Alaska
Unitarian Youth Group Awed By Alaska
Final August, as this space slowly emerged from COVID, Nate Pawelek had an concept.
The Westport United Church youth chief noticed how deeply isolation, loneliness and hopelessness had affected youngsters. He wished to ignite and encourage the church’s highschool group.
How a couple of journey to Alaska?
Church leaders had been skeptical, however supportive. Rev John Morehouse warned in opposition to going simply to sightsee. He wished a studying part too.
As a result of local weather change is a big Unitarian Universalist concern — a key precept is respecting the interdependent net of all existence — Pawelek determined to concentrate on the surroundings.
Working carefully with intern minister Kim Warman and lots of mother and father, he designed an intensive environmental curriculum.
In September, a dozen teenagers started investigating their very own church campus, guided by an arborist from the congregation.
They discovered how human conduct impacts the earth in unseen methods. The group found an oak tree with a motion-detection digicam sure to its trunk by a metal wire. Because the tree grew it turned embedded, constricting water and vitamins from roots to leaves. The group minimize the wire, saving the tree.
At Sunday morning conferences, visitor audio system shared their work. Pippa Bell Ader described meals waste. Noting that food-insecure folks do not need the luxurious of throwing away completely good meals, she urged composting and donating unused meals.
Misha Golfman, founding father of the New Hampshire wilderness expedition college Kroka, instructed the kids to keep away from quinoa. A staple for Ecuadoreans and different South Individuals, a lot of it’s now diverted to the US.
Golfman and Kroka created a New Hampshire program in February. It was “mini-basic coaching” to organize for Alaska. The group discovered to reside outdoors within the chilly, construct fires with out matches, prepare dinner within the snow and dehydrate meals, with out working water and electrical energy. A number of group members participated in a polar plunge in a frozen pond on the ultimate day.
In February the youth group started finding out environmental justice. They seen a sample of upper impression from local weather change on low-income communities, folks of coloration, and indigenous teams. Subjects included the Flint water disaster, and the Eklutna Dam in Anchorage (it decimated the salmon inhabitants eliminating an important meals supply for the Dena’ina group).
On the similar time, the kids raised cash for his or her journey. They did odd jobs, collected and redeemed hundreds of bottles and cans, raked lawns, bought vacation wreaths, sponsored a raffle to win a wire of wooden, and carried out a profit live performance.
Quickly, that they had $17,000.
The 11 youth group members and 5 chaperones headed west in the course of the faculties’ spring break. Immediately, they had been awed by the rugged panorama.
Alaska “reminds us that nature has the ability to revive us in instances of despair and despondency,” Pawelek says. “That is what I envisioned. It was a present of hope for the youth.”
Residing in Alaska for per week — largely off the grid — “elevated their consciousness of the innumerable methods human exercise, even in our personal houses, impacts the well being and sustainability of the Earth,” he provides.
The group traveled with a suitcase filled with dehydrated meals, and 16 tenting bowls, mugs and spoons to eat with.
Every teenager introduced simply 2 adjustments of garments and no facilities — aside from telephones (helpful primarily as cameras, attributable to restricted cell service).
They generated little trash, refilled their water bottles each likelihood that they had, and — after spending 3 hours making tasty pancakes with rehydrated blueberries — relished the meal.
In Alaska the group labored with the natural gardening group Yarducopia, and canvassed neighborhoods to ask folks to hitch. They met with representatives from Trout Limitless and the Alaska Conservation Fund, who took them to the Eklutna River (and dam).
In Seward, a park ranger confirmed them the proof of flooding and seashore erosion from melting ice caps and glaciers. In Homer they surveyed tide swimming pools and studied plankton beneath microscopes, to study the impact of warming oceans.
Additionally they attended a Unitarian Easter service; helped construct a retaining wall to forestall erosion, and had dinner with leaders of the Qutekcak native tribe.
Stunning climate enabled clear views of the beautiful Chugach Mountains and the Alaska Vary, together with 20,000-foot tall Denali.
They performed — sledding down a 100-foot embankment like penguins — and although there was nonetheless a variety of work to do establishing camp, the impulsive playtime honored their souls.
Pawelek is aware of the argument that an environmental journey like that is unwise, attributable to carbon emissions. “We consider the advantages of our consciousness offsets the emissions,” he says.
Again in Connecticut, they’re displaying off their photographs. They’re telling household and associates in regards to the sights they noticed, the teachings they discovered — and pondering laborious about what the long run holds.
(Youth group member Zach Pawelek created the video beneath.)
