Umpqua Bank‘s Phinney Ridge Store Manager Jo Figurelli presented Phinney Neighborhood Association Executive Director Lee Harper with a check for $1,500 last Friday, after the PNA won the bank’s “We Heart” neighborhood campaign, garnering the most votes in Phinney Ridge.

The PNA plans to use the money for its Hot Meal Program, which provides 23,000 meals each year to homeless and elderly neighbors.

The Phinney Neighborhood Association has officially launched its newest program, PNA Village, which is designed to help people remain in their homes and neighborhoods as they age. PNA Village services will begin on April 1, but membership sign-up is open now. The PNA also is seeking more volunteers for the program.

A volunteer kick-off event is set for 1:30-3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 26, at the PNA’s Community Hall, 6532 Phinney Ave. N., in the brick building. RSVP at 206-789-1217.

While it’s primarily designed for seniors, the PNA Village is open to everyone of any age who lives in the boundary area: between North 50th and 105th streets, and from Aurora Avenue North to 15th Avenue NW.

The concept of Villages is a growing national movement enabling communities to support and serve each other through a network of volunteers in combination with vetted businesses. Members of the Village are in close contact with the program coordinators, who establish a complete profile for each member to best serve them in times of need or crisis.

The PNA Village relies heavily on local volunteer support. Whether it’s driving a neighbor to the doctor, changing a light bulb, or planting a spring bulb – a wide variety of volunteer opportunities are currently available. If you’re interested in volunteering for this program you can e-mail village@phinneycenter.org or call 206.789.1217.

Over the coming years, the PNA Village will grow and expand to meet the needs of its membership. For a complete list of current services and more information on PNA Village membership, visit the PNA website at phinneycenter.org/village. You can also subscribe to the PNA Village mailing list by sending an e-mail to village@phinneycenter.org with “Subscribe” in the subject line.

Here are a few tidbits of neighborhood news.

Childish Things, at 10002 Holman Rd. NW, collected 1,500 diapers during its December diaper drive for Westside Baby. The store matched the donations with another 1,500 diapers, and then purchased more using 1 percent of its December sales.

Our neighborhood placed fourth in Umpqua Bank’s “We Heart” campaign. The top three neighborhoods – Queen Anne, Magnolia and Bellevue – will each receive $10,000 for a community project. The Phinney Neighborhood Association was one of the 10 businesses with the most votes, so it will receive $1,000.

Greenwood-based online business Flash Gordon, which creates custom pet identification tags using 3D printing, will be featured on KING 5’s New Day Northwest at 11 a.m. today.

The Phinney Neighborhood Center tried to raise $30,000 from the community to help pay for an elevator to make the building more accessible – and ended up raising $40,161.

Those funds come from 249 households and businesses, 11 company matches, 33 Beer Taste patrons, a generous donation from the Phinney Neighborhood Preschool Co-op and $2,443 worth of potholder sales at the Winter Festival. Thank you for all you’ve done to help put an elevator in the Blue Building.

We expect to start construction of the Blue Building elevator by July 2012. In addition to the elevator, we also plan to do seismic retrofitting on the building, an improved entryway and a small community plaza. Barring any unforeseen complications we hope to complete the project by late fall. In the meantime, thanks to a grant from 4Culture, brickwork on the two small outbuildings on Dayton Avenue – the former fan building and the boiler room – is being restored and both buildings will be reroofed.

For a quarter of a century, the PNA has had a vision to create a living, enduring place that allows people of all ages and abilities to gather together and share their lives, ideas and experiences, creating a sense of belonging and a deeper commitment to our community. Our Community Begins Here Campaign has successfully raised $5.3 million in a very difficult economy, allowing us to purchase the Phinney Neighborhood Center campus from the School District, preserving a neighborhood landmark, and ensuring its ability to serve our extended community for generations to come. We are proud of our accomplishments to date!

The Phinney Neighborhood Association still needs donations for its holiday lunch on Wednesday, Dec. 21. They need cooked hams, pies, and shelf-stable juice. They’re also looking for donations of ground beef to keep on hand for those weeks when the delivery from Food Lifeline is low on protein.

