who just moved to town and is renting while they prepare their house purchased two plots, and the list goes on. Numerous plots have been planted some anonymously others by individuals who have said they are for those in need. What a giving spirit this little town has. So the garden is alive and beginning to thrive. With William and the students at the school it should continue well into the winter with some extended gardening practices and the use of the greenhouse.

Come by and see the progress. Hint, look in the greenhouse, we are growing Tomatoes vertically up to the ceiling. I am told they can grow 9 feet or more. While there check out the huge apple boxes. They were started with a lasagna gardening practice (layers of stuff to nourish the seedlings and then they have been companion planted. Soon we will have a poster up describing both processes. Finally, if your spirit just needs a little rejuvenating come, sit and just enjoy the smells, sounds (bees and growing plants) and sights.

Senior Meals Update

In the first month 146 meals were served to the community of Northport. 34 senior citizens have joined for an average of 18 per meal. The last meal in May had 21. A cook and helper have each been hired for 8 hours a week. We were pursuing funding through Rural Resources but that does not look promising. Funds through the Northport Schools end July 15th. A few members of the community have stepped forward to assist with the funds to keep it going. Comments in the positive have been numerous. "The food is great." "I am so glad we have a place to get together again." These comments were shared at our last Town Council Meeting. One couple had not been out of their house since a stroke and they have not missed a meal yet. Donations have covered the food costs, but not the Cook and Helper. We have a new Northport School Superintendant coming July 2nd. We will be meeting with him shortly after he arrives to see if he is willing to allow us to continue using the school kitchen for food preparation and whether or not funds will be available. If you would like to help fund this worthwhile endeavor you can contact Nina Grobben at 675-5073. Till then...

Update on Senior Meals

Senior meals will begin the last week of April. We will be working with the Northport Schools in providing meals for dinner two days a week. The Vocational Tech Students will be working with the School Lunch Superintendent to prepare meals, deliver to the CE Building at the Presbyterian Church and serve the meals to the senior community on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4:00pm. We received 16 surveys back with an overwhelming "YES!" we need and want meals provided. At this time a donation of $3.00 will be asked for each meal, but no one will be turned away if they cannot afford the donation. We will be meeting with Rural Resources on Monday April 12th to see if they can pick up part of the funding starting in June. We do have a couple of needs if anyone can help. We need a cart that keeps the food warm for transport between the school and the CE Building and disposable containers to put take home meals in. We are hoping on Thursdays to possible send the seniors home with a frozen meal to help cover one more day of the week. And we have a couple of seniors who need meals delivered to their homes as they are housebound. Any volunteers to deliver or donations to help with these other needs are most welcome.

4th Annual Town Cleanup April 17th and 18th

Please come and join us for our 4th Annual Town Cleanup and Beautification. We will be assembling at the Community Connections Center at 9:00am on Saturday. Assignments will be passed out and we will begin collecting around town, then staging and sorting on the lot behind the CCC. We will gather at lunch time for sustenance and hit the streets again after lunch.

Please be saving and/or collecting your cans and batteries. This annual town cleanup effort is the proven true definition of the saying “many hand make light work”.

If you have need of our services or want to volunteer, contact either Nina Grobben at 675-5073 or Ed Nichols at 675-4466. Look forward to gathering and serving together in April.
See you then!

Northport Schools to Begin Virtual School

Exciting things are taking place in the small town of Northport. On Tuesday January 19th Dan Benjamin, of FutureEd, presented an opportunity to Northport Schools to create a Virtual School. The School board unanimously voted for Dr. Key, Northport Schools Superintendent and Daniel Benjamin to begin drawing up a contract to be reviewed by the Northport Schools attorney. By the February 9th School Board meeting this agreement should be signed and our community will be well on the way to opening a Virtual Academy by September of 2010.

NCPR designed, addressed and sent out about 600 flyers to local residents advising them of the meeting. Approximately 70 people attended, listening to Mr. Benjamin’s presentation and asking numerous questions. At one point our new mayor, Mike Lamb, stood up and said “OK, I want to know, how many are for this?” Overwhelmingly the crowd was supportive of the proposition.

The Virtual School has the possibility of creating 2 non-teaching jobs per 100 students. This is a much needed boost to a dwindling economy in our area. We just want to acknowledge the leadership and visioning of a few individuals. Four teachers, Leesa Ewen, Don Baribault, Terri Carlson and Heidi Leaden for hours beyond measure; researching and taking the administrative classes necessary to successfully lead this school. To Eric Middlesworth, TECH extraordinaire, for his leadership in setting up the new school and the technical basis for this project to get off the ground. To Dr. Leroy Key, our interim school superintendent, who has vision and drive to move this school forward into the technology age. I am sure there are more individuals who have donated time and to you we are also grateful. Each one of these individuals has embarked on an ambitious timeline to see this project come to completion. What an awesome opportunity for our little town!

