APS-FH shares some kind words about their vol­un­teer of the month.

The Ani­mal Pro­tec­tion Society—Friday Har­bor is pleased to announce Lin­da Pol­lard as its vol­un­teer of the month for May.

Lin­da came to vol­un­teer at the APS-FH Trea­sure Hounds store in Novem­ber 2021, soon after relo­cat­ing to Fri­day Har­bor. Trea­sure Hounds is APS-FH’s upscale-resale home decor and fur­ni­ture store. All items for sale in the store are donat­ed and the store is staffed by vol­un­teers. Trea­sure Hounds is sig­nif­i­cant to APS-FH as 100 per­cent of its sales sup­port near­ly 20 per­cent of the over­all oper­at­ing expens­es of APS-FH.

Lin­da learned about Trea­sure Hounds from her uncle, a long-time res­i­dent of San Juan Island and friend to APS-FH. After fur­nish­ing her new home in Fri­day Har­bor with many items from the store, Lin­da decid­ed to join the Trea­sure Hounds team of vol­un­teers, work­ing at the store each Fri­day as a cashier and pro­vid­ing cus­tomer service.

Quick­ly rec­og­niz­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to add more val­ue, Lin­da offered to take on the role of Trea­sure Hounds’ vol­un­teer coor­di­na­tor, pro­vid­ing vol­un­teer ori­en­ta­tion and train­ing and coor­di­nat­ing the vol­un­teer sched­ule. Lin­da offers encour­age­ment and sup­port to vol­un­teers, mak­ing sure their expe­ri­ence is a pos­i­tive one. Since tak­ing on this role, Lin­da has helped to recruit and train five new vol­un­teers for the store. We thank Lin­da for mak­ing a dif­fer­ence for APS-FH, the ani­mals, and the vol­un­teer team at Trea­sure Hounds. We are so for­tu­nate to have her involvement.

If you are inter­est­ed in join­ing an excel­lent team of vol­un­teers work­ing togeth­er in a fun envi­ron­ment, vis­it our web­site and fill out a vol­un­teer application.

The Gar­den Club sends along an update about their activ­i­ties and their 75-year anniversary.

The San Juan Island Gar­den Club was estab­lished in 1947 – 75 years ago – to pro­mote beau­ty and gar­den­ing inter­est in the islands.

Over the decades the Club has cared for the Eng­lish Gar­den at Eng­lish Camp, bought and installed the plants at the Cir­cle Gar­den, and fur­nished the land­scape plants at the island’s first med­ical cen­ter. Recent­ly they donat­ed 400 daf­fodils to the new ani­mal shel­ter. Every year since 1982 the Club has mon­e­tar­i­ly sup­port­ed the pur­chase and main­te­nance of the hang­ing bas­kets which fes­toon the Fri­day Har­bor down­town area dur­ing the summer.

The month­ly meet­ings are the first Tues­day of the month at 1 p.m. at the Mullis Cen­ter, Sep­tem­ber through Decem­ber and Feb­ru­ary through June. Cof­fee, tea and vis­it­ing time pre­cede the get-down-to-busi­ness meet­ing, fol­lowed by speak­ers on hor­ti­cul­tur­al top­ics. Zoom meet­ings have kept the mem­bers con­nect­ed dur­ing the past cou­ple of years. Con­tin­ue Reading

The EDC shares an update about one of their career train­ing programs.

Those seek­ing to enter health care careers, obtain side income while help­ing their neigh­bors, or boost per­son­al care busi­ness are invit­ed to get free home care aide train­ing through a pro­gram offered by the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil in part­ner­ship with Cor­ner­stone Health­care Train­ing. Stu­dents will receive free train­ing, finan­cial sup­port for costs of test­ing, and coun­sel­ing to fit home care aide cer­ti­fi­ca­tion into a plan for finan­cial success.

Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion can help peo­ple gain finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty. Work­ers wish­ing to enter oth­er health­care careers – such as nurs­ing or even man­age­ment posi­tions – can work as a home care aide to start up the career lad­der and earn income at the same time. Those work­ing part-time, sea­son­al­ly, or free­lance could gain income sta­bil­i­ty and flex­i­bil­i­ty. Those who are doing oth­er types of per­son­al care ser­vices already can earn more income by offer­ing new ser­vices or by fill­ing gaps between pri­vate clients.

To learn more, con­tact the EDC at marti@sanjuansedc.org or vis­it the EDC web­site. Appli­cants must be San Juan Coun­ty res­i­dents who are 18 years of age or older.

