REVIEW BAINBRIDGE ISLAND
Friday, November 27, 2015 | Vol. 90, No. 48 | WWW.BAINBRIDGEREVIEW.COM | 75¢
Survey says: Residents love the island life, mostly
A parade of condiments Ordway kids make their annual trek to Helpline House
BY BRIAN KELLY
Bainbridge Island Review
Outstanding place to call home, a nearly unmatched quality of life and a right neighborly island. Quality, affordable housing? Not so much. Job opportunities? Few and far between. Parking? Fuhgetaboutit. Those are the big takeaways from the latest survey of Bainbridge Island residents.
BY JESSICA SHELTON Bainbridge Island Review
Winter hats and bulging backpacks are not your typical parade attire. But this wasn’t really your typical parade. Instead of marching bands, there were students marching cans. Instead of costumes, they had condiments. And so the first-, second-, third- and fourth-graders of Ordway Elementary made their annual trek to Helpline House. They were excited as they marched down Madison Avenue; after all, they had a special delivery to make. Zoë Hays, a second grader in Mary Lou Upton’s class, was loaded up with Jell-O. It’s her favorite, her grandmother said. And Elsie Nelson carried “applesauce, a big jar, and soups.” The boys in Ms. B’s — Jennifer Burlingame’s — class couldn’t wait to deposit their boxes of cake mix, cereal and Gatorade. “People are hungry and people are starving,” explained one second-grader. Gilbert Jacobsen, another second-grader, was delighted to help. “We’re going to give them food!” he exclaimed with a victory fist pump. Ordway students and chaperones have been making the 1.6-mile roundtrip walk for more than 25 years. Greg Sanman, a fifthgrade teacher at the time, was looking for a way to make food drives more visible, “more than just a box in the hallway,” he said. The beauty of the walk, or “parade of condiments,” as the staff of Helpline calls it, is that Ordway students not TURN TO ORDWAY | A18
INSIDE: A gritty but uplifting tale, A8
City officials received the mixed bag of results earlier this month from the National Citizen Survey, and it’s the third year in a row the city has used a random survey to try to gauge the island’s collective opinions about everything from governance at city hall to the economy, recreation, education and community engagement. Overall, the survey — conducted by the National Research Center, Inc. in Boulder, Colorado and the International TURN TO SURVEY | A26
TWELVE WEEKS WITH DR. BLOEDEL
Reserve’s walking program prompts reflection and healing BY JESSICA SHELTON Bainbridge Island Review
Brian Kelly | Bainbridge Island Review
The line of Ordway students, staff and volunteers stretches along Madison Avenue on Friday.
Ever since last April, Patrick Pepper’s ears have been ringing. His hands tingle. He drops things. His words don’t come out with the same machine-gun delivery. Too much light, and he feels like his head is full of water. Too much sound, and he’s equally fuzzy. Nineteen months ago, he was electrically shocked while working as a maintenance man at the Columbia Center. “When that voltage locks on to the human system, every part of you starts to flex,” Pepper said. “You can’t control yourself. You can’t breathe. It
feels like hot lava hands are squeezing you out of your body.” But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part came after the accident, when Pepper realized he was a different man. He had lost his awareness. “I could sit and stare at a wall for hours and be totally entertained, which was disturbing,” he said. He also lost his patience. He found it increasingly difficult to track situations and stay calm, or to deal with trying personalities. “I used to have the ability to care about what people needed,” he said. “Now, if somebody’s poisonous, it’s TURN TO HEALING | A22
Photo courtesy of the Bloedel Reserve Jessica Shelton | Bainbridge Island Review
Students came loaded with all sorts of supplies to help stock Helpline’s food bank, which serves up to 300 households each week.
After he was electrically shocked, Patrick Pepper lost much of his awareness and patience for people. Participating in the Strolls for Well-Being program helped him reflect upon the accident and come to terms with what happened.