In Your Neighborhood, Jan. 6

North Clark County and Woodland

Dole Valley: Volunteers from Millar’s Wood Roasted Coffee, a family owned and operated specialty coffee roaster, headed out early on Christmas Eve morning in their solar-powered, mobile espresso-coffee van to visit the Portland Rescue Mission. They served free coffee to people waiting in line for breakfast and also offered free knitted hats. More information about Millar’s can be found at http://millarscoffee.com.

Ridgefield and Fairgrounds

Ridgefield: Usually he takes an airborne sleigh, but on Dec. 23 Santa Claus arrived in downtown Ridgefield on a fire engine. He came to the Ridgefield Community Center on North Main Avenue to kick off the town’s annual Christmas celebration, hosted by the Clark County Fire & Rescue Firefighters Association. There were also refreshments and performances by the Detchman Family Brass Band.

Battle Ground, Meadow Glade and Hockinson

Battle Ground: It would be impossible to list all the charitable work undertaken by students, faculty and staff in the Battle Ground school district this holiday season, but here are a few examples: Battle Ground High School collected enough food to fill 247 Christmas boxes. Students at Maple Grove Primary School collected 2,708 food items in six days for the North County Community Food Bank; five classes at the school gathered some 55 stuffed animals to donate to the young patients at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland. Faculty and staff at Summit View High School bought 60 pillows, sewed pillowcases and donated them to the hospital. Career guidance technician Kris Neal has led this project in past years, but said she’s never seen such participation. “It has really touched my heart and, I hope, the hearts of the children,” she said. CAM Junior High and Homelink students collected 1,174 pounds of food for the North County Community Food Bank, with the sixth-graders coming out on top by donating 448 pounds.

Hazel Dell, Felida and Salmon Creek

Salmon Creek: The third annual West Coast Bank Teddy Bear Drive netted 727 stuffed animals for the children at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center, Southwest Washington Medical Center, the Free Clinic of Southwest Washington, and the Arc of Clark County. The bears were delivered Dec. 21 by Justin Meyers, assistant vice president and manager of the east Vancouver branch, who also organized the event. The drive began in 2007 and brought in 208 bears and grew in 2008 when 453 were donated. The goal for this year’s drive was 500, but a donation of 450 new bears from Tim Hubbard, owner of A Better Glass Repair, helped organizers surpass that goal early on in the drive. Each of the bank’s four branches donated approximately 50 bears each and Vancouver Rotary donated 40.

Hazel Dell: Employees at the Clark Regional Wastewater District began collecting food and toiletries for local shelters and food banks last spring. Recently they participated in the Hazel Dell Division of Children and Family Services’ “Dare to Care: Give a Pair” sock drive. They ended up donating more than 16 dozen pairs of socks and underwear to children in foster care.

Orchards, Sifton and Brush Prairie

East Minnehaha: Sue Lintz, organizer of the East Minnehaha Neighborhood Association, reported some bad news: Her husband and neighborhood association co-founder and treasurer, Tony, died of lung cancer on Dec. 27 at the age of 48. “He helped me start the neighborhood association about five years ago,” she said. “He was elected treasurer and he was really active in everything.” Tony arranged garage sales, put up meeting signs, ran errands and generally devoted lots of time and energy to the neighborhood — in addition to working as a truck driver for Anderson Dairy. Lintz said that when she advised Tony it was OK to get angry about his cancer, he replied: “So many people love me, I can’t get mad.”

West Vancouver and Downtown

Port of Vancouver: For the third year in a row, the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union No. 4 has provided 64 new bicycles as holiday gifts for children who have been victims of abuse, have families in crisis or who are in foster care. The bikes are distributed through the Children’s Justice Center to social workers, law enforcement officers, victims’ advocates and mental health providers for children under their care or protection. The local also worked with the Vancouver Fire Department to make sure each bike was delivered with a helmet for road safety.

