Pia Hallenberg

The annual holiday lights display at Manito Park’s Gaiser Conservatory will be turned on Friday and remain up through Dec. 19. Going to see the lights has become a holiday staple for many since they were first put up in 1994. More than 30,000 lights decorate palm trees and plants – including the 106-year-old Christmas cactus which is blooming pink – and poinsettias are set out in beautiful displays.

Many of the residents at Lilac Plaza Retirement Center can no longer just jump in a car and drive around looking at holiday lights. Instead, residents decorate the different floors at the north Spokane retirement center so they can look at the decorations and visit with one another. One of this year’s favorite displays is a mural of a snow-covered landscape, with mountains in the background and skaters gliding on a sparkling frozen pond.

Spokane Fire District 9 crews will be busy escorting Santa from neighborhood to neighborhood beginning Saturday. This is an annual tradition, and while Santa works his magic and checks his naughty-or-nice list one more time, firefighters will hand out candy and take nonperishable food donations for the Mead Food Bank.

When asked why he joined Cub Scouts in sixth grade, William “Billy” L. Kleinknecht, 17, laughed and said he joined for the same reasons many other boys join. “I wanted to play with fire and get a knife,” said Kleinknecht, who stuck with the Scouts for many other reasons. He became an Eagle Scout on Nov. 3.

Skateboarders who came to the meeting called by Spokane Parks and Recreation Department on Nov. 11 expected to see plans for a remodel and update of the skate park located beneath Interstate 90. Instead, they were told that the project to restore the Under the Freeway Skate Park has been put on hold. “For the last three years I’ve been trying to get this project moving along,” said Leroy Eadie, director of Spokane Parks and Recreation Department. “But right now I have a Park Board that’s getting nervous about the project.”

Christmas is going to be here soon, and at the Salvation Army that means fast-approaching deadlines for two programs that provide gifts for children living in Salvation Army housing and families who are transitioning into independent living. The Adopt a Family program helps an entire family. The donor receives a wish list from the family, complete with ages of children and parents, and provides nonperishable food items for a Christmas dinner.

In the summer of 2011, two East Central women, both refugees, came up with the idea of harvesting neighborhood fruit that otherwise wouldn’t be used, and donating it to the community. Nou Vang and Ma Win Tain started small, hanging fliers for what they called the East Central Neighborhood Urban Fruit Tree Harvest in grocery stores and reaching out to neighbors. They did some of the harvesting and volunteers signed up to pick apples and plums, cherries, whatever was available.

The bicycle shop Two Wheel Transit is the newest addition to the business district along South Perry Street. The shop, which was located at Carnegie Square downtown since 1995, has opened its doors in the north end of the building that also houses HiCo Market at 817 S. Perry St. The new location looks huge compared to the storefront at 1405 W. First Ave.

During and after the election there is always much talk about the value of working together, moving forward and showing tolerance of each other’s differences. On Friday, Gonzaga University is giving students, staff, faculty and community members a chance to do exactly that by celebrating International Day of Tolerance outside the Crosby Center on campus.

When Naseem and Nissar Shah arrived in Spokane from Kashmir, India, in the 1970s they were eager to start anew, yet they never expected fair trade arts and crafts would become a big part of their future. “They would visit their family in Kashmir and bring back gifts for friends in Spokane,” said their daughter Nasreen Shah, 23. “As the war in Kashmir worsened, my parents saw people struggle and they bought crates full of stuff to support the people there.” What the Shahs did was fair trade before fair trade became a buzzword. The crates of Kashmiri crafts stacked up in the Shahs basement and in the 1980s they decided to start a small import business, Jasmine Crafts.

Spokane women did well in the Mrs. Washington Pageant in Olympia this past weekend. Amy Clark, the reigning Mrs. Spokane County, was crowned Mrs. Washington. She’ll compete in the Mrs. America pageant in August in Tucson, Ariz.

When Lowe’s opened its new store at 6606 N. Division St. last Thursday, Whitman Elementary School received a $25,000 Toolbox for Education grant from the hardware retailer. “We really appreciate that the community is reaching out to our school,” said Heather Jordan, principal assistant at Whitman. “We are hoping this is the beginning of a mutual beneficial relationship between our school and Lowe’s.”

Construction of the new Jefferson Elementary School near the intersection of 37th Avenue and Manito Boulevard is under way, and come this spring a major overhaul of Hart Field will begin as well. Spokane Public Schools presented plans for the Hart Field renovation project at an open house last Thursday at Jefferson Elementary School.

In talking to young people 14 to 18 years old in East Central, Spokane Regional Health District’s Peggy Slider heard one common complaint: There is no place to hang out. “They feel like there’s nothing for them,” Slider said. “There are programs at the community center, but they are often for young kids, and the community center is often closed when the older kids get out of school.”

Christina Clark’s voice trembled when she addressed a ballroom full of people Tuesday morning at Transitions’ annual fundraising breakfast. Less than two years ago, she said, she was living in Anacortes, Wash., mixed up with the wrong crowd and high on drugs. “There was a warrant out for my arrest,” Clark said, “and my 13-year-old son, who didn’t want to have anything to do with me as long as I was using, asked me if I would turn myself in for his birthday.”