WWW.VALLEYRECORD.COM6 • May 18, 2011 • Snoqualmie Valley Record

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&&&&&Health FitnessHealth FitnessHealth FitnessHealth FitnessHealth FitnessHealth FitnessTrees

for the forest at Tollgate

Seth Truscott/Staff Photo

North Bend Planner Mike McCarty and his son Isaac, 3, plant a tree Saturday, April 30, at North Bend’s Tollgate Forest. The Arbor Day event drew volunteers from Mountains to Sound Greenway, Cedarcrest High School, the Sierra Club and North Bend officials, including Mayor Ken Hearing and his dog Dakota. They removed invasive species and planted more natural ones in the forest, which is an important corridor for wildlife. Future plantings and volunteer projects take place regularly through this year. To learn more, or volunteer, visit www.mtsgreenway.org.

LIVES FROM 1

This one used to belong to an elder of the Hamar Tribe village she visited in south Ethiopia, the part of her three-week trip to Africa that most profoundly touched her.

“This was the highlight of my trip. I feel very privileged to have spent time with the people living in this remote part of the world, living in the most primitive of ways,” she said.

Whitaker, past president of Snoqualmie Valley Rotary, travelled to Ethiopia in October 2010 as part of a Rotary group volunteering to help vaccinate children against polio. Rotary International has partnered with the World Health Organization, World Vision, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to eradicate the polio virus, and recruits mem-bers to go on these humanitarian trips.

“I just decided I wanted to go, I wanted to get involved,” she said.

Whitaker and the group of about 40 Rotarians from the northwestern U.S. and Canada spent a week in and around the capital, Addis Ababba, and then visited villages to administer the oral polio vaccine to children.

In her second week, she went to visit a camp of the Global Team for Local Initiatives (GTLI), which the Snoqualmie Rotary Club also supports. Whitaker wanted to visit ever

since hearing from the founder, Lori Pappas of Bremerton, at a Rotary meeting in Snoqualmie years ago.

The Hamar tribe lives in a remote part of southwest Ethiopia, about two days’ travel from the capital on the unpaved roads. “It’s way beyond where the tourists go,” Whitaker said.

GTLI is helping the tribe to get clean water and medi-cal care, teaching them about hygiene and sanitation, and helping them to become self-sufficient and move away from their farming culture, since the country is steadily becom-ing more arid and they are no longer able to grow enough food for themselves.

“Their people are dying out,” said Whitaker. While there, she helped administer vaccinations for the

eye disease trachoma, and soaked in the culture, which included a roast goat feast.

Her final week in Africa was all fun—a trip to Kenya for a five-day safari trip. After the extreme poverty she’d seen in previous weeks, it seemed very indulgent.

“I didn’t know what I was getting into,” she said, in ret-rospect.

After seeing the deep love of parents for children, and the respect for elders in the villages, though, Whitaker said, “It made me realize that even though we’re so different, we’re a lot the same.”

In Brief

Snoqualmie police claim 59 pounds of pills in Drug Takeback Day

Fifty-nine pounds of unwanted, unused and expired pills were turned in Saturday, April 30, in Snoqualmie to help prevent prescription drug abuse.

Local police took part in National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day for the second year. The anonymous col-lection event was started to keep prescription drugs out of the wrong hands and away from water supplies and the environment.

Nationwide, nearly 377,000 pounds of medications were collected this year, more than half again compared with last year’s total.

Pills are collected by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and disposed of according to strict guidelines.

The DEA has tentative plans to continue the program by scheduling an event every six months, an effort the Snoqualmie Police Department wants to support.

Relay for Life dinner, auction is May 25Supporters of Relay For Life of Snoqualmie Valley are

marking 10 years of celebrating, remembering and fight-ing back with a four-course dinner with wine pairing and silent auction, 6 to 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 25, at Boxley’s in North Bend.

Space is limited. For reservations, contact event chair Lisa Newell at newellvl@yahoo.com.

Dine out and help a seniorNeighbors come together for food and visits with

friends old and new on the second Saturday of each month at Carnation’s Sno-Valley Senior Center.

Dinner is $15 per person, and is served at 4:30 and 6:30 p.m. Reservations are recommended but not required. The next dinner is Saturday, June 11. For information, call (425) 333-4152 or visit www.snovalleysenior.org.