Since Seattle veteran Andrew Myers posted a video of himself catching a burglar, trying to enter his home, it's racked up nearly four million views. He's trying to take advantage of the Internet attention by raising money for Paws and Stripes, a non-profit that matches veterans with PTSD with life saving service dogs.
Lifelong, formerly Lifelong AIDS Alliance, delivers 150,000 meals a year to people who are too sick, and too poor to get the groceries themselves. Volunteers visit clients once a week, dropping off bags of super healthy groceries and special meals prepared by a chef.
A Seattle woman is writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, while the public watches
Every November, hundreds of thousands of people challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days for NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. But Gabriela Frank is doing it with a twist. She's set up a living room in the Seattle Public Library, and the public can watch her write the novel, in real time, on a big screen.
Mindie Lind is the singer of Seattle band Inly, who you might see cruising around town on her skateboard. Born without legs, Mindie is an advocate of Cripp Culture: showing the world that disabled people are about more than just their disability. There's a culture of art, music, design and sexuality that can't be defined by the symbol of the blue guy in the wheelchair.
Last Spring a prestigious publishing house published a book of poetry by actor James Franco. It was met with mediocre reviews and a ton of publicity. This got a Vashon Island writer thinking: what if everyone could submit their work as James Franco? Would we all have a fair shot at being published? So she created a literary magazine called the James Franco Review.
Seattle's Woodland Park Zoo to send its elephants to another zoo
Today Woodland Park Zoo announced it would be phasing out it's elephant program, and sending its two Asian elephants to another zoo. But this does not sit well with the elephant advocacy group, Friends of Woodland Park Zoo Elephants. They says the elephants need to go to a sanctuary where they can have room to roam.
Mary's Place, a Seattle non-profit that provides shelter and services for 150 homeless women and a children a day, is trying to raise $250,000 to open a new shelter in time for winter.
Seattle's beloved Paseo abruptly closed yesterday, denying sandwich lovers their cult status, Cuban-style sammies. But then a lawsuit surfaced: four Hispanic, former Paseo employees are suing the owners, saying they weren't paid overtime or given breaks during long shifts. A Seattle lawyer says wage theft is VERY common, but undocumented workers rarely sue out of fear.
Brad and Sheena Van Orden were bored of their 9-to-5 routine, so they saved up their money and took off on a two-and-a-half year road trip that took them on adventures around the world. They just landed back in the US and chose Seattle as their new home.
The Seahawks eat lean and clean all week, but after a big, taxing game the healthy diet goes out the window. The Seahawks are fed New Orleans cooking from Seattle food truck Jemil's Big Easy after every home game.
A Seattle woman hasn't allowed a single person into her home for five years, embarrassed that it's completely jammed packed with garbage and stuff. A secret hoarder, she's now working with Bio Clean, a local company that specializes in cleaning up hoarder houses, murder scenes and anything else that no one else wants to clean up.
It's hard to walk a few blocks in Seattle without stumbling upon a pho restaurant. But I wondered what sparked the popularity of this Vietnamese soup in our city. What's the history behind it? Here you'll meet the owner of Seattle's first pho restaurant & the Governor who opened the state's doors to Vietnamese immigrants.
The Girl Scouts of Western Washington says there are 2,600 girls in 17 different counties who are on a waiting list to join a troop, but there jsut aren't enough troop leaders. In this story, we meet a woman who became a Girl Scout troop leader 12 years ago, despite not being a parent or ever having been a Girl Scout, and stuck with her troop until they recently graduated from high school. The troop's story of success and friendship is truly inspiring.
Seattle Public Library's Quick Information Center (QIC) has been operating since 1976, and it's still going strong even with the Internet. A staff of 25 will try and answer any question you throw at them, over the phone, in five minutes or less. They receive about 300 calls a day.
Many parents struggle with their kids' overflowing toy chests. They can't stop buying toys, their kids get too many toys as gifts. California's Bea Johnson lives a zero waste lifestyle, which means her family usually chooses experiences over physical gifts. She talks about how her family got rid of 80% of their possessions to live the simple, happy life.
A Seattle arts collective called Love City Love has been making deals with developers to use vacant buildings as art spaces before they're knocked down and replaced with condos. Their latest space is a former Azteca/Don Eduardo Mexican restaurant on Eastlake, and this time the developers offered them the space.
Theresa Borst owns Bio Clean Inc: "We clean up after suicides and homicides, decomposed bodies, meth lab cleanup, hoarders, industrial accidents, car accidents, trains, planes, automobiles, oil spills, sewage, mold. Everything gross that nobody else wants to do." And the King County Health department has asked her to help create protocol, and do any actual clean up, if someone in our state is exposed to Ebola. She explains how she'll do it.
Zillow has just put out its list of the best trick-or-treating neighborhoods, based on neighborhood density, safety, walkability and the wealth factor of the neighborhood. Meanwhile, in Mercer Island, one neighborhood gives out candy to 500-1,000 kids!
The owners of the Bellevue Quiznos franchise are Indian, and so are a lot of people who work in Bellevue, so they got special permission to add chicken and paneer tikka sandwiches to the menu. The chutneys are homemade & the sandwiches are selling like crazy. This may reflect a new trend towards Indian fusion flavors in the West.
John Moeller cooked for three Presidential families between 1992 and 2005, and this weekend he'll be cooking some White House dishes, from his new book, at the Dungeness Crab and Seafood Festival in Port Angeles. We chatted about presidential palaces and life in the White House kitchen.
Right now in Washington state, companies can choose whether or not they provide paid family leave for employees. But Seattle City Councilmember Jean Godden thinks it's important to give all city employees, moms and dads, paid time off to be with their newborns. Only one other city municipality in the country already does this.
French Truly was started a year ago, by a French woman who realized that Americans want to learn more than just the French language. They want to learn about the culture. So she curates events that include French film, art, music, politics, history and language.
The average piano tuner is between 55 and 60 years old, and not a lot of young people are entering the profession. But 70 year old Mike Gill has been a piano tuner for 45 years, and he happens to be blind.
