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All proceeds from the Miss Porter’s thrift shop were donated to Grace Academy, an all-girls school in Hartford.
Through their educational day at the Second Chance Shop, and the days spent organizing and running their own thrift shop, the teachers wanted to see the students gain an understanding of philanthropy.
Each member of the team of students had their own role in the process. Maeve Haggerty, Whitney Brown, and Victoria Black made up the marketing team.
“We’ve learned what it’s like to work in a real work environment and have our own set of tasks,” Haggerty said.
Black said there were some detailed items, like certain forms they needed to fill out and the work it took to research the right charity, that were new to her.
As far as picking Grace Academy, they chose it because of how much it related to their school.
(JTA) — Following the torpedoing of a retired general’s nomination to head the Israel Police, the Cabinet announced that it would appoint the No. 2 man of the Shin Bet security agency to the position.
Interior Security Minister Gilad Erdan announced on Friday the nomination of the new candidate, whose full name is subject to censorship because of his Shin Bet role.
The appointment came at the end of a protracted debate in the media and elsewhere about the suitability of Erdan’s first pick, Gal Hirsch.
Several bereaved parents protested the appointment of Hirsch, whom Erdan said in August is best equipped to rehabilitate the Israel Police after a string of scandals involving corruption, sexual harassment and alleged racism.
The opponents cited perceived failures in Hirsch’s performance as brigadier general during the 2006 war in Lebanon against Hezbollah. In parallel, Israel’s attorney general, Yehuda Weinstein, requested that Hirsch provide documents pertaining to proceeds he earned while consulting abroad, including in the Caucasus nation of Georgia, after his resignation from the Israel Defense Forces.
On Wednesday, Hirsch withdrew his candidacy as coalition lawmakers accused the media and the attorney general of torpedoing the nomination to damage the image of Erdan and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
ANCHORAGE (KTUU) - On Monday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released its finalized Polar Bear Conservation Management Plan to save polar bears from disappearing in the Arctic.
According to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise at its current rate, polar bears will likely disappear.
"In Alaska, it's not a positive story if climate change isn't addressed in the long term," said Jenifer Kohout, Deputy Assistant Regional Director, U.S. Fish and Wildlife.
The plan calls for reducing human-bear conflicts, collaboratively managing subsistence harvest, protecting denning habitat, minimizing the risk of contamination from oil spills and increased monitoring to determine whether or not the actions proposed are being effective.
"One of the important things this plan does is it makes it clear that ultimately to recover polar bears or take them off the endangered species list - we have to deal with climate change," Kohout said.
Although the Alaska Department of Fish and Game supports many aspects of the plan, Wildlife Conservation Director Bruce Dale says the state opposes the bears' 2008 listing as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.
Dale says that listing preempts state management authority over other fish and wildlife covering approximately 187,157 square miles of Alaska lands, essentially using a broad brush to create critical habitat.
“If you don’t identify really true critical habitats then you spread mitigation over the whole area unnecessarily and you don’t put enough emphasis on the really truly critical habitats", said Dale. "Right now, the plan requires all the populations to have a high probability of persisting, but for example, if the Chukchi Sea population never declines, it can’t be designated separately."
"We did list them early in the process, it was unusual in that the polar bear populations are at a historical high level, but looking at the modeling and the needs that polar bears have for sea ice, we can tell that they're going to be declining over time," Kohout. "So it actually gives us a very unique ability to try and do conservation before that happens, because otherwise you've got a population that's already declined, and you're trying to get it back up."
According to Fish and Game, Alaska is home to anywhere from 22,000 to 31,000 polar bears. As a result of diminished sea ice, the polar bears in the southern Beaufort Sea have declined from 1,500 bears in 2006 to roughly 900 in 2010. But that's not the case for Alaska's other sub-population of polar bear living in the Chukchi Sea. Fish and Game claims although insufficient data exists, recent research suggests potential population growth in an area where sea ice is declining.
At this point, Fish and Game say Alaska's polar bear population is still healthy and robust. While the state agrees with Fish and Wildlife, regarding their assessment on greenhouse gas emissions eventually changing the Arctic landscape, they say it's hard to recover something that hasn't declined yet.
Home and Extra Lot in the peaceful Winding Creek Subdivision.
Two story brick home with farmhouse touches. Open concept kitchen, breakfast and great room. Dinning room with coffered ceiling and wainscoting. Large master bedroom with tray ceiling. Three spacious bedrooms and large bonus rooms upstairs. Attic space with access off bonus room. Large screened in porch, oversized garage, tankless hot water heater, and gas fire place.
