In your neighborhood

Hazel Dell, Felida and Salmon Creek

Northeast Hazel Dell: Sixty or so students from the Clark College Service-Learning in the Community program worked in the Hazel Dell Community Garden on May 25 and June 3. They planted flowers donated by Sweet Nectar Nursery and vegetables donated by the horticulture programs at Lewis and Clark and Fort Vancouver high schools.

Lake Shore: The “mini-mod” soccer fields that couldn’t be included in the new Jack Z. Fazio park — because of the lack of off-street parking — are headed across the street to the grounds of the All Saints Episcopal Church at the corner of Northwest 21st Avenue and 99th Street. There will be four 10-yard-by-30-yard fields designed for children 10 and younger. Mini-mod soccer games last 20 minutes and involve teams of six players. The fields will be on the north side of the church property, tucked around the existing playground. Clark County will make minor improvements to the grounds in exchange for use of the fields weekdays after 3 p.m. and Saturdays. (The fields won’t be used on Sundays and on Wednesdays after 5 p.m., when there are scheduled church activities). Work on the property should begin this summer and finish next spring.

Salmon Creek: Salmon Creek Hospital Foundation trustees and local business representatives delivered more than 2,000 stuffed animals to the Legacy Children’s Center at Legacy Salmon Creek Medical Center on May 28. Riverview Community Bank, American Underwriters Insurance, Ridgefield Junction Lava Java, Salmon Creek Postal Annex, Salmon Creek Cleaners, Punky Doodlebugs and Mugs Coffee helped collect the animals as part of the Refill the Zoo project. The animals are given to pediatric rehabilitation clients and children during hospital stays.

Central Vancouver, Minnehaha and The Heights

North Garrison Heights: Friends of Hospice presented the Southwest Foundation with a $50,000 check in February. Hospice Southwest, a program of Southwest Washington Medical Center, provides care for the terminally ill and their families in their own homes, adult family care homes and extended care facilities.

Bagley Downs: A mock “American Idol” competition, called “Couve Idol” raised more than $1,500 for the Special Olympics of Oregon. The event was held in the auditorium at Fort Vancouver High School and organized by the school’s ASB members. Lewis and Clark, Fort Vancouver and the Vancouver School of Arts and Academics each had one singing competitor. Hudson’s Bay High School had five competitors. Winners were selected based on how much money they were able to raise. First place went to Christina Chen, $415; second place went to Mikaela Dale, $300; and third went to Kira Greene, $275. The top three competitors were all from Hudson’s Bay.

West Vancouver and Downtown

Fruit Valley: If warning signs, crosswalks and “Share the Road” placards are any sign of comfort, bike-riders and trail-users of Frenchman’s Bar Trail should soon feel as snug as a bug in a rug. Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation worked with WSDOT, Clark County and the city of Vancouver to bring numerous types of road signs to hairpin turns, intersections, curves and the park entrance to improve user safety. “This project came in response to input we received directly from our trail users,” Pete Mayer, Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation director, said in a release.

Vancouver Lake: Matt Graves, an environmental specialist with the Port of Vancouver, braved a two-mile swim in Vancouver Lake to promote local water quality. “I seem to be fine, but I don’t know how long you go before you know you don’t have any E.coli symptoms,” he said a few days after the swim. Graves was able to attract 56 sponsors that donated a total of $2,472. The money will be used to provide free swimming passes to 70 Hough Elementary students a week through winter.

Esther Short: The Vancouver Rotary Foundation awarded $52,000 in college scholarships to Southwest Washington high school and college students at a luncheon on May 12.

Shumway: YWCA Clark County received $15,000 from this year’s Red Dress Party. Funds will support the YWCA Safechoice Domestic Violence LGBTQ Program, which provides advocacy, education and prevention services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and transsexual people.

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

Mountain View: Mountain View High School’s Math, Engineering and Science Achievement team continued its winning streak at the state MESA program competition May 22 in Seattle. It took first place in all categories. Team members are Arnikan Baleswaren, Arranan Blaeswaran, Dilshan Mendis, and Jonathan Wu. The team will head to Denver. later this month for the national MESA competition.