If you’d like to donate, please call 206-783-2244 to sign up and make delivery arrangements. For any questions, email judith@phinneycenter.org.

Another informational session on the Phinney Neighborhood Association’s new program, PNA Village, is set for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the PNA, 6532 Phinney Ave. N., Room 3.

PNA Village is an “aging in place” program, designed to help seniors stay in their homes longer, with community support services.

If you have questions, contact Joanna Wright at the Greenwood Senior Center at 206-297-0875 or email village@phinneycenter.org.

The Phinney Neighborhood Association’s annual Winter Festival & Crafts Fair is this weekend, and they’re still looking for a few volunteers, as well as people to donate baked goods.

The festival is from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, and features 115 artists and craftspeople, hundreds of musicians and dancers, a quilt raffle, bake sale and lunch items for sale. It’s a major fundraiser for the PNA’s programs, including the Greenwood Senior Center, the Hot Meal Program, before and after school childcare, tool library and community projects for neighbors in need.

Admission is $4 for adults and $2 for PNA members, plus a can of food for the Greenwood Food Bank (children 12 and under are free).

If you’re interested in volunteering, email alis@phinneycenter.org.

The Phinney Center will have its annual Giving Tree in the lobby. Gift requests come from children and adults served by Dorothy Day House, FamilyWorks Food Bank, Broadview Emergency Shelter, Childhaven Therapeutic Childcare Program, Greenwood Food Bank, and Whitman Middle School.

(Disclosure: PhinneyWood is a sponsor of the Winter Festival.)

The rotating artwork in the Heart of Phinney Park on the corner of North 67th Street and Phinney Avenue North now features “Samaras” by Matt Babcock.

Photo courtesy of the PNA.

Artist’s statement:

A samara is a seed with a wing, such as a maple seed.

My goal as a sculptor is to create complex impressions using simple parts. I often use forms derived from the structure and movement of animals and plants. In April 2012 the Phinney Neighborhood Center Gallery will show some of my animal mobiles.

The powder-coated steel sculpture is 41 inches high, 41 inches wide and four inches deep. It is for sale for $6,800. If interested, contact the Phinney Neighborhood Center at 206-783-2244.

The Phinney Neighborhood Association (PNA) needs about $6,000 more to install a new elevator as part of its Capital Campaign.

The Capital Campaign has raised about $5.3 million so far to purchase the site and buildings from the Seattle School District, create a more accessible campus both inside and outside, construct a more welcoming entry way and community plaza, perform seismic upgrades, repair the Brick Building’s slate roof and the main sewer line between the two buildings, update the boiler, insulate both buildings, and install an elevator in the Blue Building to make it more accessible to everyone.

The elevator will be installed in the current front entryway, about where the soda machine is now. The PNA received a grant from Wyncote Foundation NW several months ago, and is using part of that grant for the elevator. Community leaders, including Red Mill Burgers and several individual donors, also contributed, for a total of $60,000, and are challenging the community to come up with an additional $30,000 to help pay for it.

PNA Development Director Ann Bowden said 157 community members have contributed $23,840 towards that goal, leaving $6,160 to go by the end of the year.

The total cost for the elevator, entryway, community plaza and seismic work is expected to cost about $1.6 million, and the PNA still needs about $175,000 to meet that. Bowden said they are working on a few more grants and will probably have another fundraiser in the spring.

“We’ve raised almost $5.3 million, we’ve done some pretty significant repairs, and we’ve done all this in the middle of the recession,” PNA Executive Director Lee Harper said proudly. “We’re incrementalists here at the PNA. This is the next increment. We’re getting the elevator so we don’t have to carry 95-year-old women up the stairs to the Beer Taste.”

That actually happened last summer. Harper said Jeannette Miss came to the Summer Beer Taste with her granddaughter to celebrate her 95th birthday , and both were dismayed to find steep stairs to the second floor. So a group of men got together and carried Miss in her wheelchair up the stairs.

Four men carry 95-year-old Jeannette Miss in her wheelchair up the stairs to last summer’s Beer Taste. Photo courtesy of the PNA.

“You always talk about accessibility, and that right there is the problem. We cannot serve our whole community,” Harper said.

