Lc Will Take Another Poke At Public Blood Drive

You can’t get blood out of a snow man - or during an ice storm that closes school.

So students at Lewis and Clark High School have rescheduled last week’s planned blood drive.

The drive, sponsored by DECA students (Distributive Education Clubs of America), will be Monday from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., in the LC auditorium.

Students under age 18 will require parental permission.

The blood drive will also be accompanied by a marrow drive that day from 8 to 11 a.m.

Participants in the marrow drive need to fill out special paperwork, said Chantal Czarapata, DECA program adviser.

“They will just take a little vial of blood,” Czarapata said.

Blood bank officials hope to find a match for a 16-year-old Spokane girl in need of a bone-marrow transplant.

“The public is invited,” Czarapata said. “The blood bank is really down right now. They were expecting donations from Lewis and Clark, and Ferris last week.”

Libby’s shelter duty ends

The staff at Libby Center rolled up the cots and welcomed students back Monday, after the center served as a Red Cross disaster shelter for six days.

The former middle school at 2900 E. First is normally a center for 150 gifted and developmentally disabled students.

But the night the storm hit Libby Center was converted to a shelter.

The school’s cafeteria, stage, gym and five classrooms housed up to 325 people during the height of the power outages, said JoAnn Brady, principal of Libby Center.

The last of the shelter residents were transferred at 7 p.m. Sunday night by Red Cross workers to the United Methodist Church in the Spokane Valley, Brady said.

For students, it was back to class. Though some students are still living in shelters or homes without power, for the most part “the kids seem to be toddling along just fine,” Brady said Monday.

“We were very fortunate in that we never lost power,” she said.

Brady came in every day during Libby’s days as a shelter, as did the center’s two custodians, Len Wavra and Bob Irish.

Brady said Wavra and Irish worked tirelessly to keep the building running and the residents as comfortable as could expected be under the circumstances. They were “absolutely outstanding,” Brady said.

Wavra, the head custodian, is finishing his 20th year as a custodian with the school district.

“Last week was the hardest time I ever dealt with,” he said. “I wasn’t able to keep the building very clean, but we kept the trash out.”

When Wavra’s night foreman couldn’t come in, Wavra did double shifts for a several days, Brady said.

Wavra tried to keep the elderly shelter residents and the more rambunctious kids separate.

“We put the kids in the gym and the older residents in the classrooms,” he said.

Wavra, back to being a school custodian Monday, had more cleanup to do. The last of the trash needed to be hauled to the refuse bin and floors needed to be swept and mopped. The trash needed to be hauled away a third time this week instead of its normal once-a-week pickup.

“I hope it doesn’t happen again,” Wavra said. “It’s so traumatic for everyone and our poor trees out here are just a bunch of stubs.”

Franklin families short on power

On Monday, about one-third of Franklin Elementary’s students were still living in homes without power.

Also, about one-third of the faculty - five teachers, all South Side residents - remained without power, Principal Michael Cosgrove said on Monday.

“We have some staying in hotels and some staying at home, waiting it out, or staying with relatives,” Cosgrove said.

Franklin, at 2627 E. 17th, is in one of the South Hill’s neighborhoods still without power.

Fifty of the school’s 340 students were absent Monday.

If parents chose to keep their children at home for reasons of safety, that would be considered an excused absence, Cosgrove said.

But students who came to school “seem real calm,” he said. “They’re taking it great.”

The school building lost power last Wednesday only for a few hours. But people on either side of the school are lacking electricity.

Now that school has reopened, “everybody seems to be glad to be in a place that’s warm,” he said.

To keep the children safe, the school’s staff wrapped yellow caution tape around several trees located in front of the school. Those trees are still in danger of sending ice-laden branches plummeting to the ground.

“It looks like we’ve got a great big yellow ribbon around them,” Cosgrove said.

Cosgrove was so glad to have the kids back that he offered adults a second opportunity to attend grade school.

“I’ve invited parents to come in and spend the day in a place that’s warm,” he said Monday.”The coffee is on.”

He added that some children now better understand the limitations of an overtaxed electrical system - especially when the electricity generated is the result of dad hooking up a portable generator to appliances in the house.

Second-grader Demetrious VanDouris told Cosgrove that a generator “is good for one movie in the VCR - if you unplug the refrigerator.”

, DataTimes