The 3rd Annual Seattle Brain Cancer Walk is happening this Saturday, June 26 at Seattle Center’s Mural Amphitheatre from 7 t0 10:30 a.m., where organizers, volunteers and family and friends of those affected by brain cancer will walk to build awareness, raise money and advance the search for a cure.

Walkers will get to choose between making two loops around the longer course, 1.1 miles, or the shorter course, .3 miles. The entire event will take place on the Seattle Center campus.

The Seattle Brain Cancer Walk was founded in 2008 by a group of committed volunteers and families, and has since raised over $400,000 for research, comprehensive care and clinical trials for brain cancer patients in the Pacific Northwest.

This year the Brain Cancer Walk has already raised $331,043.08. Online registration for the event will close at 5 p.m. today, Thursday, June 24. To register click here. For more information on walk-day, click here.

The 2nd annual “Stock the Pantry” food drive is underway at all Bartell Drugs locations, including both in Upper Queen Anne (1929 Queen Anne Ave N) and Uptown (600 First Ave N).

The 2-week drive, which ends on June 13, helps Northwest Harvest restock their shelves for the summer months when more families depend on the food because children are not getting free or reduced-price meals at school. Only 2 out of 5 low-income children who receive a school lunch also receive a lunch in the summer months, according to the Western Region Anti-Hunger Consortium.

Some “kid-friendly” suggestions from Bartells include tuna, instant oatmeal, macaroni and cheese, peanut butter, cheese crackers, applesauce and canned fruit in individual serving sizes.

Bartell’s aims to collect 25,000 pounds of food donations this year.

Local non-profit Successful Schools in Action, which works to provide support and resources for schools, students and teachers at seven schools in Queen Anne and Magnolia, raised just shy of $30,000 at their 4th annual community breakfast last week, making the event the most successful breakfast fundraiser they’ve ever had!

SSIA says the funds are essential to their operations, enabling them “to continue providing tutors for struggling students, debate for every student who wants to participate, and Collaborative Conversations to support our teachers, empower our families, and engage our community.”

In a letter sent out today the organization thanked the community for their continued support.

We appreciate the incredible sponsor support we received this year from so many local businesses and organizations. Special recognition and thanks to our Signature Sponsor, Vulcan, and our Table Sponsors, JAS Design Build and King & Oliason.

Read up on the some of the past work SSIA has done in the community here, here and here. If you’d like to support SSIA, make a donation here, or eat out through the Celebrated Chefs program and have 5 percent donated on your behalf. See participating restaurants here.

(Photographer: Samuel Kuntz. Photos courtesy of SSIA).

Picture Perfect Queen Anne is a volunteer-run organization dedicated to beautifying the neighborhood’s main entrances and business districts in the hopes of making Queen Anne a welcoming and vibrant community. (You may have noticed their signs up and down Queen Anne Ave N from Galer to McGraw or some of the flower beds they’ve planted).

PPQA has been working to raise $16,000 for the completion of their “Green Gateways” program (i.e. fixing up the entrances to Queen Anne, installing pavers, and covering the costs of continued gardening and maintenance). Last month the group was just a few thousand shy of their goal.

This week the 8-person board of directors got an extra helping hand when on Sunday, March 14, Noah, a 9-year-old Queen Anne-er and son of PPQA board member Jeff Parker, took to the streets to raise a little extra money for the cause. Board member Virginia Hand wrote,

Noah set up a table at the intersection of Queen Anne Avenue at Boston and started asking passing neighbors to donate to PPQA and the Green Gateways project. Along with homemade banana bread, cookies and brownies (his father says Noah is a baking machine), Noah rewarded contributors with flower seeds donated by Ed Hume Seeds. By the end of the day, Noah had raised over $150, a big accomplishment for the fourth-grader and a meaningful contribution to PPQA.

PPQA is especially grateful to Noah for raising awareness about the group’s mission to make Queen Anne Avenue greener as well as more pedestrian safe and family friendly. Projects include the installation of new cross walks, street lamps, and sidewalks such as those just completed at Queen Anne Avenue at Galer and McGraw Streets.

