Briefs

Day of Sharing

is November 8

The Second Annual Edmonds Day of Sharing, in which local service groups raise donations for low-income citizens, will take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8 at Petosa’s Family Grocery, 550 Fifth Ave. S. in Edmonds.

Non-perishable and non-breakable food items will be collected for the Edmonds Food Bank. New and unwrapped toys will be collected for Toys for Tots for the Marine Corps Reserves. Donations of new clothing items such as socks, underwear, hats, umbrellas, sweatshirts, coats and jackets will be accepted for Clothes for Kids. The Edmonds Lions Club will collect used eyeglasses.

Cash donations are also accepted.

Olympic Beach

project complete

The city of Edmonds will have a celebration marking the completion of the new Olympic Beach bulkhead and to accept a new sculpture for the area at 3 p.m. Friday, Nov. 14.

The project replaced the decayed wooden timber walls with new bulkheads and created a new walkway along the water’s edge in the central portion of the city’s waterfront park system.

At the south end of Olympic Beach Park a series of water steps and an ADA-compliance ramp slopes to provide access to the beach. Benches placed along the waterfront path were purchased as part of the city’s gifts program.

The Edmonds Art Festival Foundation, a long-standing private non-profit foundation that supports arts in the community, will dedicate a gift of sculpture created by Richard Beyer titled “Seeing Whales.” The piece depicts a multi-generational family who gather together along the water’s edge to delight in the sighting of whales passing by the Edmonds shoreline along the Puget Sound.

Crime expert

speaks locally

The Edmonds Police Foundation is hosting a visit by Dave Grossman, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and nationally known crime expert, titled “The Bullet Proof Mind: Responding to Violent Confrontations” from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Nov. 13 and 14 at North Creek Presbyterian Church, 621 164th Street SW in Mill Creek.

Grossman, a former Army Ranger, West Point psychology professor and professor of military science, is a Pulitzer Prize nominated author. He has given training sessions to “literally hundreds” of police organizations around the nation and served as the keynote speaker at major international conferences of police organizations, according to the Edmonds Police Department.

The first day of the seminar, open to the public, will focus on topics such as domestic and international terrorism, crime prevention and response, and cultural and psychological impacts of media violence. The second day, open only to public safety response personnel only, will focus on ways to deal prepare for and cope with combat.

For more information call the Edmonds Police Department at 425-771-0200.

PFD raises

more funds

The Edmonds Public Facilities District (PFD) announced Oct. 30 that the sale of the Anchor House Apartments will result in a major step forward in funding the Edmonds Center for the Arts.

The Anchor House, at 601 Sixth Ave. N., is directly across the street from the historic Edmonds High School, which will be renovated as a state-of-the-art auditorium and performance hall for music, dance and other performing arts.

The sale netted $487,000 toward the renovation. The PFD to date has raised more than $9 million of the $16 million estimated cost of the project. The PFD has announced a region-wide campaign to raise the balance of the project costs from private and public sources.

“We are well on our way to achieving our goal for raising the entire $16 million by the end of next year,” said Terry Vehrs, executive director of the PFD. “We have another sale of property in the works; we have an active and involved citizens’ committee, and we have funding requests pending before a number of foundations and private business interests. We are very excited about our progress.”

The former Edmonds High School, at 401 Fourth Ave. N., was built in 1939. It later was home to Puget Sound Christian College. The PFD purchased the property last year to renovate it as a performing arts center.

When completed the Edmonds Center for the Arts will be a regional center with a performing arts facility, meeting rooms, and gymnasium for the local and surrounding communities.