Tacoma Community House's gymolition celebration was a big hit Friday, as compared to a big whomp with a bulldozer this week. The gym's being demolished this week, and TCH leaders are working with neighbors to think of how best to use the space.

About 40 people showed up to bid the non-profit's old gym a fond farewell, and to tell stories of the things they learned and the fun they had there. Among the guests were two of the mighty Shrimps, the TCH basketball team that played in the 1950s. Tom Mustin, who coached the team, and Karl Washington, helped put names to seven of the 10 boys in the team picture.

Here's the roster to go with the picture.

Front row, from left: Unknown, Daave Kvamme, George Loretta, Steve Mustin and Rudy Webster.

Back row, from left: Karl Washington, Unknown, Harry Walker (No.12), Unknown, and Tom Mustin.

Tom Mustin said that was his first coaching experience in a lifetime of coaching. He earned national fame as a youth boxing coach and took a team to the Olympics.

Tacoma Community House is tearing down its old gym, but not before a celebration of the venerable building's history.

TCH will host a "Gymolition" gathering Friday, Aug. 21, from noon to 1 p.m., at the site, 1314 South L South. They've invited anyone who's ever played basketball, bowled, danced, played shuffleboard, repaired computers, served a meal in the gym to share their memories of it.

Preparing for the event, Hana Kato and Candis Carbone found photos of boys in the tumbling class and two TCH basketball teams, The TCH Shrimps.

None of the pictures have names on them, and Kato and Carbone would like to remedy that. Take a look, and if you're in one of the photos, or know one of the boys, please let us know in the comments, and call Kato at 383-3951.

I'm writing a more complete column for Wednesday's paper, and would be happy to hear from you if you have a good story about the gym.

The St. Leo Food Connection folks have come up with a novel fundraiser:
Art That Feeds.

They've asked local artists to donate works, and to put a fair price on them. Instead of bidding in an auction, guests at the event will be able to choose what they like and take it home for the artist's price. That will give them the time and leisure to enjoy wine, appetizers, desserts, live music, and good company.

Tickets are a bargain at $5 each, and the event runs from 3 to 9 p.m. Saturday, May 30, at St. Leo's, 1324 S. Yakima Ave.

All the proceeds from the event will feed the needy people who depend on St. Leo's innovative programs.

This is the food bank that developed the Backpack Project. Every weekend, it sends 200 elementary school students home from school with backpacks filled with enough food to keep them fed over the weekend.

It runs a summer meals program.

And it sends the Springbrook Mobile Food Bank to a low-income neighborhood near Fort Lewis.

Every piece of art that benefits projects like those comes with an extra measure of beauty.

Here's a few more details about an event that I briefed in the paper version of The News Tribune earlier this week:

Organizers are hoping 1,500 volunteers young and old will show up to tidy up Tacoma’s Eastside this Saturday (May 2).

Already, 1,200 students, families and other community members have signed up to clean around schools and along safe walking routes to schools from 9 a.m. to noon in the 2009 Eastside Clean Sweep project, according to a Tacoma School District news release.

Four St. Vincent DePaul trucks will be stationed throughout the Eastside community to collect used furniture and other salvageable donations. After the clean-up, Clean Sweep participants can enjoy a free barbeque, family activities and entertainment at a community celebration and awards ceremony 12:30 to 2 p.m. at Stewart Middle School, 5010 Pacific Ave.

Schools participating in the clean-up include: Boze, Blix, Fawcett, Lister, Lyon, McKinley, Roosevelt and Sheridan elementary schools; Gault, McIlvaigh and Stewart middle schools and Lincoln High School.

A high school student from the Division 34 Kiwanis and Key Club has collected nearly 2,000 children books that will be distributed at the event.

The Clean Sweep planning committee includes the Tacoma Public Schools, First Creek Neighbors, Tacoma Police Department, Tacoma Housing Authority, City of Tacoma, Boys and Girls Club, Kids at Hope, Safe Streets and the Puyallup Tribe.

The clean-up is supported with a $5,000 grant from the Eastside Neighborhood Advisory Council (ENACT) and another $5,000 from the Puyallup Tribe. For more information or to volunteer, contact Kate Frazier at 253-571-1347.

Debby Abe, The News Tribune

The Rev. David Alger, executive director of Associated Ministries, has won the 2009 Greater Tacoma Peace Prize.

He’s honored, he said, to be considered in the same group as past winners, including George F. Russell, Jr., the Rev. Ron Pierre Vignec, David Corner and the founders of the Conflict Resolution, Research and Resource Institute.

He and his wife, Sally, are looking forward to going to Oslo in December for the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. His trip is part of the prize awarded by sponsors Norden Lodge #2, Sons of Norway, and Embla Lodge #2, Daughters of Norway.

And he is trying to work out his schedule for May 30, the day he will accept the prize, and the day he will bid his official farewell to his job of nearly 30 years.

Alger came to Tacoma in 1980 with the expectation that he would act as a “metropolitan minister,” promote dialogue among churches, and facilitate their service programs.

It did not work out quite that way.