Arnada: Approximately 150 people visited the Clark County Historical Museum on Dec. 5 in search of hand-made, home-made deals during the museum’s Holiday Open House and Specialty Artisans Market. “We had 13 artisans who brought everything from bead art through wooden ornaments, photographs, paintings, wool pouches, exotic silk and lace bags, and music CDs,” said visitor services coordinator Karen Washabaugh. Live music was provided by Vancouver harpist Jennifer Pratt-Walter and puppet theater was performed by Legacy High School students. Plus there was the arrival and installation of a gingerbread house replica of the museum building itself — a 1909 Carnegie library — complete with industrialist/philanthropist Andrew Carnegie himself posing in the main lobby. The gingerbread house was designed by DSP Architecture and built (cooked up?) by the culinary arts students at Fort Vancouver High School.

Central Vancouver, Minnehaha and The Heights

Rose Village: Americans Building Community and the Fourth Plain Corridor Revitalization Task Force honored the volunteers and contributors who helped them transform the Fourth Plain Corridor in 2009 during a celebration at Memorial Lutheran Church on Nov. 21. The results for 2009 were more than 5,000 volunteer hours valued at $120,000, plus $50,000 of donated materials and $70,000 of administrative support provided by the group, and 53 homes transformed in the area. Specific honorees received a wooden hand with a cutout of a heart in the middle of the palm. Each hand had a plaque reading, “Hands of Hope Hero 2009.” Honorees included: Troy Tawzer and Scott and Dee-Anna Janku, contractors of the year; Charly George, volunteer of the year; Victor Fowler, painter of the year; Community Restorative Services, community group of the year and A1-Exterior Remodeling and Handyman Can, businesses of the year. Special awards went to Kevin Hiebert, ABC Project Manager, who was instrumental in mobilizing many of the volunteers and donors and to Toree Hiebert, the garden consultant who took the lead on the garden project at 39th and P Streets.

Pearson Field: John Kalde, who just turned 91, has been named Pearson Air Museum’s 2009 volunteer of the year. He contributed more than 470 hours as a museum docent this year. Pearson volunteers gave more than 3,500 hours of their time in 2009. Kalde was honored at Pearson’s Dec. 10 volunteer recognition dinner and received the special bomber jacket presented to all volunteers of the year.

Tidewater Cove: William Roy, owner of William Roy Designer Kitchens, thought it might be fun to bury a time capsule in the wall of one of the homes his company has designed. Staffers in his Portland office came up with all kinds of ideas of what to include in the capsule, ranging from a copy of The Columbian to a Lego figure to business cards and a Trail Blazer playing card. Roy chose the home of Jim and Leslie Repman as the recipient of the capsule. The Repmans are planning to move back to Vancouver, and Roy’s company has been working on their home in the Tidewater Cove condominium complex for the past year. “After we had created a capsule we presented it to Jim and Leslie. To our pleasure they loved it. We pulled out its contents and explained the thoughts behind each item we selected for a lot of laughs and fun,” Roy wrote in an e-mail.

East Vancouver, Cascade Park, Fisher’s Landing and Evergreen

Fircrest: Students and instructors from Everest College Vancouver provided complimentary seated massages for more than 200 shoppers — and one mall Santa — during the third annual “Knotty to Nice” event at the Jantzen Beach SuperCenter on Dec. 18. Everest sent a team of therapists with six massage chairs. Along with providing 10-minute massages, instructors and students dressed in holiday gear gave massage tips, demonstrations of stress-busting techniques and also passed out information on Everest College’s massage therapy program.

North Image: The Clark County Family YMCA recently received a $1,500 donation from the Candace Young Advised Fund, a charitable fund of the Community Foundation for Southwest Washington.

East Clark County: Camas and Washougal

Camas: Schools in the Camas School District did their part to help others over the holiday season. Students at Skyridge Middle School donated more than 1,400 cans of food during the annual C.A.R.O.L. food and toy drive. That was just a fraction of the 36,500 pounds of food donated by Camas students and families. At Helen Baller Elementary School, Allie and Nichol Short spearheaded a drive to collect extra dimes and coins for sheltered dogs, and together with the Helen Baller students and families, raised $815 for the humane society.