On Sacred Ground is look­ing for a part-time, con­tract­ed Vol­un­teer Coor­di­na­tor for its island mar­ble but­ter­fly pro­grams. Learn more in the Island Jobs sec­tion of the San Juan Update.

• Fri­day Har­bor High School base­ball punched their tick­et to the state tour­na­ment in dra­mat­ic fash­ion on Fri­day after­noon. Gra­ham Lear­ing drove home the win­ning run on a two-strike, two-out sin­gle in the bot­tom of the sev­enth and final inning to score pinch run­ner Geof­frey Volk from sec­ond base and knock off Coupeville High School 3–2 at a neu­tral-site game in LaConner.
• We all knew it, but the num­bers prove it — tourism com­plete­ly rebound­ed last year, with San Juan Coun­ty wel­com­ing 990,000 vis­i­tors in 2021 accord­ing to data com­piled by Tourism Eco­nom­ics. That’s a 33 per­cent increase over 2020 and iden­ti­cal to 2019. Those vis­i­tors are esti­mat­ed to have spent $267.3 mil­lion on lodg­ing, food, bev­er­age, recre­ation, retail pur­chas­es, and trans­porta­tion with­in the coun­ty last year.
• Here’s today’s farm­ers mar­ket line­up.
• The spring flea and craft mar­ket takes place today at the Fair­grounds from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
• Bak­ery San Juan will be closed the week after next — May 23 through May 30.
• There’s a wom­en’s pick-up soc­cer game at Linde on Sun­day at 2 p.m. Begin­ners are welcome.
• Tom­my Dale & the Dan­ger­fields are putting on a free street dance to ben­e­fit the fire relief fund on Sun­day from 2 to 4 p.m. at Brickworks.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!

The Town of Fri­day Har­bor has an imme­di­ate open­ing for an entry-lev­el refuse col­lec­tion and sup­port posi­tion with ben­e­fits. Learn more in the Island Jobs sec­tion of the San Juan Update.

The Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Coun­cil sends along news about an upcom­ing mar­itime career train­ing opportunity.

In an effort to address the nation­wide demand for a skilled mar­itime work­force, Sea­far­ers World­wide Career Train­ing is part­ner­ing with the Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Alliance of Skag­it Coun­ty (EDASC) and the EDC of San Juan Coun­ty to offer a one-day mar­itime career work­shop on Sat­ur­day, June 4.

This work­shop is open to par­tic­i­pants age 18 or old­er who are inter­est­ed in explor­ing a career in the mar­itime indus­try. Par­tic­i­pants will learn about the career path­ways avail­able local­ly, the steps to obtain­ing the nec­es­sary cre­den­tials to begin a mar­itime career, as well as hands-on expe­ri­ence with basic sea skills such as tying knots, prac­tic­ing with sur­vival gear, and on-the-water activities.

Cur­rent­ly there is a high demand for skilled work­ers to join fer­ry crews, tug and barge, con­tain­er ships, and many more seago­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. The pur­pose of this pro­gram is to help fos­ter a thriv­ing mar­itime work­force and to encour­age local work­ers to pur­sue lucra­tive careers in the mar­itime indus­try. Wages in the mar­itime indus­try are often well above the state medi­an wage, and there are many path­ways for career advance­ment and upward mobility.

Par­tic­i­pants of the work­shop will also receive coach­ing assis­tance for their Ordi­nary Sea­man Mer­chant Mariner Cre­den­tial (MMC) appli­ca­tion. This process can be lengthy, com­plex, and is typ­i­cal­ly required to obtain a posi­tion aboard a ves­sel. The goal is to min­i­mize bar­ri­ers and offer sup­port to those begin­ning a new career or look­ing to advance their career on the water.

To reg­is­ter, please vis­it bit.ly/maritimeworkshop or con­tact elisabeth@seafarersworldwide.com for more infor­ma­tion. There is a $100 fee to reg­is­ter for this work­shop and lunch is pro­vid­ed. Space is lim­it­ed and like­ly to fill up quickly.

The Town of Fri­day Har­bor shares an update about the revised traf­fic flow on Spring and Front streets down­town that took effect on Friday.

Sig­nif­i­cant traf­fic revi­sions are in place on Spring Street, Front Street, Granny’s Way, and the inter­sec­tion of First Street, A Street, and Granny’s Way at the top of the fer­ry lanes. Dri­vers are advised to watch for new traf­fic sig­nage and pro­ceed with extreme cau­tion through this area. This traf­fic revi­sion will remain in place for sev­er­al weeks until debris has been cleared from the Spring Street fire site.

