Notepad

Easter goes to the dogs

Watch Spot hop like a bunny and root out eggs at a Canine Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday, April 11 at the Humane Alliance Spay/Neuter Clinic, 702 Riverside Drive in Asheville. The event starts at noon, and the best hunters will win Easter baskets filled with doggie treats.

Other activities will include a best-dressed-dog contest (1 p.m.), a K-9 unit demo (1:45), plus assorted raffles, face painting (kids, not dogs) and photo opportunities with the Easter Bunny throughout the day. Buncombe County Friends for Animals will have pets available for adoption, and several animal-welfare organizations will be on hand to answer questions.

Pooches taking part in the Easter-egg hunt must be on leashes and have proof of a current rabies vaccination. There is a $2 registration fee (sorry, no cats allowed on the hunting field).

Proceeds from the event will support animal welfare in Buncombe County.

For more info, call the Humane Alliance Spay/Neuter Clinic at 252-2079.

Spuds for the hungry

The Society of St. Andrew — a nonprofit hunger-relief organization that gathered 2.6 million pounds of potatoes for distribution in North Carolina last year — has opened an office in Waynesville. The new office, located in the First United Methodist Church, will serve North Carolinians living from Greensboro westward.

The society salvages food using the biblical practice of “gleaning” — hand-gathering crops left in the field after harvest. Thanks to St. Andrew’s work, more food is gleaned in North Carolina than in any other state, according to a society press release. St. Andrew was founded in Big Island, Va., in 1979. In addition to its potato project, the society also sponsors a self-help program in which families plant, grow and harvest their own crops, and a week-long hunger-education and gleaning program for youth.

The group often teams up with churches, civic groups, schools and other agencies to carry out its programs, and it’s looking for volunteers. “This kind of volunteer work can be immensely satisfying, because one can see the good produce, which otherwise would be left to waste, being taken to feed someone. The food gleaned in a few hours today could be feeding a hungry family tomorrow,” says agency Director Carol Carwile.

To learn more, call Carwile at (704) 452-1830.

“Terrific kids” debate — in cyberspace

A group of area parents who believe that the Kiwanis Terrific Kids Program may have a negative impact on some students has gone on-line with its concerns. You can find the Web site for Parents Concerned With The Negative Impacts Of The Kiwanis Terrific Kids Program at: www.main.nc.us/wncceib/fixtk/. The group’s e-mail address is parents@buncombe.main.nc.us.

The parents’ group has requested a direct link between its Web site and the Kiwanis International site.

Some parents are concerned that the program — which began in Black Mountain in 1985 and is now found in primary, elementary and middle schools nationwide — hurts those students who are not declared “terrific.” Parents’ group spokesman Monroe Gilmour says the program is poorly designed and should be professionally evaluated.

To reach the parents’ group by phone, call 669-6677.

Recycling know-how

Several clever locals brought home the bacon when the N.C. Recycling Association handed out its recycling awards at its eighth annual conference and trade show in Greensboro, held March 2-4.

Jeff Menzer of MANNA Food Bank in Asheville received a Front Line award for his work in expanding MANNA’s in-house food-rescue program to include recycling. Cardboard, aluminum, glass, plastic, paper and steel are now recycled. Menzer has also initiated such unique programs as: supplying animal-feed operations with food unfit for human use; saving coffee grounds for cleaning warehouse floors; and sending contaminated granulated sugar packages to bee keepers.

Matthew Arthur of the Grove Park Inn won a Front Line honorable mention for his work in collecting more than half a million pounds of recyclables.

The Outstanding County Program award went to Madison County, for an integrated solid-waste-management program that has reduced the county’s per-capita waste stream by 34 percent. A pay-as-you-throw trash-disposal system resulted in a 97 percent increase in recycling in the program’s first six months. Madison also widely distributes junk-mail-reduction kits, runs enviro-messages on local radio stations, helps local industries boost their recycling efforts, and recovers paper at all county facilities, including schools, colleges and medical clinics.

Walking away with a Spotlight award was Ron Dubberly, a food-service employee at Appalachian State University in Boone. After watching several hundred food trays disappear each time it snowed, food services began selling re-usable plastic sleds in the cafeteria.

Besides the awards, the conference also produced a partnership: NCRA members voted to merge with the S.C. Recycling Association to form the nation’s first two-state recycling group, the Carolina Recycling Association.

For more info about the CRA, call Executive Director Craig Barry at (919) 851-8444.

Lil’ bits

• The N.C. Department of Transportation’s Maintenance needs $616 million for maintenance projects during the coming fiscal year, it told members of the N.C. Board of Transportation on March 5. About a third of that amount ($194 million) will be used to resurface 6,325 miles of road; another $375 million will go toward other maintenance projects.

• Carolina Power and Light recently donated $2,500 to the WNC Nature center for new lighting in the nature lab and nocturnal labs, and $10,000 to Project STEAM for its dropout-prevention and after-school programs.

• Actress Sara Sutton of Asheville’s Blue Plate Special theater troupe returned from a contest in Birmingham, Ala., with an award for Best Supporting Actress.

• Last year in North Carolina, more than 96,000 children were reported abused or neglected, and at least 40 children died of such abuse, according to statistics from the N.C. Central Registry in Raleigh. • Warren Wilson College recently received the International Understanding award from the Association of Presbyterian Colleges and Universities and the government of Northern Ireland, for the school’s participation in a program that brings Irish students to the United states for study.

• Chimney Rock Park will hold its 43rd annual Easter sunrise service on Sunday, April 12, at the park. The gates will be open from 4:30 to 6 a.m. for the free service (which will run from 6:30 to 7 a.m.).

Call Chimney Rock at (800) 277-9611, or look them up on the Web at www.chimneyrockpark.com for more info.

— supposedly compiled by Jill Ingram