Festival of Lights

Two fabulous L-dub performers at work...

Fall Festival Fun!

LWGMS/St. Clouds Homeless Cooking Project

On October 27th, 34 LWGMS students and 29 of our alumnae, parents, grandparents, and staff joined Madrona's St. Clouds restaurant owner John Platt to provide an hour of dignity and good food for those who have too little of both in their lives.

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See photos from this project:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lumhaus/sets/72157622605527189/show/

(Thanks, Dawn!)

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Read an account of the day written by Jeff Lee, parent '12.

Part I: St. Clouds

We arrived at the restaurant at 9am to the sight of two smallish 6th graders carrying bags of potatoes stacked up to their eyebrows. Inside, the place was buzzing, with several girls already wielding chef’s knives and vegetable peelers. More piles of produce and dry goods followed, balanced on skinny 6^th and 7^th grader legs. A little later, the 8^th graders straggled in bearing jars of spices and condiments, still yawning from their interrupted beauty sleep.

Soon the little dining room was packed. Every booth and table was covered with cutting boards and veggies, and the parents gave a few quick lessons in slicing and dicing, with an emphasis on avoiding fingers and fellow cooks.

John Platt, the owner and executive chef at St. Clouds, whirled around the room like a 6 foot 7 inch tornado, fielding questions and shouting orders. Michael King, his able sous-chef was a calmer presence, but no less capable. Soon a group of girls was lined up along the huge, commercial cooktop, stirring pots, working the griddle, and lowering baskets into the deep fryer. Heavenly smells began to waft through the air.

Out in the dining room, bowls the size of hula hoops began to bulge with vegetables. As compost bins filled up with peelings and trimmings, the chatter of sweet, high voices rose and fell against the low roar of the vent hoods and the sizzle of sauté pans. The onion booth overflowed with giggles and tears, and the girls at the lime table sprinkled zest and droplets of juice in the air.

Before long, raw ingredients began to morph into sumptuous and elaborate dishes. Carmelized onions mingled with butter and delicata squash, then draped themselves over steaming mounds of bow-tie pasta. Yard-long baking pans filled with orderly columns of pork chops and chicken breasts and Italian sausages. Bushels of rice swam in gallons of sweetened cream, and banana chocolate tarts as big as coffee tables slid onto oven racks to bake.

Soon the giant serving pans were filled, covered, and labeled for delivery. We made over 300 meals, destined for 4 different sites, each with a different four-course menu. Then it was time for clean-up. Our daughters wiped, scrubbed, sprayed, swept, vacuumed, dumped, stacked and stored until St. Clouds was ready for its afternoon seating. The girls didn’t complain, they didn’t resist, and they didn’t disappear. By the time we were done, most of them were exhausted. They were amazing.

Before we dispersed, we gathered out front for a group photo. John took a moment to praise the girls and all their good work, then he paused, and faltered a little with unexpected emotion.

“A lot of the people who will get these meals never eat like this,” he said. “They never sit down at a restaurant and have something beautiful and delicious that was prepared just for them. When you serve them this food tonight, think about that. Think about how much that moment of dignity might mean if it were something you never got to have.”

Part II: Hammond House

While the girls went home to clean up and take a break, a few dedicated parents took the afternoon shift to reheat the meals and transport them to the various sites. A few hours later, one group of servers headed north to Tent City. The rest of us went downtown to the Hammond House women’s shelter.

The entrance to Hammond House is quite literally a hole in the wall. It’s a rectangular opening in the brick wall of an alley with no signs, no ornamentation, and no distinguishing feature other than a locked wrought iron gate. We rang the bell and were greeted by Carol, an unhurried woman in her mid sixties with a generous smile and a slight southern accent. Carol led us down the stairs into a windowless basement room with worn linoleum floors and recessed fluorescent lighting.