Low­er Spring Street between First and Front streets is now open to down­hill traf­fic only. One-way traf­fic con­tin­ues along Front Street to the fer­ry lanes and up Granny’s Way. Two-way traf­fic is no longer per­mit­ted on this sec­tion of Front Street and Granny’s Way. Park­ing for tran­sit bus­es is on the east side of Granny’s Way. Traf­fic turn­ing left at the bot­tom of Spring Street must cir­cle behind Memo­r­i­al Park.

New stop signs have been installed on First Street in both direc­tions at the inter­sec­tion with A Street at the top of the fer­ry lanes. Traf­fic com­ing up Granny’s Way has the right-of-way at this intersection.

Ques­tions on this traf­fic revi­sion may be direct­ed to the Town Admin­is­tra­tor at 360–378-2810 or dkulseth@fridayharbor.org.

Contributed photo

Fri­day Har­bor High School junior Audrey Allen shares insights about the com­mu­ni­ty project at Island Haven Ani­mal Sanc­tu­ary that she recent­ly com­plet­ed with fel­low junior Eleanor Rollins.

I start­ed my research on farm ani­mals when my com­mu­ni­ty project at Fri­day Har­bor High School start­ed. My col­league Eleanor and I want­ed to work with Island Haven Ani­mal Sanc­tu­ary here on the island.

Island Haven takes in farm ani­mals who need homes. This most often hap­pens when the peo­ple who had the ani­mal pre­vi­ous­ly could no longer take care of it, when the ani­mal is no longer want­ed due to ill­ness or age, or when the ani­mal’s envi­ron­ment is no longer safe. Island Haven takes in these ani­mals and takes care of them to fit their indi­vid­ual needs.

Like most ani­mals, goats need to be able to play and run around. For young minia­ture goats, it is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for them to have dif­fer­ent activ­i­ties. To help sat­is­fy this need, Eleanor and I decid­ed to build Island Haven’s minia­ture goats a minia­ture play­ground in order to give them a fun toy and new stim­uli. We end­ed up mak­ing a teeter-tot­ter, a bal­ance beam, and added some wood rounds for the goats to jump around on as part of our play­ground. We researched what types of non-harm­ful woods we should use and fig­ured out what goats most like to play with. We were for­tu­nate to find a few gen­er­ous peo­ple who donat­ed wood and sup­plies to us and helped us reach our goals.

But it’s impor­tant to con­sid­er the rea­sons why the goats end­ed up at Island Haven at all.
Con­tin­ue Reading

The San Juan Coun­ty Depart­ment of Emer­gency Man­age­ment reports 63 active COVID cas­es on San Juan Island as of this morn­ing, more that dou­ble what was report­ed a week ago. Orcas Island has 51 active cas­es, while Lopez Island has 22, the out­er islands four, and Shaw Island one.

“These num­bers do not include sus­pect cas­es (e.g., pos­i­tive over-the-counter tests),” the Coun­ty not­ed in their media release. “Because of this, the actu­al num­ber of cas­es in the com­mu­ni­ty is like­ly sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er. Case rates are con­tin­u­ing to increase local­ly, region­al­ly, and statewide.”

Last week’s media release from the Coun­ty esti­mat­ed that the offi­cial num­bers account for only about 20 per­cent of the cas­es actu­al­ly present in the com­mu­ni­ty. If that assess­ment remains accu­rate, it means that San Juan Island’s true active case count could exceed 300 cases.

Free COVID test­ing kits are still avail­able through the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Health’s Say Yes COVID test web­site. Islanders can order up to two test kits each month. Deliv­ery is cur­rent­ly esti­mat­ed to take one to two weeks.

San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre shares a reminder about their upcom­ing series of performances.

The mag­ic of Cin­derel­la comes to life on the Whit­ti­er stage at San Juan Com­mu­ni­ty The­atre start­ing Fri­day, May 13 at 7:30 p.m. This clas­sic tale has been re-writ­ten for a mod­ern audi­ence, focus­ing not on Cinderella’s beau­ty but her char­ac­ter, cre­at­ing a charm­ing yet relat­able prince, and even giv­ing one of the step-sis­ters a soft side.