To sum up, PPQA deemed Noah’s fundraiser “a big success.” If you’re interested in learning more about the project or making a donation yourself, click here.

As for what the neighborhood can expect from PPQA this spring, during the last week of April the group will be installing 30 18″by 18″ pavers inscribed with the names of community members and organizations who have supported the project at the intersection of Galer and Queen Anne Ave N. And on May 1 neighbors will get together for PPQA’s big spring planting day. Anyone interested in sponsoring PPQA and getting their name on one of the last pavers left have until Monday, March 22 to do so. More information here.

Don’t be surprised if you notice a little something extra on your doorstep today. The Queen Anne Cub Scouts from Troops 70 and 72 will be walking through the neighborhood on assigned routes from 9 a.m. to noon placing door hangers on homes as part of their annual Scouting for Food drive.

The hangers will provide information on hunger in the community and ask for those who can to leave donations of food and toiletries on their porches by 10 a.m. next Saturday, March 20, when the scouts will come back to collect, weight and deliver them to the Queen Anne Helpline and Ballard Food Bank.

“In 2009 the food drive brought in over 600 pounds of donations. Our goal this year is to exceed 1,000 pounds of donations,” wrote scout parent and 2010 Scouting for Food campaign co-chair Mary Chapman. “The Queen Anne Helpline and Ballard Food Bank are especially in need this year to help hundreds of local households make ends meet as a result of the current economic situation.”

(Thanks to Mary for the tip and the picture!)

We’ve just heard that Macrina Bakery will be donating 100 percent of the proceeds from all of their locations today, Wednesday, February 3, to the Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund. Macrina has three locations in Seattle, in Queen Anne, Belltown and SODO. The Queen Anne location is at 615 W McGraw St. They’ll be open until 6 p.m. today, plenty of time to buy some bread for a good cause!

(Thanks to Seattle Times food blogger Nancy Leson and her wonderfully informative Tweets for the tip!)

Local chain Pagliacci Pizza has just announced it will be donating 100 percent of the proceeds from all of its locations today, Thursday, January 28, to the Red Cross Haiti Relief Fund. According to the owners, they decided to dedicate today to helping those in Haiti after overwhelming company-wide support for a fundraising project. They wrote on their blog,

I, like all of you, have witnessed the news footage from Haiti over the past few weeks. Total devastation. You can’t help but be moved by the images in the press. As I was deliberating what we should do as a company, several of our employees had similar thoughts. Devesh Kumar, a driver from Miller Delivery Kitchen, was the first to approach me about what Pagliacci could do as a company. The whole Sand Point Delivery Kitchen crew talked about donating their tips to aid relief efforts. Jason Cheung, the University Pizzeria General Manager, sent out an email to all of our managers asking if their crew was interested in donating tips for a day and if Pagliacci would match their donations. Our crew really wanted to help and so did I.

In addition to donating today’s proceeds, Pagliacci will also be matching all of their employee contributions to the fund and working with their vendors to encourage a donation of the food and packaging used today.

Pagliacci has 21 locations throughout Seattle, including their Queen Anne pizzeria, located at 550 Queen Anne Ave N, which will be open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. today.

(Photo courtesy of Pagliacci Pizza via Flickr. Thanks to Patrick for the tip!)

Picture Perfect Queen Anne (PPQA), a community organization dedicated to revitalizing and maintaining the neighborhood’s business district streetscape from Queen Anne Avenue from Galer to McGraw St., has just signed on a Platinum Sponsor for their Green Gateways fundraising campaign.

The new KeyBank branch at the top of the hill has donated $3,000 toward the group’s efforts to make Queen Anne Ave more pedestrian friendly, putting PPQA’s sponsorship at $12,000, just $4,000 shy of their $16,000 goal.

“KeyBank has a tradition of being active in the neighborhoods where we’re located. We’re excited to finally have a branch to serve the top of Queen Anne Hill and the Green Gateways project gives us a great opportunity to get involved with our new neighbors,” said branch manager Tia Catli in a press release.

“I’m impressed by how quickly KeyBank stepped forward to support our community. Their generous contribution as the Green Gateways Platinum Sponsor provides a critical boost to our fundraising efforts,” said PPQA’s president Margaret Okamoto.

