Adelyn Baxter

Juneau’s homeless population struggles in winter. Although the city has new housing options this season with a warming shelter and the Housing First complex, some locals are going out of their way to make sure the homeless can get a hot meal easily, too.

“All right, who’s hungry?” Anna Timpane asked as she took the lid off her pot. She and several volunteers were dishing out potato soup at Juneau’s Downtown Transit Center on Sunday afternoon.

Timpane had the idea for a regular makeshift soup kitchen last month, after a friend told her about the limited food options for the homeless on Sundays.

“So I decided, you know, why don’t I step up and do it myself and see who wants to join me and come with me and see what we can do?” Timpane said.

At the time, it was very cold and almost Thanksgiving. Timpane’s friend made some hot soup and they headed downtown. The transit center is a popular place for the homeless to keep warm when it’s open. She said more than 30 people showed up to eat.

This time, the warmer weather meant only about eight men were there when she and the other volunteers arrived. While they set up, Timpane’s husband Robert drove around to let others nearby know about the free hot lunch. One by one, they trickled in. Some quietly ate and left, while others settled down for a nap afterward.

William Denny got a cup of soup, but asked for seconds on the milk.

“Oh, it was great. Little bit of milk, little bit of soup. Two rolls,” Denny said.

In addition to lunch, Denny also received one of the dental kits Timpane put together with a toothbrush and toothpaste. Another volunteer handed out hand and toe warmers, hats and mittens.

Robin Brenner decided to volunteer when she saw Timpane post the idea in the Juneau Community Collective Facebook group. She brought cups and spoons and helped serve soup and dinner rolls.

“It’s hard because it’s the holidays and so many people are lonely already, and then put Christmas and the holidays on top of it,” Brenner said. “It’s hard for people. It probably makes their whole situation worse.”

Timpane said she will continue to organize Sunday soup kitchens through Facebook. She plans to be at the transit center each week around 1:30 p.m., as long as there’s a need. She said she’s not worried about expenses since people have been generous with their time and extra supplies.

“So the food we can definitely work out ourselves,” she said. “But things like blankets, those are always very welcome. Right now, we’re just a bunch of people that showed up with a pot of soup.”

In this newscast:

• Sixty-nine mushers signed up for the 2018 Iditarod sled dog race by the Friday registration deadline,
• and Juneau’s new emergency warming shelter opened Friday.

After a particularly cold and snowy November, Eaglecrest Ski Area opened for the season Saturday.

Director of Sales, Marketing and Snowsports Jeffra Clough said management decided to open the Hooter Chairlift for much of the day, though it had planned to open only the Porcupine Chairlift.

“We definitely want people to know there’s no grooming and no packing and you need to be an adventuresome soul to go up there and have some advanced and expert skills,” Clough said. 

That was welcome news for the Elfers family. Eight-year-old Amelia and 5-year-old Josie came with their parents, Michelle and Brad, Saturday morning.

“One might stay on Porcupine with Josie and get our ski legs back,” Brad Elfers said. “We’ll just kind of take it as it comes and see if she’s ready to go for it or not. Should be a long season so we’re counting on that.”

Otherwise, Clough said Eaglecrest is fully operational, with rentals and lessons up and running. Lifts will run again next weekend. The rest of the mountain will open as the season progresses.

“It depends on what kinds of snow we get,” she said. “We need to get some wet, heavy snow to fill in.”

Although the ski area planned to start serving alcohol this winter, details are still being worked through. Clough said they expect to begin serving next winter.

Juneau’s new emergency warming shelter hosted its first guests Friday night.

The bare bones shelter provides cots and blankets for up to 20 people. It will open whenever the weather drops below freezing from now until April 15.

City Housing Officer Scott Ciambor said the public will be notified on days when the shelter is open via the city’s Twitter and Facebook pages, the Housing Program website and word of mouth.

“We kind of even got the message out late in the afternoon and folks still heard about it,” Ciambor said Saturday. “We had two guests, two patrons who came in. Slept through the night. They were snoring even.”

Located in the old Alaska Department of Public Safety Building on Whittier Ave., the shelter is open from 11 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. The city is renting the space from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority. Patrons have access to a bathroom and are allowed one bag to keep under their cot.