We sat on the mismatched dining room chairs and listened as Carol gave us our orientation. Hammond House is an overnight shelter for women only. The residents arrive after 6pm for dinner, then stay overnight and leave in the morning. There is no limit on how long they stay, and many residents have been there for months or years. They came to Hammond House for many reasons. Some lost their jobs or were bankrupted by poor health. Some are fleeing domestic violence. Some struggle with mental illness or addiction. Surprisingly, about half of the women are over 50, though the ages of current residents span from late 20’s to early 80’s.

Next, Carol gave us a tour. The residents sleep in a large, open dormitory. They have a bed and a nightstand, and a couple feet of floor space. There are approximately 40 regular beds, but sometimes a couple of cots are added when the weather turns cold. And even in good weather, the demand for beds always exceeds the supply.

The women have tried to brighten up their personal space as much as possible. A little touch like a colorful quilt or a stuffed animal graces most beds. There are no screens and no semblance of privacy. Many residents pile their belongings in the middle of their beds and throw a blanket over them to hide them from prying eyes.

At six o’clock, the residents began to file in. Many seemed surprised and a bit taken aback to see so many unfamiliar faces. The girls washed their hands and slipped on oversized rubber gloves. They stood behind the counter over the steaming food, with serving spoons in hand and friendly smiles on their faces.

The meal was a big hit. Everyone loved the spicy potato salad and the pasta with sausage and squash. But by far the biggest hit was the banana chocolate cream tart.

“We love our dessert,” said E, an elderly woman with bright purple hair. “I get my hair colored once a year,” she said. “You know, just to shake things up.”

After the meals were served, the parents cleaned up so the girls could sit down and have some dinner with the residents. At one table, a tall, middle-aged woman named M held court surrounded by several girls. She had a deep voice and bleached blond hair, and a spiked dog-collar on her neck that intrigued the girls almost as much as what she was saying.

“I’m one of the lucky ones,” she explained. “I got into transitional housing down at the YWCA. It’s nothing fancy—just a room. But it’s safe. And private. They let me come and eat here because I lived here before I got into the Y. I’m an alumnae.” She went on to talk about her struggles with bipolar disease, and how that had altered the course of her life.

At another table, some of the girls sat with K and her friend J. Both women were in their 60’s, neatly dressed, and very articulate. Either one looked like they could have been the grandmother of one of our daughters. K is a lifelong vegetarian, so she couldn’t eat the sausage, but she made up for it by having seconds on dessert.

K used to work in a research lab at UW. When budget cuts hit last year, she lost her job, and couldn’t afford the rent. She’s been at Hammond House for several months. Every day, she goes out and tries to find work, but with the economy as tough as it is, she’s not having any luck. When she’s not job-searching, she fills her time by going up to UW and sitting in on lectures. Her parents were both in healthcare, and she listens to NPR, so she’s been following the current healthcare debate closely. That’s what we talked about, mostly. Healthcare, and politics, and the economy. It’s a conversation I might have had in any coffee shop in Seattle.

It began to get late, and the girls were pretty tired, so we packed up our serving pans and got ready to go. J and K encouraged us to come back.

“You don’t even have to bring food,” said J. “But we won’t complain if you do.”

M had a hard time saying goodbye. It was clear she relished having such an attentive audience.

“It’s really a treat for me,” she said. “A lot of the people I run into every day aren’t . . . well, they aren’t very nice people. You should all come back soon. It’s really been a pleasure.”

Strong Voices for Humanity

A note from Patti --

Today I had the great pleasure of attending the Washington State Holocaust Education Resource Center’s Voices for Humanity luncheon, where Tong Yuan (’11) and our humanities and art teacher, Lindsey Mutschler, were two of the esteemed speakers. They were both inspiring – truly highlights of the day! And they were in good company -- Randy Dorn, Enrique Cerna (KCTS), and author James Waller also spoke at the event.



The artwork of Hailey Jenkins (’09) was featured on the invitations and placecards, letters from Leila (’11) and Emelia (’11) were featured in the printed program, and cards featuring the artwork and artist statements of Elena (’10), Finn (’11), Emma (’11), Hana (’10), Andrea (’11), and Jillian (’10) were for sale at the event.
I am so pleased that LWGMS students and teachers so genuinely lent their voices and vision to this worthy cause. I was especially proud to hear Tong Yuan speak today about the way that learning about the Holocaust has affected her, and to hear Lindsey speak about how teaching about the Holocaust fits her personal teaching philosophy as well as LWGMS’s mission of educating girls to work for social justice.