Community Clean-up

On April 18th and 19th, NCPR and other community members came together to participate in the Northport Community Clean – up. There were a total of 47 people who showed up to help, ages ranging from 7 year old first graders to senior citizens who understand and care about the community.

All participants gathered at the old gas station to receive their assignments. People with trucks were assigned to be section leaders. From there, volunteers were divided into three groups. The ‘green group’ picked up branches, leaves, etc… the ‘garbage group’ picked up trash and other recyclables. And the ‘metal group’ gathered all metal and appliances. The section leaders then divided the 47 different houses amongst the volunteers for stopping and cleaning up.

Around noon, all helpers returned back to the old gas station to be treated to a barbeque of hot dogs and hamburgers to eat and rest while section leaders deliberated on what was still left to do. When the barbeque came to a close, the groups gathered together to continue the community clean – up.

At the end of the day, the garbage was divided into piles for the garbage truck to deliver to the dump. We ended up with 7 tons of trash and over 100 tons of metal! (Which is quite an improvement compared to the 30 tons we collected in the previous two years). All expenses were paid for by the 5078 lbs of vehicle batteries, the 835 lbs of aluminum cans, and by the cash donations.

We would like to offer a thank you to all the participants who donated their entire day for the benefit of the community, and a special thanks to the Godes family for the use of their property for the purpose of disposing several tons of green waste, Bob Baird for Operating ‘Old Faithful’, Candy Baird, Lloyd Monroe, and Art Grobben who spent the better part of a week completing all the little finishing touches, hauling, separating, loading, etc., Ron Sauvola for letting us once again stage on his property, as well as have our barbeque there, Tony’s Market for their thoughtfulness of donating donuts to jump start our day, to KUK’s Tavern and the Mustang Grill for always being so generous and supportive, to Rebecca Middlesworth, for the case of water, and to Ray Fitzgerald for the use of ‘Old Faithful’ the dump truck.

Community Greenhouse Grant

Norhtport recieved a $12,000.00 grant from "The Washington Health Foundation Healthiest State in the Nation Campaign" for a community greenhouse. The greenhouse was ordered on June 11th, 2009. It will be built at the Community Garden on mainstreet. We are excited about the opportunity to extend our growing season and provide greens late into the season and vegetable starts early in the year. We are linking with the School to assist with their fresh food program and mentoring a couple of students for their senior projects. We will be posting updates as they become available.

Northport Community Garden is Coming Soon!

Spring Fever is in the air! If you doubt it you should have attended the Herb Class at WSU on Thursday, March 5th. The Rendezvous Theater had about 75 eager gardeners listening to Al Kowitz share his passion and expertise for growing and cooking with herbs. Well onto the Community Garden Project.

We are in the planning stages of developing a community garden and greenhouse for Northport. Several people have been spending time brainstorming to make this a reality. Wendy Lantzy has stepped forward to take the lead on this project that was birthed out of the Horizon Grant. Last year the ground was prepared, organic matter added to the soil and some raised beds started, but no one was available to take charge of the project until now. Thanks, Wendy!

Rebecca Middlesworth started writing a grant to fund the startup costs of fencing, a drip irrigation system and green house. Community members Kamiah Goodwin, Sandra Everson, Art and Nina Grobben and Rebecca Middlesworth met to discuss some of the particulars. The location for the Community Garden has been donated by Art and Nina Grobben. The property is located on Main Street next to Buck Jennings, CPA. The location is ideal for access to marketing, proximity to school and community members to use.

Our goal is to link with the school for mentoring via the JR/SR projects and/or perhaps an elective class. The goal of the greenhouse is to give students an opportunity to raise starts for sale in the spring and perhaps to provide fresh greens all winter to local community members and businesses. Space may be made available at a small fee (to cover the costs of heating and water) to interested community members who wish to grow their own fresh greens or garden starts.

If you are interested in participating in gardening, mentoring, weeding, building a fence or setting up an irrigation system, etc. please contact Wendy Lantzy at
732-4249 or Nina Grobben at 732-0443.

Americorps*VISTA Volunteer to Assist Northport in Three Possible Projects

At the February NCPR meeting, Ruby Page from Americorps*VISTA spoke. She shared about the Americorps*VISTA program and suggested we submit a project idea. Cindy Knapp, Gary and Kathy Jones, Sandra Everson, Art and Nina Grobben, Marti Rosenstiel and Melissa Kahee met at the Grobbens to begin brainstorming projects that we could submit. Three projects came immediately to mind; a recycling station, community garden and an address identification project with the volunteer fire dept.

