Wowza! What a great start to the Give Orcas campaign! So far, we have had 114 individual donors contribute $57,000 in just TWO DAYS! The grantees are doing a great job engaging the community and seem to be having fun, as demonstrated in this video from the Senior Center featuring Cedric the Centipede.
When Cedric is not in costume he is Tom Eversole, director of Hearts and Hands, the support program that matches volunteers with seniors for friendship and chores. He has inspired us to provide a video production workshop for our nonprofits next year. It is a great tool that we could all learn to do well.
At yesterday’s Eastsound Planning Review Committee meeting, the committee voted unanimously on a moratorium on vacation rental permits in the Eastsound growth area. While the vote was unanimous, there were a wide range of opinions expressed by the community members who attended the meeting. The County Council will now need to decide if they want to adopt this recommendation.
Housing is a complicated issue. I found this article on housing issues in the Bay area fascinating (and depressing). The article takes a bit to load, as they have used all sorts of interesting tools to explain the data. Fortunately, we have had some progress locally, as April’s Grove has officially broken ground this week. WaHOOOO! We will still be running a GiveOrcas April’s Grove edition this June/July to complete the funding, but OPAL wanted to get shovels in the ground as soon as possible—great news for our community!
Hope you have a great weekend,
Hilary