The funds raised for the Green Gateways campaign will be used to finish installing landscaping for the major pedestrian improvements along the “gateways” to the upper Queen Anne neighborhood – Queen Anne Ave., at Galer Street and McGraw Street.

Landscape design for the project is being donated by neighborhood-based Land2c Landscape Design, and Vertumni Fine Landscaping and Gardening is providing maintenance, donating a large portion of the cost on their end.

PPQA hopes to raise the remaining $4,000 and complete the installation of the Green Gateways landscaping projects by March 1, 2010. Donors can purchase pavers inscribed with their names or the name of the donor organization for $100 per line or $250 per paver. Half of these have already been claimed. For more information on making a contribution or purchasing a paver, visit their website, PPQA.org.

In November Queen Anne Manor, an assisted living community at the top of the hill, collected used clothing for disabled youth and adults. Last month they helped homeless workers get through the winter by donating gloves, mittens, hats and scarves. And true to their charitable commitment, this month they are holding a toy collection drive for the Seattle Children’s Hospital. Starting tomorrow, January 6 through Saturday, February 6 approved toys (see below) can be dropped off at the Manor, located at 100 Crockett St. to be donated.

“These toys (new or gently used) are for the patients who are there under dire, in many cases, life threatening circumstances and for many months at a time,” said Queen Anne Manor Marketing Director Bethany Leigh Juchem.

Approved toys for children with the greatest needs include fuzzy coloring posters, small Lego sets, Brio trains (no track), nail polish, coloring books, arts and crafts kits, playing cards, tactile toys for all ages, Disney/Pixar DVDs, PG-13 DVDs, gift cards and Spanish, Vietnamese and Russian videos, books and music. Approved toys for toddlers include light, sound and pop-up toys, mirrors, links, rattles, teething rings, board books, sound books, sorting/stacking toys, busy boxes, washable squeeze toys, beginning cars and trucks and Fisher-Price Little People play sets. (No infant gyms please).

The Manor will deliver the donated toys to the Children’s Hospital on Sunday, February 7. For more information on the Manor’s philanthropic work and details on approved toys, visit their website.

You may have noticed several gardening tools, rakes and watering cans included, popping up around the neighborhood over the last few months. They are the work of Picture Perfect Queen Anne, a volunteer-based organization dedicated to revitalizing the neighborhood’s business district streetscape–Queen Anne Avenue from Galer to McGraw St.

PPQA has, with support from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and the Office of Economic Development, built benches, consolidated newspaper boxes, and greened curbside bulb beds along Upper Queen Anne. And now they’re asking for community support to continue the work they’ve done.

As part of their Green Gateways campaign, PPQA hopes to raise $16,000 to continue the greening of Queen Anne’s main business district intersections, Galer and McGraw, by buying drought-tolerant plants and two years of maintenance and watering. As of November 16, they are $5,764 closer to their goal. For more information, or to make a donation, click here.

Yesterday afternoon Metropolitan Market Vice President of Marketing Brad Halverson presented the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, an organization dedicated to the protection and preservation of Puget Sound, with a $5,217 check. Alliance Executive Director Bob Beckman received the check outside the Upper Queen Anne Metropolitan Market, the sum of five-cent donations made in 2008 by market customers who used their .05 bag re-use rebate to benefit the organization.

Pictured from left to right, Bob Beckman, Executive Director of Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, and Brad Halverson, Vice President of Marketing at Metropolitan Market. (Thanks to Sara at Wilson Public Relations and I CANDI Studios for the photo!)

“The partnership between Puget Soundkeeper Alliance and Metropolitan Market is a great example of community and environmental stewardship,” Beckman said in a public statement. We applaud Metropolitan Market’s efforst to encourage their customers to re-use their bags and give back to Puget Sound.”

Metropolitan Market and the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance have been bag rebate partner organizations since 2007, when the store launched its bag re-use program. Customers who made the .05 contributions had the option of keeping the five-cent rebate for themselves, but instead made over 104,000 nickel donations that added up to the huge sum.