Community briefs: Tiernan Irish Dancers; Memory Café event; food available to seniors; ballot Initiatives topic of LWV | Local

Tiernan Irish Dancers will perform at venues around Helena and East Helena over the next week in celebration of St Patrick’s Day.

Non-St Patrick’s Day Parade downtown Helena

• 1 pm – Bert & Ernies – 361 N. Last Chance Gulch
• 2 pm – Windbag – 19 S. Last Chance Gulch
• 3:30 pm – Missouri River Brewing Co., 451 Spencer Court, East Helena

• 1:30 pm – Son Heaven Assisted Living – 2510 Ferndale Lane
• 2:30 pm – Edgewood Assisted Living – 3207 Colonial Drive,
• 3:30 pm – Legacy Assisted Living – 624 Ptarmigan Lane

Thursday, March 17 – St Patrick’s Day

• 8:15 am – Capital rotunda – 1301 E. 6th Ave.
• 9:15 am – Smith Elementary – 2320 5th Ave.
• 10:15 am – Radley Elementary – 226 E. Clinton Ave., East Helena
• 11:15 am – Warren Elementary – 2690 Old York Road
• 1:05 pm – Cathedral Brondel Center – 530 N. Ewing,
• 1:45 pm – Hawthorne Elementary – 430 Madison Ave.
• 2:30 pm – Kessler Elementary – 2420 Choteau St.
• 3:30 pm – Touchmark – 915 Saddle Drive
• 4:15 pm – Lewis & Clark Brewery – 1517 Dodge Ave.
• 5:30 pm – Bert & Ernies – 361 N. Last Chance Gulch

Tiernan Irish Dancers are an Irish Dance troupe based in Helena. We are a sister school of Trinity Irish Dance in Chicago and teach students ages 3 and up. For more information please visit www.tiernanmontana.com.

Rocky Mountain Development Council offers a monthly homebuyer education class.

The class teaches potential homeowners about the process of purchasing a home. Homebuyer education and counseling involves a one-on-one counseling session followed by an eight-hour class covering the intricacies of purchasing a home. It is designed for both first-time homebuyers and repeat homebuyers.

Homebuyer education classes provide in-depth information on many aspects of homeownership including budgeting, finding a home, choosing a lender/closing on a loan, homeowner’s insurance, home inspection, maintenance and energy savings. The class features local guest speakers with expertise in finance, insurance, property inspection and real estate.

The class will be offered in a one-day, in-person format on Saturday, March 19, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

To register for the March class, visit www.rmdc.net or call 406-457-7461.

Memory Café, presented by the Rocky’s Agency on Aging, will surely jog your noggin. We’re welcoming Mark Ulett from Ways2Wellness to come and teach us how to solve Sudoku puzzles.

Ways2Wellness creates puzzle books deigned to stimulate your brain, keeping you sharp. Join us on March 16 from 9:30-11 a.m. in the Senior Center Card Room, 200 S. Cruse Ave., to put your brain to the test. These puzzles are created for seniors with several different difficulty ratings, so there’s something for everyone.

Memory Cafè is a safe and welcoming community event for people living with memory loss and their caregivers. Memory Cafè offers a time to socialize and an opportunity to learn where to find support and services. Each Memory Cafè consists of a social and snack time, a presentation or class, and time to get in touch with local resources that are there to help you. To register, email Katie at klinjatie@rmdc.net or call 406-603-4157.

Rocky Mountain Development Council, Inc. will have supplemental foods available for Helena- and East Helena-area seniors.

Pick up will be at the United Methodist Church (East Helena Food Share Pantry), 50 Prickly Pear Ave., on Monday, March 21 from 2-3:30 p.m.

Pick up at the Helena Food Share, 1616 Lewis St., will be Wednesday and Thursday, March 23-24 from 8-10:30 a.m.

There is no charge for the food.

The Commodity Supplemental Food Program is a program where seniors can receive regular allocations of free food every other month. The program guidelines mandate that the person receiving the food must be 60 years of age or older, a resident of Montana, and meet an income requirement. Food typically consists of canned fruit, vegetables, meats, juice, cereals, dry milk, shelf stable milk, cheese, pasta or beans and peanut butter.

For further information or questions, call Rocky at 406-447-1680.

The Final Four Open Primary with Ranked-Choice Voting are the topics of discussion at the 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 15, webinar meeting of the League of Women Voters of the Helena Area.

Both these items could be Citizen Initiatives on Montana’s fall ballot.

Melinda Leas, a LWV member who is one of eight private citizens filing paperwork to put these Initiatives on the ballot, will be the guest speaker.

“Ranked-Choice voting gives you the ability that instead of voting for one candidate for an office, you can rank your choices 1, 2, 3, 4, etc. In many ways it gives you more voice and more options when you vote,” Leas says.

Not only will she help participants understand Ranked-Choice Voting, but she will also explain the Final Four Open Primary and its relationship to Ranked-Choice voting.

The public is welcome to join this online meeting. For a link to join the meeting via Zoom, email LWV.Helena@gmail.com.

Please note that the time is 7 p.m. instead of the usual noon meeting.

St. Peter’s Health registered nurses Rick DePaso and Jannine Vogley-Turner received DAISY Foundation Awards for Extraordinary Nurses. DAISY awardees are selected quarterly from nominations submitted by St. Peter’s patients and their family members.

DePaso has been with St. Peter’s since 2015, most recently caring for patients in the Intensive Care Unit. In DePaso’s nomination, a patient relayed a number of reasons why their care was above and beyond thanks to DePaso, including that we was “polite, compassionate and calm.”