Ciambor said the majority of the $75,000 appropriated by the Juneau Assembly in November for the project will go toward staffing the facility. The city is partnering with the Glory Hole, Juneau’s downtown homeless shelter, and domestic violence organization AWARE to ensure two trained staff members are on site each night the shelter is open.

“I think the key message for the community who’s interested in helping this effort, as well as the effort to end homelessness in general, is to really contact those agencies and just go to work for them. Or volunteer,” Ciambor said.

He estimated that the Glory Hole and AWARE have about 70 beds between them, but said they were operating at full capacity for much of this fall.

In September, the Housing First complex opened in Lemon Creek. It provides affordable housing for 32 formerly homeless residents. Juneau Youth Services and Family Promise also offers year-round assistance for homeless individuals.

“We kind of feel like with this operation and Housing First opening, we’re getting to a good chunk of availability for the on the street folks,” Ciambor said. “We’re hoping that this is a good effort for this winter and my expectation is that it’s been much better than last winter already.”

Those who are not able to stay at the Glory Hole for whatever reason are welcome at the warming center as long as they abide by the code of conduct they must sign when they arrive.

Ciambor said next steps include improving signage outside the building and continuing to spread the word so that people are aware of the new resource for cold nights.

A program mixing Alaska Native art with high school math is part of Sealaska Heritage Institute’s latest efforts to promote culture and foster the next generation of Native artists.

The partnership seeks to encourage the next generation of artists in the Northwest Coast art traditions of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian. Sealaska Heritage Institute, the University of Alaska Southeast and several Southeast school districts have signed on.

Funded by a federal grant, Sealaska Heritage is calling the program “Sharing our Box of Treasures.” Partners will work to incorporate the geometry and algebra concepts involved in formline design into high school math classes.

It also establishes an associate degree program in Northwest Coast arts at UAS. The goal is for students studying Native art at UAS to then be able to transfer to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to complete four-year degrees. This partnership is a continuation of one that began last year.

“It’s a way that we may not be able to offer the full four-year degree but by offering the two-year degree it creates a pathway for someone who is interested in that topic,” said UAS spokesperson Keni Campbell.

At the same time, high school students in Juneau, Hoonah and Klawock will eventually be able to take courses in formline design at their schools while receiving dual credit at UAS.

The Juneau School District and UAS will be hiring coordinators to start working on classes next spring.

If you visited Juneau’s Public Market this weekend, you may have noticed the prayer flags covering a booth staffed by teenagers.

Members of Juneau Teens for Change offered mini-donuts, hot chocolate, homemade candles and bracelets to raise money for their trip to Nepal.

“They actually lost about half of their net worth after the earthquake, so their country is in very much need of help,” co-founder Kayla Simpson said.

Nepal was devastated by earthquakes in April and May of 2015.

Widespread flooding this fall has further hindered rebuilding efforts.

Juneau Teens for Change is not school affiliated, but many of the students involved, like Simpson, are part of Thunder Mountain High School’s Interact club. One member is a student at Juneau-Douglas High School. Thirteen students are going on the trip.

The school has had liability issues with other clubs taking international trips in the past, so Simpson and her like-minded classmates organized their own trip.

“A big part of our group is not just the travel, but kind of the youth leadership portion of it,” Simpson said. “Everything down to the plane tickets and the travel preparations have all been planned by us who are teenagers, which is exciting for us.”

Since this is their first trip, they also partnered with Projects Abroad, an organization that supports volunteers traveling to foreign countries.

The group will leave Dec. 22 and arrive in Kathmandu Christmas morning, ready to begin work rebuilding schools for two and a half weeks.

“We’re doing construction for almost nine hours a day while we’re there. We’re trying to prepare for that, it’s gonna be different for a lot of us,” Simpson said. “Not all of us are used to doing that kind of work all day long, but that’s kind of the whole reason we’re going.”

Simpson said the group has raised about $6,000 so far. They have been planning the trip for about a year and a half, and have been frequent faces at local fundraisers in recent months.

Thunder Mountain Senior Miguel Cordero said local businesses and community members have also stepped in to support the trip.

At the Public Market, some curious passers-by took note of their flags.

“We’ve had a lot of people come up and just ask us questions,” Cordero said. “One gentleman yesterday actually came by and he said, ‘Remember, it’s better to give than to receive, please don’t change,’ and then he donated $20. It was awesome.”

The teens plan to document their trip and hope to hold public events to share what they learn with the community once they return.