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About 60 people walked through the streets of downtown Tacoma Friday, reading Scriptures, praying and reflecting on the suffering of Christ and the community.

The group stopped on Good Friday near a half-dozen spots, including a homeless shelter, a needle exchange van and a detention center.

Nora Leider pushed her 2-year-old daughter Maggi in a jogger.

Leider said the Stations of the Cross walking tour is "a meaningful way of relating the events of Easter to the life of the community."

Dotti Krist-Sterbick, Maggi's godmother, prayed at the first stop outside the St. Leo Food Connection and the Hospitality Kitchen on Tacoma's Hilltop.

"Gracious God, fill the stomachs of the hungry with good things and bless our land and our people with an abundance of your bounty," Krist-Sterbick prayed.

The group responded, "Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on us."

Krist-Sterbick said the walk enables people "to enter more deeply into solidarity with Christ's love."

The Stations of the Cross recall the steps in Christ's life leading to his crucifixion. The walking tour has been linking those events to places of pain in the community for 25 years.

Sponsors included Urban Grace Church, Guadalupe House and St. Leo Catholic Church, where the tour began.

Walkers took turns leading the group, carrying a 5-foot-tall wooden cross. The group sang "Oh Lord hear my prayer" as they walked.

Dave Hillis said the walk remembers Christ's death while acknowledging "the pain of the community."

On Good Friday, Hillis said, "This whole exercise puts him in the middle of the suffering."

Intercommunity Mercy Housing broke ground on the Hilltop Tuesday for its first senior housing project in Tacoma.

New Tacoma Senior Housing, with 73 units for very low income seniors will rise on a half acre at 1709 South G St.

The new apartments will feature wide corridors, grab bars, wheel-in showers and 24-hour security, all the safety and accessibility features residents will need to age comfortably in place. Beyond that, residents will have on-site activities, including classes, clinics, tax help, even pet therapy.

They’ll get chances to volunteer and go on field trips. They’ll be welcome to join their neighbors getting sun and exercise growing fresh vegetables in the La Grande community garden next door.

Neighbors will see quite the change from the two shabby blue apartments that stood on the lot when Intercommunity Mercy Housing dedicated the Catalina Apartments just up the hill in July, 2007. IMH had refurbished that aging complex from the studs out, and put 43 units of quality affordable housing to work in the neighborhood.

In addition to the Catalina, IMH owns the Eliza McCabe town homes at 2315 S. Yakima, Hillside Gardens at 1708 South G Street, and Tahoma View at 11208 First Avenue Court East. All together, they amount to 160 homes. The new project will be the only one exclusively for seniors.

The old red-tagged buildings were gone and the lot was prepped for construction when city and non-profit representatives gathered in the rain for the soggy ceremonial ground-breaking Tuesday.

Overall, the four-story building will cost about $21 million, $17 million for construction. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development awarded $8.2 million for the job through the HUD Section 202 Capital Advance Program. That national initiative is putting $525.9 million toward projects that will build safe, affordable housing for very low income seniors.

IMH intends to apply for the rest of the funding from the state’s Housing Trust Fund, Pierce County and the city of Tacoma. It already has lined up support from Franciscan Health System and Tacoma’s Office of Economic and Community Development.

Though the building will be an asset, construction will be a benefit in itself.

The project will employ scores of construction workers, architects, engineers and sub-contractors. A press release on the project referred to National Association of Homebuilders figures that show construction of a typical multi-family unit generated 1.18 jobs and $33,494 in taxes last year.

Tacoma’s Deputy Mayor, Julie Anderson, added that, once it is occupied, New Tacoma Senior Housing will employ managers, maintenance, security, recreational and health care staff.

Residents will pay 30 percent of their incomes as rent. On average, senior households bring in $25,000 a year, compared to the average Tacoma household income of $61,000.

Headquartered in Denver, Mercy Housing is a national non-profit which has developed 34,500 homes for low-income residents in 41 states. Its Seattle office, Intercommunity Mercy Housing, operates 44 properties, with 4,000 residents statewide.

The former Martin Luther King Housing Development Association is under new management, and that management is about to get some of the input it has said it welcomes.

The Tacoma Avenue Coalition will host a community forum at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 18, that's Wednesday, at the Tacoma Dominican Center, 935 S. Fawcett Avenue.

Jim Anderson, who organized the shelter's transition to Catholic Community Services, will speak about the plans for running the program that has been sometimes troublesone and sometimes troubled.

As its new director, Anderson wants to make Tacoma's largest emergency shelter a better neighbor, and a better host. The building at 1143 Tacoma Avenue South has its main entrance in the back alley.

Guests gathering there for hours with no security have attracted predators and made the alley dangerous and unsightly. Anderson intends to have security, a courtyard, extended hours and a no-loitering policy. That should be better for neighbors and guests.

He's also interested in hearing from the people who, practically speaking, live there. What services do they need? How can they find real housing?

Based on the improvements Anderson implemented when he took over management of CCS's Hospitality Kitchen up the hill, this is a promising development, said Jeanie Peterson.

Peterson, Director of Community Initiatives for Hilltop Action Coalition, is encouraging folks to go to the event.

