Meal site finds home at former elementary

Spokane Valley Meals on Wheels has added the Edgecliff neighborhood as a fourth site that serves hot meals to senior citizens to supplement the delivery routes that bring meals to homes.

Lunch will be served at 11 a.m. Monday through Friday at the Edgecliff Community Center, 6903 E. Fourth Ave. The center is the old Pratt Elementary School, which closed in 2007.

The senior meals organization had been looking for a site in the Edgecliff area for years, said director Pam Almeida. “We couldn’t find a building until Pratt closed,” she said. “It’s really hard for seniors in that neighborhood in particular. There aren’t services there.”

The neighborhood also has the highest concentration of low-income seniors in the Valley. Meals on Wheels teamed with Spokane Valley Partners and got a Community Development Block Grant to open the location as a meal site. A small food pantry will also be coming to the site.

Even with the alliance, the expansion required donations and partnerships to get off the ground. The Spokane County Senior Nutrition program will make the meals and provide a site manager two days a week and Spokane Public Schools has cut the organization a deal.

“District 81 has been wonderful to work with,” Almeida said. “We pay the maintenance and utilities for the room that we have and that’s it. It’s wonderful how the partnerships have come together on this.”

Valley Meals on Wheels will provide a site director three days a week. While lunch will be served at 11 a.m. on weekdays, there will be programs and activities for seniors from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day. The menu will include educational speakers, exercise classes, movies and other activities. The library will bring large-print books once a month for checkout.

The organization is looking for drivers who can pick up seniors and bring them to the community center. So far, turnout for lunch has been low, but but Almeida expects larger crowds once word gets around.

Nina Culver

Whitworth gains 605-acre classroom

Encroaching development has swallowed up much of the headwaters of the Little Spokane River, but 3,000 feet of riverfront and 605 surrounding acres of wetlands, meadows, bubbling springs and forest will be protected in their natural state thanks to a conservation easement with the Inland Northwest Land Trust.

The agreement to preserve the Verbrugge property also provides a promise for continuing ecological research on the land by Whitworth University faculty and students.

“We wanted somebody to leave the property to who would care for it and wouldn’t develop it or sell it,” said Gary Verbrugge.

The property straddles the Little Spokane River, south of Highway 2 and southeast of Diamond Lake in the southern Pend Oreille County area known as the Scotia Valley.

All around it land is being subdivided into five-acre lots.

Verbrugge’s family has owned portions of its property since the 1920s, adding to the original parcel over the years.

Though Verbrugge spent his formative years on the banks of the Little Spokane River, he left for college in 1969 and didn’t return to live there until two years ago.

“You don’t appreciate it when you’re young,” said the 57-year-old.

The conservation easement protects the land as wildlife habitat. It cannot be subdivided or sold for development.

Unique terms in the easement also provide for the construction of a small Whitworth University field station for environmental research.

Researchers have already been conducting some studies on the Verbrugge land, said Whitworth spokesman Greg Orwig.

“We’re only now beginning to think about the opportunities for our faculty and students,” Orwig said.

Amy Cannata