Updates in the home include: Kitchen with 30 inch Wolf Duel Fuel Range, Wolf built in microwave, Counter Depth Kitchen Aid fridge, subway tile backsplash. Front door Schlage keypad deadbolt and ADT security system. Hardwood floors and tile throughout house. Custom Plantation shutters throughout the first floor, including the garage. Custom blinds in the upstairs bedroom.
FORT LAUDERDALE -- When he was packing for South Florida a few days ago, New England defensive lineman Vince Wilfork hadn't realized he would be attending what essentially has become a meeting of Miami Hurricanes alumni.
They're calling it the Pro Bowl.
"Everywhere I turn," Wilfork said, "I see a Hurricane."
As the popular gameday chant around Miami goes, the Pro Bowl has "got some 'Canes over here." All told, 11 former Hurricanes were selected to play in the Pro Bowl, easily the most of any school, and nine of those players are expected to actually appear Sunday at the NFL's All-Star showcase. New Orleans' Jonathan Vilma and Indianapolis' Reggie Wayne were excused -- they'll be in Miami a week later for the Super Bowl.
"I'm happy to be home, playing in front of my fans," San Francisco running back Frank Gore said. "I haven't played here in like five years. So I'm happy to be here. It's big, real big. Shows you how good the program is, how good it's been in the past and how successful we've been sending great players to the league."
Miami has been nothing short of a pipeline to the NFL. Until the string was snapped in 2009, the Hurricanes had a first-round pick in the NFL draft for 14 straight years, by far the longest run ever by any school. Warren Sapp got the streak started in 1995, Ray Lewis continued it a year later and 31 more Hurricanes followed into the first rounds from 1997-2008, including an NFL-record six in 2004 alone.
And that run of success will be on full display Sunday, in the stadium the current Hurricanes now call home.
Lewis is still a Pro Bowler, picked this season for the 11th time. He enjoyed Honolulu, where the Pro Bowl had been for the past three decades and will return again for 2011 and 2012.
But getting to play this one in Miami just seems special to the Baltimore star.
"Miami is always a good place, weather-wise," Lewis said. "Just having it here ... the people around, that's one of the reasons they chose it."
Ravens safety Ed Reed, who has such a following in Miami that even members of the NBA's Heat organization hoped to meet with him this week, is among the 'Canes selected for this Pro Bowl as well, although his status for the game appears doubtful because of injuries. Minnesota offensive tackle Bryant McKinnie is also in the gamel, along with Arizona safety Antrel Rolle, New England safety Brandon Meriweather, Houston receiver Andre Johnson, Lewis, Wilfork and Gore.
If they weren't enough, the list of Miami Pro Bowlers grew to 11 on Friday afternoon.
Carolina linebacker Jon Beason, a South Florida native who played for Miami before getting picked in the first round of the 2007 draft, was a late add to the NFC roster.
"I've got a lot of them on my side," Rolle said.
Miami's program has struggled a bit in recent years, going from 7-6 in 2006 to 5-7 in 2007, 7-6 again in 2008 and then 9-4 this past season. Most of the 'Canes in the Pro Bowl agreed that Miami coach Randy Shannon -- who worked with many of the players with local ties who'll be on the field Sunday -- is on the cusp of getting the program back to the top rung of college football.
If that happens, there might be a lot more Pro Bowls like this one.
"A lot of people in the NFL don't like the Hurricanes, one reason being because we're so dominant," Wilfork said. "We were dominant. We were a dominant program down at the University of Miami and we're going to try to continue that. Over the past couple years, we've been rebuilding, but I think Randy Shannon has that program on the right track."
This is Part Two of the Nikkei Entrepreneur Spotlight on Carol and Keith Kimura, co-owners of CKDream in Gardena, the company behind K-Stand, a collapsible instrument stand. Rafu printed the first half of their story on Saturday, March 9.
(Re)introducing entrepreneurs Carol and Keith Kimura, co-owners of CKDream: this mature, married couple blossoms with energy as the demand for their product nearly exceeds pace of production.
First-time inventors and business creators, these are two individuals who have achieved the goals impressed upon their generation by working their way up the ladder at large companies; and who are now also achieving the goals of their children’s generation, turning their personal passion into a business. From Hawaii to the South Bay, from children to grandchildren, from art to aerospace and finally to each other, their debut product, the K-Stand, is built on a lifetime of experience.