"This forum should also be informative for those concerned about the homeless population and the issues that people are facing on Tacoma Ave, and even the situation at the jail, library, etc.," she sent out to her vast e-mail list.

For anyone interested in learning effective, responsible and responsive ways to help the most damaged and desperate people in the community, attendance should be mandatory.

Those First Creek Neighbors know how to sell a meeting.

Hauling people out of their comfy homes on a Wednesday evening so they can sign up for volunteer gigs picking up garbage and shooing away hookers, pimps and drug dealers is not as easy as you might think. But this group packs meetings to the standing room only point.

They start with impeccable manners in their announcement: “You are invited to attend the monthly neighborhood meeting of First Creek Neighbors Dec. 3. 2008, 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m., Portland Avenue Community Center, 3513 Portland Ave.”

No matter whether it’s delivered by e-mail, mail or flyer, it’s as gracious as an invitation to a tea dance.

Not that you’d get brass from the Tacoma and Puyallup Tribal Police departments and city Code Enforcement officers and Safe Streets at a tea dance. Those are the allies the neighbors have enlisted to help their East Tacoma neighborhood meet the Safe & Clean Initiative challenge of cutting crime by 50 percent and cleaning up Tacoma.

The partnerships are working out very nicely, thank you. So far, they’ve closed four drug houses and a meth lab, hauled away 25 tons of junk and 218 tires, routed illegal encampments, gotten the lights turned back on in Portland Avenue Park and parts of Portland Avenue, and organized a neighborhood patrol.

They are making life very uncomfortable for people who’d created a culture of lawlessness and blight in the area.

They intend to make them even more uncomfortable. They are keeping up the push-back against dealers, gangsters, drunks and hookers. They are fixing to sting the speed racers and the folks who don’t mind urinating and defecating in public. They’re having another community clean-up from 9 a.m. to noon Dec. 13, sprucing the neighborhood up for the holidays.

They’re all sweetness and light. They smile at known dealers. At every meeting, they give out free energy-saving bulbs for porch lights.

If you’d like to join them or see how they’re doing this, as the invitation says, “Your attendance would be most appreciated.”

Eastsiders have come to love the sound of tow trucks in the morning.

They have been working with Tacoma Police Department Officer Don Williams to rid the neighborhood of illegal and decaying cars in all the wrong places.

They’ve alerted Williams to blocks clogged with cars on the planting strips, cars with grass growing in their wheel wells, cars with expired tabs, cars on lawns, cars on sidewalks, cars parked facing the wrong way. Williams checks off the pertinent violation on a form. He leaves the form on the windshield with a notice that, if the owner doesn’t move the car by a certain date, the city will do it, and send a bill.

The first time Williams went out, people thought it was a bluff.
Then big trucks towed 30-plus cars away.

The next few times around, owners dealt with the problem themselves, and the tow trucks hauled off half a dozen vehicles.
Now Tow Day is going city-wide.

Jeanie Peterson of Hilltop Action Coalition is inviting volunteers in Sector One, which includes Hilltop and the downtown, to get the training to hit the sidewalks for the program. The police will offer free training sessions the weekend of Dec. 6 and 7.

“The first training class for the 6th will begin at noon at the Sector One Substation, South 16th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, and other trainings will happen throughout the day,” she said.
Tow Day will come to Sector One in time for the holidays, then cycle through Sectors Two and Three, then back to Four.

Maurice Akins, Dion Ames and their families are loyal customers at the Hilltop’s Safeway at 1112 South M Street.

They like and admire the people who work hard to keep the store clean and orderly, and the atmosphere friendly.

Their issue is with the building. It’s old. It’s drab. And it’s too small to offer the services Safeway customers in every other quarter of Tacoma enjoy. It has no bakery, no deli, no coffee bar, no China Express. Its meat and produce departments are smaller than in other stores.

That’s why they were picketing the store this morning.

Ames’ sign read “If this store was a child, I’d have to call CPS.”

Akins carried one that read “Safeway Shape Up Or Ship Out.”

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In Saturday's column I railed against the corporate CEOs, CFOs and directors who have taken millions in salaries and bonuses, not to mention extravagant perks, as they steered the businesses toward disaster.

Readers had plenty to say. Here's a sampling of their e-mails:

Thank you so much for your article! Finally, the confusion, disbelief, and anger that is giving most of us deep hurt in our guts has made it to print. I only wish that it had been the page one headline as well as the lead editorial. The people are really weary of all the hype and sensationalized headlines and accounts of this crass fiasco. I personally feel though, that the members of Congress, much more so than even the CEO's, are the ones, regardless of the administrations' party, that are the real culprits. Integrity and responsibility has yet to be a consideration to any of them. Until we all take a much more pro-active effort to make our elected representatives transparent and responsible, the government we get is to a large extent of our own making and the status quo is most likely to continue.
We enjoy your columns very much; keep up the good work.

Gene Beavin
Gig Harbor

P.S. If you haven't already read it, you may perhaps enjoy Peggy Noonan's "frisbee" article in yesterday's WSJ.

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