There are eleven chances from May 13–29 to catch this pro­duc­tion. Shows on Thurs­day, Fri­day, and Sat­ur­day evenings are at 7:30 p.m. Sun­day mati­nees are at 2 p.m. Join us on open­ing night for a cel­e­bra­tion start­ing at 6:30 p.m., com­plete with $3 glass­es of cham­pagne, a pho­to booth, raf­fle bas­kets, and more. Atten­dees of open­ing night are encour­aged to dress as if they are ready to dance at Prince Topher’s ball.

Thurs­day night shows are pay-what-you-can upon entry and Sun­day shows are social­ly dis­tanced with mask­ing required. Tick­ets are $25 for adults, $15 for stu­dents, and $5 stu­dent rush. Learn more and pur­chase tick­ets by vis­it­ing our web­site or call­ing our box office at 360–378-3210.

The Town of Fri­day Har­bor shares an update about the sta­tus of the First Street over­lay project.

Asphalt paving on First Street was delayed this week due to weath­er con­cerns. The con­trac­tor and project engi­neers deter­mined that this week’s tem­per­a­tures and gen­er­al fore­cast for spot­ty show­ers were not ide­al paving conditions.

Paving has been resched­uled to Tues­day, May 17 with Wednes­day, May 18 and Thurs­day, May 19 sched­uled as alter­nate dates.

Ide­al­ly pave­ment is installed when both ground and air tem­per­a­tures are any­where between 50 and 90 degrees. In our case, any­thing below 50 can cause defec­tive qual­i­ty that will have issues down the road. It is just as impor­tant that there is no rain on the day of paving, or for a rea­son­able amount of time after­ward, to allow the oily mate­ri­als to cure properly.

SJIMA sends along an update about a new event tak­ing place lat­er this month.

The San Juan Islands Muse­um of Art presents our inau­gur­al appraisal event from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sat­ur­day, May 28. Take the jew­el­ry you inher­it­ed or a fine art piece and learn its worth and a bit of its history.

Spe­cial­ists in the jew­el­ry and fine art depart­ments from Bon­hams auc­tion house will pro­vide an infor­mal ver­bal appraisal that will include an esti­mat­ed val­ue based on what the object might sell for at auc­tion. The val­ue is based on the specialist’s exper­tise and knowl­edge of what sim­i­lar items are fetch­ing in the cur­rent auc­tion mar­ket. If an object meets the min­i­mum con­sign­ment require­ments, you will have the option to con­sign your item to Bon­hams for sale at auc­tion. Spe­cial­ists are vis­it­ing from the Seat­tle, San Fran­cis­co, and Los Ange­les offices of the esteemed Bon­hams auc­tion house and are fre­quent guests on the pop­u­lar PBS series Antique Road Show.

Appraisals are $50 for the first item and $25 for each addi­tion­al item, with a max­i­mum of three items. All pro­ceeds from this event sup­port the exhi­bi­tions and pro­grams of the SJIMA in Fri­day Har­bor. Con­tin­ue Reading

• The Coun­ty Depart­ment of Emer­gency Man­age­ment has this to say about the gale warn­ing post­ed for today: “Those with boats at anchor or moored or who are plan­ning on being out on the water tomor­row should know that the weath­er is going to be stormi­er than what we’d expect for May. We almost always end up with reports of boats aground or in dis­tress dur­ing weath­er like this out­side of the win­ter months, which can be dan­ger­ous, but can also lead to the risk of sig­nif­i­cant fuel spills.”
• San Juan Brew­ing Co. is host­ing a fire relief fundrais­er on Sat­ur­day. They’ll be donat­ing all the prof­its from beer sales for the entire day.
• In hon­or of their ten-year anniver­sary, Friends and Neigh­bors Sup­port Island Rec (FANS) is look­ing to raise $10,000. The first $6,200 will go toward fund­ing schol­ar­ships that allow all island fam­i­lies to take part in Island Rec pro­grams. The rest will be used to expand pro­gram­ming. You can donate here.
• Ken­more Air will fly to the San Juan Islands from Taco­ma start­ing next year.
• Long-time Fri­day Har­bor Labs researcher Dr. James Tru­man has been elect­ed to the Nation­al Acad­e­my of Sci­ences.
• The Tran­si­tion Waste Reduc­tion Guild shares some island-spe­cif­ic ways you can min­i­mize plas­tic use and waste.
• Here are the week­ly gro­cery spe­cials from Kings and Mar­ket Place.

Have some­thing to share with the Island? Whether the news is big or small, let us know!