Chattanooga Is Home

Today I was the 82nd person to put my ballot into the scantron machine in my polling station. And it was 1:25. I’m not sure why the number was so low but I hope the number climbs in the later hours.

According the Hamilton County Election Commission website, the polling stations are open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. So go! Get your vote on! There is only one question (who should be the next Sentator for Tennessee Senate District 10) and only two answers (Andy Berke and Oscar Brock) to choose from. It took me less than five minutes, with a toddler in tow, to get in and get out.

Please Chattanooga, go and vote.

[tags]Chattanooga, Chattanooga election, Tennessee Senate District 10, Oscar Brock, Andy Berk[/tags]

Tis the season for Fall Festivals. It is a time where families can enjoy being outdoors amongst a backdrop of oranges, browns, pumpkins, and face painting. Sometimes hay bales are involved.

This week’s featured festival is the Ronald McDonald House Autumn Children’s Festival. It will be held on Saturday, October 6th and Sunday October 7th at the Tennessee Riverpark. There is no admission fee and parking is free as well. Games and activities cost anywhere from 50 cents to $3.00. Festival goers can enjoy jumping in giant inflatables, going on pony rides, making arts and crafts, seeing fun magic shows, playing carnival games, enjoying the petting zoo, eating free Mayfield ice cream plus some health, wellness and educational activities.

All proceeds from the fun benefit Ronald McDonald House Charities® of Greater Chattanooga.

Chattanooga’s local Ronald McDonald House® was founded in 1990. The house serves as a “home-away-from-home” each year for 600-700 families of critically injured and seriously ill children receiving treatment at nearby hospitals in Chattanooga. The cornerstone programs are the 26-bedroom Ronald McDonald House, Ronald McDonald Family Room located inside T.C. Thompson Children’s Hospital and the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile, a mobile dental clinic providing free dental care to children ages 5 – 21, those without dental insurance or enrolled in TennCare. Ronald McDonald House Charities also offers 40 $1,000 scholarships to area high schools’ seniors. For more information, please contact Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Chattanooga at 423.778.4300, or visit their website at www.rmhchattanooga.com.

[tags]Chattanooga, Chattanooga Fall Festival, Ronald McDonald House, charities[/tags]

Last week I spent Saturday morning walking for Alzheimer’s at Coolidge Park/ the Walnut Street Bridge. Alzheimer’s claimed the life of my Pop Pop and I thought I should do something to help. It was a great experience, helping the local Alzheimer’s Association with their fundraising. There are Memory Walks going on all around the country to help raise funds for research and assistance for those suffering from this disease. I took lots of pictures (of course!) that you can see here.

I set a goal of raising $250 and as of today I have $230. If you are inclined to donate for this cause, please feel free to do so. My donation page is here.

Fall in Chattanooga brings comfortable weather for these types of fund raisers.

Tomorrow, September 30th, is the Chattanooga region’s Race for the Cure. The Susan G. Koman Race for the Cure is a major fund raiser for breast cancer. “Up to seventy-five percent of the net income from each domestic Affiliate Race stays in the local community to fund breast health education and breast cancer screening and treatment projects.”

Registration for the race is currently closed, but you can donate online or go watch and support the participants tomorrow. The race begins at 2 p.m. (5K Competitive Race, Run, & Walk) and at 2:30 is the fun run and walk (1 mile). The race route goes from McKenzie Arena, up Riverside Drive, down the Riverwalk, and back to McKenzie Arena.

If you know of any other charity events coming up in the next few months, please contact me and I will be happy to help promote them.

[tags]Chattanooga fundraising, Race for the Cure, Memory Walk, Chattanooga Memory Walk, Chattanooga Race for the Cure[/tags]

Families can enjoy the Chattanooga Zoo at Warner Park for free this Saturday. “First Day Festival,” sponsored by Comcast, will be held at the Chattanooga Zoo this Saturday, July 28th 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. The free fun day is for school age children and their families where

the event will provide age-appropriate activities, including information and giveaways from a variety of social service agencies. Corporate sponsors will be on hand to provide health screenings, child safety tips and educational information for kids in grades K-5.