Marti Rosenstiel and Melissa Kahee have begun investigating the possibility of a recycling center for profit to provide jobs for students and disabled/handicapped workers. It is just in its infancy stage but the following are the ideas submitted for a three-year project:
· Begin a Recycle Center
· Educate the community and school
· Develop a volunteer base
· Develop mentoring program with the school (JR/SR Projects)
· Create Job opportunities for students/disabled/seniors
· Create a Recycle Web Site for local classified ads
· Build a Recyclable Building Supply Center
· Clearing house for tearing down structures

The Community Garden is forging ahead, but some of our ideas for an Americorps*VISTA in this project are as follows:
· Identify End Users of the garden produce
· Develop Volunteer base
· Identify and apply for grants to fence, build greenhouse, etc.
· Develop mentoring program with the school (JR/SR Projects)
· Identify possible partners beyond the school
· Develop ongoing educational program for the school
· Seed Saving Program
· Develop and identify plants hardy to our area
· Plant starts from the greenhouse to sell to the community
· Educate and develop bio-intensive gardening methods
· Survey community on knowledge/needs/volunteers/etc.

The Volunteer Fire Dept. project idea was for the development of a sign identification program. Our firefighters have a difficult time locating fires and emergencies due to the lack of proper signage on driveways in the outlying areas. A similar program was started in Newport and with grants and selling of signs it has been sustainable. At this time we have no one within the Fire Dept willing to take the lead on this project. We were looking to partner with the Northport Volunteer Fire Dept. and Fire District 11 (Onion Creek) to work on this project simultaneously. At this point it looks like Fire District 11 might submit an Americorps*VISTA project of their own. We will gladly assist them in anyway we can.

NCPR and Northport Chamber of Commerce Work Together for Northport

Continuing our fight against poverty and encouragement of business visability and tourism, members of Northport Community Preservation and Restoration (NCPR) and the Northport Chamber of Commerce(NCofC) participated in a hands on class to redesign and implement the Northport Chamber of Commerce Web Site. Brendon Michael Hall, a web savy relative, worked with 9 community members to create the site using Dreamweaver and Fireworks. The maintenance of the website will be left to the Chamber of Commerce. The web site is scheduled to Go Live by 1/5/09. The address is http://www.northportwa.us/

The class was squeezed into the holiday break. Designing a web site "by committee" is sometimes a challenge, but we perservered. The new web site should serve the needs of tourists and locals alike with local business information along with vacation ideas and resources.

Art and Nina Grobben hosted us. Nina provided LOTs of Coffee, goodies and lunch. Art even took off my tire chains!

Thanks go to our hosts, Art and Nina, and to Brendon for making himself available to support us.

4-H Mentoring Program

Three adults received training as 4-H leaders from WSU Stevens County Extension 4-H educators recently as they explored the idea of forming a 4-H club as part of the Youth Mentoring Project. It looks like we will start a 4-H club!!!

An additional training will be scheduled for September. If you are interested in attending please contact Sandi at 732-8847.

Grant Application

Community members are working tirelessly on a application for dock upgrades. Our current dock and recreation area could be greatly improved with additional funding, making the area more attractive users and tourists. We have beautiful and usable spot!

They have met with the Recreation and Conservation Organization and have a grant manager they are working very closely with, who is advising and assisting in the preparation of the grant.

USDA/Ecliptixnet Highspeed Internet Grant

Remember the informational meeting last fall about getting a grant for high speed internet access??? The town has been selected!!! This grant will provide our town with a small community center and 1o computers for use, especially by those who do not have access otherwise. The grant also provides high speed internet to Northport and opens up opportunity for homebased businesses, online classes for furthering education, and the possibility of expanding a call center job location for our town and decreasing existing commute times.

WSU Service Learning Project

A group of 25 Washington State University Human Development students worked with the Northport Youth Mentoring Horizons group to develop a life skills curriculum that can be used in an high school elective course. The curriculum includes information on applying to post secondary education, writing resumes, financial aid, and more. They also did some fundraising and donated $400 to the school. The money can be used to buy materials to supplement the curriculum.

The school is planning to integrate the curriculum into a leadership course this fall.

2nd Annual Town Clean Up

The second annual town clean up will be held April 20 and 22!!! New this year is our partnership with Chamber of Commerce. We hope to lift a few of the faces ofpoverty...depression, lack of self-worth and self-pride helping people unbury themselves and give them a starting point again. Breaking the patterns of behavior and lack of caring.

Remember last year when we rid the town of over 15 tons of trash, recycled 478 pounds of aluminum cans and 177 vehicle batteries??? Let's do it again.

November 29 Community Visioning

Wow! Over 50 people attended the Community Visioning Meeting. Three groups met to work on plans for the top three concerns identified in the community survey.

The largest group was the group working on plans to Improve the Economy. The two areas they focused on were tourism opportunities and shopping local.

Youth Activities was the next group. They would like to provide youth mentoring programs in Northport.

And the third group focused on More and Better Jobs. They are hoping to provide classes for current and potential business owners.