East Vancouver: Members of the Union Cheer Booster Club are scratching their heads after 22 of 25 yard signs that were distributed around East Vancouver disappeared. The signs, which cost around $170 to buy, were being used to advertise a school fundraiser. Although the group didn’t apply for a sign permit — they say they weren’t aware they needed to apply for one and will in the future — police and city officials say they aren’t responsible for removing the signs. A booster club member said in an e-mail she would love if the signs could be returned to Union High School.

First Place: For many people, the rainy Memorial Day weekend was a reason to stay indoors, but residents of First Place neighborhood braved the weather to build a raised bed community garden. The garden is the first in Vancouver to be built under a new Vancouver policy that allows neighborhoods to have food gardens in neighborhood parks. The project was a cooperative effort between the Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation Department and a group of First Place neighbors. In support of the community garden, the city ran a water line into First Place Park and removed the sod from the garden. The neighbors built the frames for 10 raised garden beds, each 4-feet-wide by 12-feet-long. Dennis Wieder acted as building supervisor on the project. All costs of building the raised garden beds were paid by the gardeners.

Landover-Sharmel: The former Caldwell property that’s long been on the docket for development as a neighborhood park by the city of Vancouver is inching a little closer to reality. Master planning will begin in the fall, neighborhood chairman Jaime Manriquez wrote in the latest neighborhood newsletter, and the city has funds for the project. The four-acre property was purchased for a park by the city years ago, but it’s still zoned residential. Manriquez has formally requested that the city change the zoning to parkland.

Orchards, Sifton and Brush Prairie

Truman: Rotary Clubs of Clark County gave thanks to Columbia Credit Union on May 12 at Harry S. Truman Elementary School after the credit union gave $19,000 to the Dictionary Project. The money was used to purchase 10,000 dictionaries — all the books were given to local third graders to help them become “good writers, active readers and creative thinkers.”

Sifton: Students from Heritage High School took home the gold, and more, from the Imagine Tomorrow energy and sustainability showcase event held at Washington State University Pullman. The Grand Prize was won by Tyler Bradley, Joseph Dejony, Scott Maxfield and Zachary Schulling for their oil collection and biodiesel program, which produces up to 200 gallons of school bus fuel each week. First Prize was won by Taja Brown, Artem Kapkayev, Skylar Wilson and Stephen Wu for promoting the transformation of Heritage into an “Energy Smart” school. And Second Prize went to Hannah Chae, Connor Heinz, Seth Jordan and Greg Makar, for developing a process to turn the school’s biomass waste into biochar, a type of charcoal. Students received cash prizes and won money for the school, too. Teams from Camas High School also earned prizes. Nearly 100 teams from 32 high schools participated.

Greater Brush Prairie: When Glenn Waller was teaching English as a volunteer in Thailand, he noticed that many of his students had no books of their own. Waller, a Lewis River Rotarian, decided to donate dictionaries to his students based on the Rotary’s Dictionary Program in Southwest Washington. Lewis River Rotary teamed with the local Rotary district and purchased 220 English-Thai Dictionaries for elementary students at three schools in Thailand.

Orchards: Alice Webber recently attended the 2010 Public History Field School under the auspices of the Montana Heritage Commission and Washington State University. She is attending the Pullman campus, where she is working on a master’s in American studies, having completed her undergraduate work at the Vancouver campus. She did her field work at Virginia City, Mont., and presented her seminar class projects to the Agai’dika (Lemhi Shoshone) culture committee. Alice, and her mother, Beth Webber, and instructor Bill Peterson, provided Dutch oven cooking for the presentation dinner. Field school participants will attend Agai’dika Days in Salmon, Idaho on June 19-20.

East Clark County: Camas and Washougal

Camas: Evergreen Habitat for Humanity raised more than $16,000 at its fifth annual golf tournament at Camas Meadows Golf Club on May 27. Team Construction came in first place, New Traditions Homes came in second and the KGW team came in third. Proceeds will benefit the Evergreen Habitat for Humanity affiliate.

Ridgefield and Fairgrounds

Fairgrounds: Noah Mossman, a fourth grader from South Ridge Elementary, won first place in the individual category at the Math is Cool Master’s competition held in Moses Lake on May 22. Mossman and other students from South Ridge competed against the top teams from Seattle, Wenatchee and Spokane.