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There is an article in today’s Times Free Press that quotes Rhonda Seeber of the Parks and Recreation Department as saying,
“Chattanooga is growing into a bicycle mecca, and the city wants to promote cycling as a healthy lifestyle.”

Chattanooga a bicycle mecca? Sure, I will buy that.

Every year since 2003, the League of American Bicyclists has named Chattanooga a Bicycle Friendly Community and last May, Bicycling Magazine named Chattanooga as one of the “21 Best Cities for Cycling” in the U.S.

Our family enjoys riding our bikes around our neighborhood, but we are not as gung ho about cycling as some residents are. Many people in Chattanooga ride their bikes to work. Beginning again in May, Bike2Work groups will be meeting monthly at Walnut Street Square to have coffee and meet one another.
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I think I went to the playground site about five times yesterday. I would have been content to just sit on the sidelines and watch them build all day yesterday, but I have a two year old. Enough said.

On one of our trips over there we were greeted by a few cars labeled with local news logos. News Channel 9 was leaving and News Channel 3 was unloading. We got to speak with Lesley Dale and tell her how the community got together to plan this playground. From the early meeting with Learning Structures where the kids got to draw their playground wants to the tree house that is currently being built.
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This pretty lady is Heidi Chapin. She is a St. Elmo resident and the champion behind getting our playground built. She is the one who has dealt with the city, rallied the neighbors, and been point person with Learning Structures. I know that there are many others who have been working to get to today’s build, but when I think about the St. Elmo Playground, I think Heidi Chapin.

I spoke to Heidi today and told her she didn’t seem too stressed. She said that things were going well and there wasn’t much to be stressed about.

The first day of the build went well. Lots of holes were dug, plenty of concrete was poured, and many posts were raised. I went to the site about five times and each time I came back home, I checked the concept drawings to see if I could match up the different structures to the proposed finished products. The progress that the builders/ neighbors are making is amazing. And I can’t wait until Saturday when I get to actually help on the site. (Today I did home child care for one little boy who’s dad was helping on the site for a few hours.)

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I have been posting about the upcoming playground build in St. Elmo and they are still in need of volunteers, especially on Saturday and Sunday.

This evening my husband, son, and I took a walk over to the green space to see the “before” and take a few more pictures (I have a set on flickr that we keep adding pictures to as we get them).

The space where the playground will be built is only a small part of the entire green space on St. Elmo Avenue. The land is where the old St. Elmo Recreation Center was located. The playground will be built on about 1/3 of the land. The rest of the space will be a passive park with a walking path, benches, and from what I can recall, a pavilion for picnics and gatherings.

Right now, the non-playground space has the walking path and overgrown grass. Upon further inspection we saw a few areas of concern. They are not part of the actual playground space, but since they are located in the park where the playground will be, it did raise questions in my mind. And since the playground opens March 26th, I wonder if they can be fixed before the children start making it a part of their daily routines.
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As I wrote earlier this week, the build for St. Elmo’s new playground is coming up. This Thursday the ground will be broken, wood will be sawed, and screws will be screwed.

The Times Free Press helped with the efforts today by putting our neighborhood plea out there for their readers- we need volunteers!

So, once again I will ask that if you have any kind of experience or desire to help, check out the St. Elmo website and sign up. I know one St. Elmo resident who will be very thankful.

[tags]Chattanooga, St. Elmo, St. Elmo playground, playground[/tags]

As I posted before, Chattanooga has revised our recycling program. We no longer have weekly curbside pickup and now we have to wait until our specific Wednesday to have our plastics, cardboard, and paper picked up. Today was the first one for our neighborhood and I was so glad to get rid of everything.
I predicted that we would have 9 to 12 bags of recyclables. I actually forgot to count, but we had a lot. There was a pile in our kitchen that had been collecting since December. We missed the last curbside pick up in 2006 (we were out of town) so we had more than what would be normal.

It was a bad sign when our recycle pile fell over on our dog on Sunday. We almost broke down and took stuff to a collection center, but in my mind, it was like “Then they win!” I guess I think that if we start taking our stuff to a drop off then there will be less at my curb and they might do away with picking up all together. Well, it makes sense in my mind.

So we have another month for everything to pile up (hopefully not on the dog). And next month I promise to count the bags.