LWGMS first invited a Holocaust survivor to speak at our school in 2001. These speakers, such as Hester Kool who was honored at today’s luncheon, have shared their stories with our students, lending relevance and impact to their learning as only a personal connection can. The goal of the Holocaust Education Resource Center is to provide resources for teaching about the Holocaust in order to give a voice to those who can not speak. It is no wonder, then, that our students and their role model teachers – all of whom are strong in mind, body, and voice - were welcomed today as part of this important program.

"She-Bot" Update...sort of...

This Saturday a group of Lake Washington Girls Middle School students, parents, and faculty made its way down to Seattle Central Library expecting to learn something of the whereabouts of the now-famed "She-Bot" who left her quiet, comfy existence in Kirsten Rooks' science classroom and headed straight for the trash. Well, not really. Before she was fit for the bin, she spent some time with the researchers from MIT's SENSEable City Laboratory who fit her with a small, smart, location aware tag: "a first step towards the deployment of "smart-dust" – networks of tiny locatable and addressable microeletromechanical systems." Wait. What?

We thought we went to the library to learn about trash, but Carlo Ratti, director of SENSEable City Laboratory, and his team first introduced the audience of more than 50 of Seattle's finest environmentalists to the absolutely inspired, innovative, and incredible work they've been doing in Boston (and all over the world) for more than three years. The lab's mission, to look at how we can embed technologies in cities, and at how embedded technologies in cities can help us understand them and one day change them, was revealed to us through short presentations (with fantastic graphic renderings) of a few of their many projects. "Computers," said associate director Assaf Biderman, "are making their way out of their home, out of the office, and into the streets. They are increasingly present in our pockets, street lights, traffic lights, urban furniture, and infrastructure. There’s a blanket of increasingly dense interconnected computers covering cities. This allows us to extract and put back information at specific locations. So we thought, why not apply the thinking that’s behind human computer interaction to cities?"

Ratti and Biderman told us about EyeStop, a touch-screen bus shelter that monitors environmental conditions (weather, air quality) and real-time bus movement, and also provides information and communication tools that can interact with your cell phone (sending tweets if your usual bus is running late, for example), scheduled for installation in Florence, Italy, next month. The EyeStop, which has touch sensitive "e-Ink" screens as well as LEDs, features a bus map plotting locations in real-time, email and Web access, tools for planning a best route and getting directions, a community bulletin board, and, of course, a place for silent video advertisements. Intended for tourists as well as locals, the EyeStop tools are accessible in several languages.

Another project, the Copenhagen Wheel, aimed to transform bicycle use in Denmark’s largest city where there are more bicycles than people, through promoting urban sustainability and building new connections between the city’s cyclists. They made the bikes "smart mobile sensing devices that map[ped] the real-time flow of people and environmental conditions in Copenhagen." This was achieved through strategically placing small location and environmental sensors on bicycles to gather information as people rode through the city. The data from the cyclists was used to understand more about city dynamics, and eventually power applications of benefit to citizens, city municipalities and researchers interested in bettering them, making their city more efficient and user- or biker-friendly.

It is hard to convey how exciting it was to learn about these projects, mostly because my mind was - and still is - about to burst, but by the time Ratti and Biderman got around to talking to us about Trash, we were all hooked, and actually more prepared to understand the mechanics of the Trash Tracking program. 3000 pieces of Seattle trash were tagged, taken back to their "homes," and disposed of or recycled as they would normally have been. Once picked up by Waste Management, one of the sponsors of the project, the tags somehow sensed movement, triggering a search for nearby cellphone towers. The tag then sent an SMS (i.e. text message) containing this information to MIT, where software compared it with standard maps of cell phone signal strength to determine the position of the tag. The tags calculate the ongoing location of each piece of rubbish and report back to a central server, where the data is analyzed and viewed in real time. And back to the "smart dust": yes, someday these tags will be as small as particles…and attached to, well, whatever!