Vogley-Turner has over 38 years of experience as a registered nurse, most recently providing care to patients in the St. Peter’s Emergency Room and Urgent Care at the Regional Medical Center (hospital). In the words of a patient who nominated her, “her care made a normally stressful and annoying situation so much more bearable. I am grateful to have had her as a nurse.” Vogley-Turner has been with St. Peter’s since 2008.

The DAISY Award was established to honor the super-human work nurses do to care for patients and families every day. The award is presented in collaboration with The American Organization of Nurse Executives. St. Peter’s administration and staff select the winner from those nominated. Recipients receive a certificate and a sculpture called A Healer’s Touch, which is hand-carved by artists of the Shona Tribe in Africa.

Claire Pichette of Helena High School has been selected by the non-profit organization Ecology Project International to participate in an eight-day teacher fellowship in Baja, Mexico.

EPI is a field science and conservation organization that partners scientists with local and international students and educators in ecologically hotspots including in Costa Rica, the Galapagos, Belize, Mexico, and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

During the upcoming EPI Fellowship, Pichette and a small group of selected teachers will experience the field course for themselves, gaining skills and resources they can bring back to the classroom. 

On this year’s 10th annual EPI Fellowship, Pitchette will be immersed in the diverse ecology of the area, home to 39% of the world’s marine mammal species. Days will be spent on Espiritu Santo Island, a UNESCO-protected biosphere reserve, and will involve underwater data collection and lessons in incorporating field studies into the classroom. 

This EPI teacher fellowship takes place April 2-9. For more information on EPI’s programs or how teachers can apply for next year’s EPI Teacher Fellowships, visit their website at https://www.ecologyproject.org/teacher-fellowships.

The program “Montana Constitution Celebrates 50 Years — Your Right to Vote — Save It or Lose It!” will explore  Montanans’ right to vote.

The 7 p.m. event Tuesday, March 29, is co-sponsored by the Montana League of Women Voters Helena Chapter and Lewis & Clark Library and is part of a series of events the LWV is holding this year to mark the Montana Constitution’s 50th anniversary. 

The four speakers include:

Jeremy Johnson, chair of political science and international relations at Carroll College, specializing in American politics, is director of Carroll’s Constitutional Studies Program. A frequent commentator on Montana politics, he earned his master’s and Ph.D. from Brown University and his B.A from the University of Pennsylvania.

Mike Meloy, a Helena-based trial practice attorney focusing on constitutional issues, operates the Freedom of Information Hotline and was active in drafting and enacting the implementing legislation for the “Right-to-Know” provision of the Montana Constitution. He is also a former Montana legislator who also taught constitutional law at Carroll College.

Alex Rate is the legal director at ACLU of Montana and has been involved in numerous legal challenges to laws restricting voting rights in Montana.

Keaton Sunchild is the political director for Western Native Voice and has been active to ensure Native Americans have a voice in politics. He will address “the history of the Native vote and the voting rights barriers that we faced and continue to face even now.”

The speakers will specifically address current legal challenges to laws passed by the 2021 Montana Legislature that end same day voter registration, prevent ballot collecting, restrict political campaign activities on campuses and change voter ID laws.

To sign up for the zoom webinar, use this link https://lclibrary.libcal.com/event/8780546 and an invitation will be emailed to you.

Humanities Montana recently awarded $38,350 to humanities projects across the state through their research fellowship and regular grants. The grant program supports projects that engage Montanans in meaningful discussion about the human condition, strengthen cooperative relationships among communities and cultural organizations, and enrich civic discourse among the state’s diverse cultures and geographic regions.

Humanities Montana regular grants program makes awards of $1,000 or more, three times a year. Their research fellowships grant awards of up to $4,000 annually. In February, the seven organizations to receive funding included:

Philosophy Symposia Series, Merlin CCC, Helena, $3,750: The 2022 Philosophy Symposia Series will highlight military life and the ethics of war, freedom of speech and human’s relationship with nature. The symposia will occur fall and winter 2022.

The Helena Area Community Foundation announced that in addition to the $19,000 in grant funds currently available for the 2022 City of Helena fund, $23,750 in grant funds are also available from Lewis and Clark County, bringing the total funding currently available to $42,750.

Nonprofit organizations are able to apply for grants from either fund with one application. Grants will be awarded in amounts up to $2000 to 501(c)(3) organizations in our region. Applications are due on March 15, 2022. All nonprofits in the greater Helena area are invited to apply. Grant determinations will be finalized by April 20, 2022.

Grant applications and additional criteria and selection information are accessible at the HACF website, helenaareacommunityfoundation.org. While the City of Helena fund and Lewis and Clark County fund have different geographic limitations, both funds seek to fund nonprofit organizations serving residents of our community.

HACF is seeking a limited number of community members to serve on the review committees for each grantmaking cycle. If you are interested in volunteering, please reach out to Emily Frazier.

For questions, information, or interview requests from HACF, please contact Emily Frazier, HACF executive director at emilyf@helenaareacommunityfoundation.org or call 406-441-4955.

The American Red Cross urges eligible donors to help end the ongoing critical need for blood with a blood donation. The Red Cross needs donors of all blood types to give now and help ensure lifesaving transfusions are on the sidelines for those who rely on them.

Appointments can be made by downloading the Red Cross Blood Donor App, visiting RedCrossBlood.org, calling 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767) or enabling the Blood Donor Skill on any Alexa Echo device.

The Helena Nar-Anon Family Group, a 12-step program for families and friends of addicts, meets Mondays and Thursdays, 5:30-6:30 p.m. in the Library of St. Paul’s Methodist Church, 512 Logan.

The library is located on the lower level of the main church building. Please enter using the Cruise Avenue entrance. The group observes COVID-19 protocols required by the church.