Project: Helping Homeless Men
Greg Fields, Michelle Hansen, Dan Schremser, Charmaine Scott, Kathy Thompson, and Susan Longstreth
Team 4 - Attacking the need for more homeless shelters for men and men with families. Team Four has partnered with Catholic Community Services and The Suquamish Tribe to increase awareness of homeless men and their families in Kitsap County. The most recent homeless census completed in 2001, estimated there are approximately 621 homeless individuals and families in Kitsap County; 176 of them are single men. There are resources scattered throughout the County to help the homeless, however, there are no resources for single homeless men or single homeless men with families. That is unless you count the four rooms available to men at The Suquamish Tribe located in the North end of the County. This transitional housing is not well known. If homeless men are aware of this housing they are under the false impression it is available only to tribal members. All men are welcome as long as the space is available. In January of 2005, Catholic Community Services will have a ground breaking for a new transitional housing facility for men and it will be called the Benedict House. The Benedict House will have 25 rooms available, one of which will be for men with children. There will be a training room with five computers to assist these men in taking online classes, acquiring GED's, writing resumes, and many other necessary requirements for employment and housing. The goal of the Benedict House and The Suquamish Tribal housing program is to assist men in getting out of the vicious circle of homelessness and unemployment. You cannot get a job without an address and you cannot get an address without a job. Our Leadership Kitsap team has secured the maximum monetary donations as set forth by the Leadership Kitsap Foundation. Our sponsors are The Suquamish Tribe, KPS Health Plans, Air Management Services and Kitsap Xerographix. We have also secured in kind printing donations from Pollard Group, Inc, and we will be purchasing informational displays from Impressions Group. It is our intent to have the graphics provided for both the posters and displays by one of three school districts. We are having students of high school art classes compete for the marketing design. Winners will be awarded bonds from Kitsap Bank. We are also attempting to acquire the five training computers needed for the Benedict House training room. Team Four Project Members: Greg Fields, KPS Health Plans, Michelle Hansen, The Suquamish Tribe, Dan Schremser, PSNS&IMF, Charmaine Scott, Kitsap Community Resources, Kathy Thompson, Kitsap Credit Union and Susan Longstreth, Bremerton School District.

Project: TeenFest
Adam Brockus, Harriette Bryant, Alene Evans, Grace Greenside, Keith Hazen,
Kelly Woodward
Team 2’s project is to develop and implement The Kitsap TeenFest, which is an all-in-one community event on many relevant and timely topics, products and services that can help teens deal with important teen issues, problems and challenges. The fair includes exhibits, mini workshops, demonstrations, and screenings. Teens can learn about the risks of romance and dating, how to register as a voter, how to fill out an income tax form, financial planning or how to fight fat and eating disorders to name a few. We hope to attract at least 100 teenagers and we will be providing incentives to motivate teens to visit each exhibitor’s booth. The Team is getting expert advice from Central Kitsap High School students. The TeenFest is scheduled for Friday, April 29th from 5:00 – 8:00 pm in the Kitsap Mall, Silverdale. Thanks to generous in-kind donations, our fair is fully funded. Admission to the event is free to the public.

Project: Reuse-A-Shoe
Terri Washburn, Randy Crenshaw, John Hudson, Diane Jennings, Melissa Tippets, Cameron Teller
Team Triple Play needs your help with a great community project! Team players include: Consider what happens when athletic shoes are ready to be retired. What if there was a way to keep old, tired and worn-out shoes out of landfills and convert them to basketball courts, tennis courts, athletic fields, running tracks, or playground surfaces? There is! It’s called Reuse-A-Shoe. This program, developed by Nike and the National Recycling Coalition, gets all brands of worn-out athletic shoes “back into the game” through a product containing NikeGrind. Our goals are to: collect a minimum of 5,000 pairs of shoes; apply to Nike for a grant to put a NikeGrind play surface at a County park to complete the recycling loop; and teach students the impact their purchasing decisions have on the environment through the Air to Earth curriculum used by Public Works. Shoe collection begins January 24 at twenty-six collection sites located throughout the county and runs through April 21. A complete list of collection sites is listed on our project’s website www.kitsapreuseashoe.org Not only are there community drop-off sites, individual companies (i.e. Manchester EPA Lab, Parametrix) and schools are collecting shoes from their staffs and families and charitable organizations (St. Vincent DePaul, Goodwill, food banks) are diverting unusable athletic shoes to our project thereby decreasing their disposal costs. Our project culminates in a collection event over Earth Day, April 23-24, in the Kitsap Mall parking lot under the big top. Our community partners include Kitsap Co. Public Works (insurance, printing, advertising, shipping materials, classroom presentations), DONOBi (development and hosting the website), Waste Management (collection bins), United Moving and Storage (storage of HUGE boxes of shoes), SWFPAC (collection and delivery of shoes), the US Navy Brig (shoe processing), and Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts (collection event help). Pepsi, Roundtable Pizza, and Albertson’s are donating food during the collection event. We are on the move and invite you to join us as we get Kitsap’s old, tired shoes “back in the game!”