Seattle's Waste Management is very interested in the results of the Trash Track project, hoping that finding out more about how trash goes through the systems will help them improve their logistics, from trash transportation to recycling to disposal systems. But Waste Management isn't the only thing the experiment hopes to improve - the researchers want to get at the root of the problem: how we treat consumables in the first place.

"Trash Track has the potential to encourage people to make more sustainable decisions about what and how much they consume, and how it affects the world around them," said Biderman. "The project represents a type of change that is taking place in cities: a bottom-up approach to managing resources, promoting more informed decision-making in the public through the use of pervasive technologies and information."

Naomi True '10, head of the LWGMS Green Team, attended the presentation and is as dedicated as ever to help our community consider and improve the way we handle and treat trash and recyclables. Already this year she's addressed the student body about waste free lunches – informing her peers which typical lunchbox items are reusable, recyclable, and which are not – and is creating a series of green goals for the year. Naomi is one of many LWGMS students who strive to be contentious consumers and stewards of the environment, excited to be part of the MIT Trash Track project.

We did not find out where our "She-Bot" is, but the MIT team will continue to track data through October 11, presented online and at the Central Library, and we have no donut she'll make her presence known…she's an L-Dub girl after all!

-Shannon Blaisdell

What’s a retired girl robot to do?

Why, track trash, of course! Come hear what she has to tell us about where our garbage really goes this Saturday at Central Library.

Little did Kirsten Rooks’s science students at Lake Washington Girls Middle School know when they built a solar robot last year that she would find meaningful retirement work as, well…trash.

Last week as part of an MIT study, the school’s “she-bot” was one of some 3,000 other pieces of garbage fitted with electronic smart-tags and ceremonially tossed into ordinary garbage cans.

Using the cell-phone technology in her tag, LWGMS’s “she-bot” has been faithfully reporting her whereabouts back to MIT computers, allowing researchers to monitor the journey from garbage can to landfill in real time.






This Saturday, September 19, you are invited to Central Library (1000 4th Ave) from 11am-12:30pm to hear all about her amazing journey.

Why should we care where our garbage goes? Because there’s a lot of it—almost 400,000 tons of waste, yearly, from Seattle alone—and because we don’t know nearly as much about the “removal chain” as we do the “supply chain.” Gaining more information about the waste stream will not only help us build more sustainable infrastructures, it could foster real behavioral change. If you know exactly how long a drive that Starbucks cup has to take in order to become landfill…you may just think twice before tossing.

That’s what the folks from MIT’s “Trash Track Team” believe, anyway. And that’s why they’re tracking trash in two cities— New York and Seattle—this fall.
As for the Lake Washington Girls Middle School “she-bot”…well, until Saturday she remains persistently unavailable for public comment. A source close to her, however—Lake Washington Girls Middle School Head of School Patricia Hearn—notes that the “she-bot’s” Trash Track is just one part of a much larger environmental campaign the young female environmentalists at Lake Washington Girls Middle School are taking on this year.

“Lake Washington Girls Middle School is proud to participate as one of just a handful of ‘Washington Green Schools’—schools that work intentionally to eliminate waste and to undergo voluntary waste audits in order to educate more sustainably,” says Hearn. “Our involvement with Trash Track is one part of this new campaign, and we couldn’t be more excited to hear what our ‘she-bot’ has to teach us!”

Please join us Saturday to find out!

Update! Read the New York Times article about the trash tracking project.

Student Art Show 2009

Summer Backpacking Trip 2009

Here are some photos from our backpacking adventure to Rialto Beach in the Olympic Peninsula. I was so busy having fun that I didn't take pictures every day, but these should capture a good slice of the trip. Jenny and I had a fabulous time, and look forward to our trip next summer! If your daughter has more photos to add to the blog, please have her email them to mutschler@lwgms.org. Enjoy! ~Lindsey