Category Archives: Uncategorized

The LSNA monthly meeting will take place Tuesday February 8th, at 7 pm, at the Washington Square Highrise (2501 E St.).  The meeting room entrance is on the south side of the building.  This month’s agenda:

2011 Elections
1.  Approval of minutes.
2.  2011 Elections
The Lettered Streets invites you to vote for this year’s Board Members.
You are welcome to run for office, represent a district or join a committee.  If we decide to plant trees, make a vegetable exchange or do a garden tour, you can contribute in your own way.
3.  Complete the schedule for 2011 meetings.
4.  Reports.

Hope to see you there!

By Arlene Feld

Derek Long may live among the historic dwellings of the Lettered Streets, but his life is thoroughly wrapped around building a distinctly different future. For the past nine years he has carefully nudged, forward thinking Bellingham towards the next era. We are crawling out of the Industrial Age into the Caring Conservers’ Age (credit to Jack Lessinger, economist, for the name). The future world begins at the core of everything: You and I, then our street, our neighborhood, our town, our food sources, our businesses, social services and schools, etc. The coming era must heal the side effects of the Industrial age, the pollution of the air, the water, the earth and society. Continue reading →

Our annual winter potluck will be held in lieu of our usual monthly meeting, on Tuesday January 11th at 6:30 PM.  Please bring your friends and family along to this social event!  The potluck will be held at the First Congregational Church, 2401 Cornwall.  Parking is available in the lot.  Bring a food item to share – salad, casseroles, dip; we’ll provide the drinks and dessert.  Entertainment will be provided as well as The Honeybees will perform their harmonious tunes!

Tuesday October 12, 2010, 7 pm
Washington Square Highrise 2501 E Street

PROGRAM: Come meet Chief Jason Napier, Fire Marshall.  Our latest large fire  devastated Whatcom Middle School.  We need to know how to protect  our older homes.  Chief Napier is a highly trained expert in prevention services.  He has experience in  the FEMA Search and Rescue Task Force.  He has worked closely with the Life Safety Division to decrease the incidence of and the severity of fires.  Bring your questions to this discussion.

Please join us for our monthly meeting on Tuesday September 14th at 7PM.  Meetings are held at Washington Square,  2501 E  Street.  Bring your ideas for future discussions, and check out our lovely 2011 Garden Calendar, featuring gardens located throughout the Lettered Streets neighborhood.

Tuesday, August 10, 7 pm
courtyard at 2501 E St, Washington Square

Bring your family, friends and a lawn chair to set out in the courtyard.  We’ll bring the Mallard ice cream.

Come appreciate the summer beauty in your neighbor’s yards!  Our very first garden tour will take place on Sunday, July 25 from 1-5 pm.  Start at 2215 Young Street, where you can pick up a map.  Come see just how imaginative the gardens are….. some are mature, some are just beginning.  Some have fruits and veggies mixed in amongst the flowers.  Suggested donation of $5.

Have extra fruit or vegetables in your garden? Anticipate a bumper crop on your old apple tree? When the bounty comes at you faster than you can pick it, consider donating to the Bellingham Food Bank through the Small Potatoes Gleaning Project! They will also come do the harvesting for you, if necessary.

Partnering with farms, home gardeners, and farmers markets,  Small Potatoes harvests excess produce that would otherwise go to waste. From the scale of a single apple tree to an entire farm field of vegetables, gleaning volunteers work to collect unused produce and distribute it to 27 different emergency food programs in Whatcom Co. Last year 135,000 lbs of produce.  This year the program is expanding into the neighborhoods to harvest home produce.

LSNA board member, Kate Ramsden is the glean captain for the Lettered Streets, Sunnyland and Roosevelt neighborhoods.  If you have extra fruit or vegetables to donate, please call the Gleaning Coordinator at 360.739.5274. More information at their WEBSITE.

June 8 neighborhood meeting
7:00 pm
Washington Square Highrise 2501 E Street Please enter through one of the doors on the Logan Street side, off the side patio.

It’s almost impossible not to live in a historic home in the Lettered Streets, whose blocks are graced by scores of bungalows and Victorians dating back to the early 1900s or before. Of course, that means those of us who reside in them are always looking for ways to keep our houses in good shape without detracting from their historic nature.

On June 8 the following speakers will share their expertise on this topic:

Jim Gunsolus is a contractor who has specialized in historic homes. He lives in the Columbia neighborhood and has been very involved in planning for the Fountain district. He has given a number of talks on the topic of maintaining and restoring historic houses.

Anna Booker has done some renovation on her own historic home. She also participated in the historic home training provided by the Historic Resource Survey and Inventory project.

by Rae Edwards

If you’ve walked the native plant teaching trail that runs along the south side of Whatcom Creek in Maritime Heritage Park, you’ve probably noticed that the current plant identification signs are, well, a bit battered. Originally created by Columbia Elementary students, the signs have reached retirement age. Fortunately, the Komo Kulshan chapter of the Washington Native Plant Society (WNPS) is teaming with Whatcom Middle School 8th-graders to create new plant identification markers.

The Whatcom students will contribute the art for the signs, and the WNPS is compiling key information such as the Lummi and Nooksack names for the plants, plant ethnobotany (how the plants have been used by native and other cultures in the area), plant characteristics and habitat value. The cost to fabricate the signs will be covered by community donations, grants from the state and local chapters of the WNPS, and a Clean Water Centennial Grant from the Washington Department of Ecology through the City of Bellingham. Look for these new signs early this summer.