The PNA hopes to begin construction of the elevator in spring of 2012.

(Disclosure: We’ve donated to the Capital Campaign.)

If you like great kids’ music and helping children read, then have we got the event for you. This Sunday from 4-5:30 p.m. at the Phinney Neighborhood Center is “Plot for Tots,” featuring live music by local musician Caspar Babypants (a.k.a. Chris Ballew of The Presidents of the United States of America), and several local authors reading from and signing their books.

It all benefits Page Ahead Children’s Literacy Program, which gives new books to at-risk children.

Authors include Kate Endle, Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park, Arthur A. Levine (U.S. editor of the Harry Potter books), Lorie Ann Grover, Samantha Vamos, and author-illustrator Wendy Wahman. Wahman also will provide face painting.

The suggested donation to Page Ahead is $5. Plot for Tots is in the PNA’s Brick Building in Community Hall.

By Next Door Media Intern Mwiza Kalisa

Inside the drawers of Seattle, some socks are destined for the garbage, but one person is using old socks for a good cause.

Lauri Serafin, who makes potholders out of recycled socks, is raising money for the Phinney Neighborhood Association. Serafin would like people to donate old socks that she can use to make potholders to sell at this year’s Winter Festival.

“I know there are people out there that don’t have the means to donate money, but maybe they can give us their old socks,” Serafin said. “We can turn them into something.”

Serafin is among 115 vendors who are taking part in the Winter Festival, held on Dec. 3-4. The festival is one of the largest community events where vendors sell homemade crafts. Serafin and her daughter, Amelia, have been vendors at the PNA Winter Festival twice.

“Typically we’ll sell 400 potholders at Winterfest; we’re hoping to do that again,” she said.

The proceeds from the potholder sales will go toward the PNA Capital Campaign elevator project. The campaign has already raised $5.2 million for the Phinney Neighborhood Center. They’re now looking to add an elevator in the Blue Building,” one of two Phinney Neighborhood Center buildings.

“Our goal is to raise $30, 000,” said Ann Bowden, the PNA’s development director. The elevator project has already received a $60,000 challenge grant.

Serafin says that one of the biggest challenges is finding enough socks to make the potholders. Each potholder needs a minimum of four socks. In some cases as many as seven socks are used to make one potholder, if the socks are small. The only requirement for the donations is that they aren’t nylon or soccer socks.

“It’s a great way to get rid of socks that are worn out or that have holes in them,” she said.

Stacks of recycled sock potholders ready for sale at the PNA Winter Festival, and the small loom they’re made on.

Serafin has been making potholders out of recycled socks for the past 30 years. The idea started in college, where she had socks that were too small but had refused to throw them away.

“I found my little plastic loom I had when I was small and I cut [the socks] up,” she said. “I had those potholders for years and they lasted forever.”

In the past Serafin has made monetary donations, but she now wants to donate her time and effort.

“This is important because we can make something productive and useful out of something that was going to be thrown away,” she said.

The majority of socks for the potholders come from Goodwill. Serafin has mastered the craft of creating potholders; it usually takes her 20 to 30 minutes. As the Winter Festival approaches, Serafin is hoping to have 500 potholders. She already has 350 potholders, but to achieve her goal she needs about 600 more socks.

“It’s really satisfying to take somebody’s old sock and make something pretty out of it,” she said. “As a fiber artist, I knit and spin, too, but I also want to do something for the PNA.”

If you are interested in donating socks to help Lauri and the PNA Capital Campaign, you can drop off your old socks at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, at 6532 Phinney Ave. N.

The Seattle Police Department and the Phinney Neighborhood Association are hosting a meeting on Monday to discuss the future of the Block Watch Program, since city budget cuts may mean that all SPD Crime Prevention Coordinator positions are eliminated at the end of the year.

What will that mean to the Block Watch Program? How can the neighborhood’s established block watches work together to support each other and keep our neighbors safe?

Terrie Johnston, the SPD North Precinct Crime Prevention Coordinator, will be a special guest at the meeting. Refreshments will be served. Block watch captains are particularly encouraged to attend but the meeting is open to anyone interested.

The meeting is at 7 p.m. Monday at the Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave. N.