Alaska
Alaska Airlines employees help uplift communities during inspiring Week of CARE – Alaska Airlines News
Alessandra F., Manager of Community Relations and Engagement, searched for meaningful ways to support local military families in the state of Alaska, where over 50,000 active-duty service members and their dependents reside, and where 1 in 10 Alaskans is a veteran. Her search led her to Fisher House Alaska, a long-standing Care Miles partner with Alaska Airlines.
Fisher House provides military families with a “home away from home” at no cost, allowing them to focus on medical care and recovery while finding comfort and community. Alaska Mileage Plan members can support this cause by donating miles here.
More than 30 Alaska Airlines employees spent the day at Fisher House, baking fresh brownies and cookies, organizing closets and pantries, and preparing thoughtful care packages for the families staying there. The day wrapped up with a hearty fall dinner cooked by our team, serving more than 50 guests and creating a warm, welcoming atmosphere for these deserving families.
Alaska
Wright and Eischeid face off again in a close state House race to represent East Anchorage district • Alaska Beacon
In Anchorage’s North Muldoon and Russian Jack neighborhoods, two candidates are facing each other for the second time in two years for a seat in the Alaska House.
While Republican incumbent Rep. Stanley Wright is seeking reelection, Democrat Ted Eischeid is on a mission to unseat Wright in the rematch.
In 2022, Eischeid lost to Wright by 72 votes.
This year, Eischeid said he retired early from his job as planner for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough so he could redouble his campaign efforts —“I knocked a lot of doors two years ago, I’m doubling that effort this time,” he said.
Eischeid led the race in the primaries with a 3% edge over Wright, although only 8% of registered voters turned out.
Any flipped seat could be consequential in a closely divided House, so an Eischeid victory could tip the balance of power away from the current Republican majority.
Wright is a Navy veteran from South Carolina. He followed his wife to Alaska where they raised their children. Before representing House District 22, Wright worked as a community systems manager in Anchorage’s Community Safety and Development office. His previous public service roles include work in the state governor’s office and for the state’s Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
Eischeid had a career as a middle school science teacher in the Midwest before he, too, followed his wife to Alaska where he found work as a planner for the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. His previous public service was two terms as a nonpartisan county board supervisor in Wisconsin. He said the value of listening to all viewpoints was driven home to him in that role.
“Sometimes I voted conservative, sometimes I voted progressive. I let people’s public testimony and I let the data guide me. And I listened very closely, tried to suspend my bias as much as I could,” he said.
As part of his campaign, Eischeid said he heard that the district’s main concerns are education, public safety and infrastructure. He said the value of a good education is a priority for him in part because he grew up poor in Iowa after his father died when he was very young.
“I’m a food stamp kid. I’m a free and reduced lunch kid. And because I had good public school teachers, I got a good education. I was able to earn that college degree, and I entered a good middle-class lifestyle,” he said, adding that, if elected, he will bring that history — and the sense of compassion it instilled in him — to Juneau.
That sentiment points to a similarity between the candidates. In 2022, Wright told the Alaska Beacon that a “pretty rough” childhood on a South Carolina farm and, later, in a housing project, taught him about the value of public assistance. He sought federal grants for low- and moderate-income housing as a city employee in Anchorage, according to his campaign.
Eischeid described himself as a moderate Democrat who will listen, but doesn’t want to “waste time” fighting culture wars.
“People don’t want professional politicians, and they’re not asking for much, but they want somebody that represents them and knows them and puts people over party,” he said.
Wright did not respond to the Alaska Beacon’s requests for an interview for this story. But his voting record has at least one striking example of putting concerns raised in his district over the leadership of his party: In the last session, he was one of the seven members of the Alaska House’s majority caucus who voted with members of the House minority in a failed attempt to override Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of an education bill that included a permanent increase for state education funding.
At the time, Wright said one of the schools in his district had been threatened with closure and that “really weighed heavy on my heart.”
In his first term in office he co-sponsored a number of bills that became law, including the measure that led to state recognition of Juneteenth, and passed a law that is intended to streamline the certification process for counselors in order to increase access to mental health care.
GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.
Alaska
VOA Alaska to hold annual Fall Festival
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Another fall tradition will be hosted this weekend by Volunteers of America.
Nonprofit VOA Alaska will hold its Fall Festival on Sunday at the Nave in Anchorage’s Spenard neighborhood.
Engagement Manager Maricar Yuzon joined the News at 4 crew to talk about the organization and the Festival activities.
Copyright 2024 KTUU. All rights reserved.
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