The aerospace industry flourished in the South Bay during the ’70s and ’80s, and like many in the area both found work in the array of companies there, Keith for 15 years at Rockwell Collins, Hughes Aircraft and McDonnell Douglas, and Carol for over 20 years at TRW and Northrop. They also shared in common a connection to a local church, Gardena Valley Baptist, but the two would not meet until many years later.
Growing up first in Carson and then Gardena, Keith Kimura, designer of the K-Stand, gained experience early on with building and modifying things. Before the construction of a university and shopping plaza, the many open fields near his neighborhood were perfect for dirt bike riding, which motivated his group of friends to search for motorcycle parts at swap meets to modify bikes for off-road use, a homemade precursor to BMX dirt bikes.
He often disassembled toys to figure out how they worked, once removing a mechanical skeleton arm from a haunted house coin bank and re-attaching it to a toy car to make the car move by the hand grabbing the floor. “My parents didn’t mind that I took stuff apart; they just minded that I left a mess, which I usually did,” he laughed.
Despite the trail of toy parts he left behind him, one project so impressed his mother that she couldn’t help but compliment his efforts. “My mom was amazed when I took building blocks and built a three-foot-tall tower with a path inside for a marble to be dropped and come out the bottom,” he recalled proudly.
It wasn’t just his hobbies that honed his abilities either. In fact, as early as age nine he recalls swinging a hammer after being put to work by his father to help his uncles and cousins complete the second story of an unfinished model home they had just moved into. His father was a typewriter repairman for the City of Los Angeles while his mother worked as an accountant for American Honda and the Federal Aviation Administration. Both his parents were born and raised in Maui, Hawaii.
He has one older sister and two younger brothers, and recalled that being the eldest boy in a Japanese American family, he felt pressure to set a good example. When his father forbade him to play football, he accepted the reason given that he was more needed at home, and he even hid a high school gymnastics career from his parents until he made league finals. His parents ultimately agreed to attend the championship, where he went on to place fifth out of 20 elite competitors.
After graduating from Carson High School, he pursued studies in graphic design at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. However what should have been an exciting start to a degree that would make his parents proud became a painful turning point instead. Feeling pressure to do well in school, not making it into the upper half of his class at L.A. Trade Tech made him so frustrated that he abruptly left the program.
Upset with himself for falling short of his standards, he convinced himself that the difficulties he had encountered were due solely to a lack of talent. Passionate about graphic design to this day, the pain of giving up on his dream, coupled with the shock from his parents, was a stressful event for the family.
Leaving his parents’ home at just 18 and moving in with friends in Carson, he took on work in a toy factory to make ends meet. From studying art to working on a factory assembly line, Keith was far from where he thought he’d be and feeling even more discouraged. Luckily, however, a chance suggestion from a high school friend about a job opening in a machine shop started his career in the aerospace industry. It was at this shop that he learned about industrial machines and found it was something he enjoyed.
Later on he went back to graphic design, studying on his own and doing everything from CD packaging for local artists to company logos. He also worked in the contract furniture industry, teaching himself computer design and doing large projects like the Skechers headquarters in Manhattan Beach.
His current position as the operations assistant manager for the golf course at the Terranea Resort in Ranchos Palos Verdes is actually the line of work he least expected to ever be in, not just because he didn’t like golf when he first tried it at 28, but because as an engineer and then a designer, he had never worked with the public.
However, all of the experiences seem to add up perfectly to finally starting his own business. Not only did he find that the resort’s high standards gave him the ideal learning opportunity for customer service, but that he could do it well. Also, he’s now been an avid golf player for 20 years. “It really built confidence in me to work with clients. I’m so surprised I stayed in golf and learned to do customer service,” he said.
The last missing piece to being able to create the K-Stand and start CKDream, of course, was Carol. By the time they met at an area church one day where Carol happened to be a Sunday school teacher, they had both lived full lives of many experiences. Keith had not even attended Gardena Baptist Church since childhood, and was only there because of a vow to himself to be that good example he had found confining many years before.
Though he had found his way successfully through several careers, later on in life he developed a drug addiction to cocaine and methamphetamines. It wasn’t until he found himself living in a motel and thinking of his grandchildren and son that he was able to turn his life around. “I knew that I didn’t want to be a grandparent my grandchildren and son would be ashamed of,” he said.
He quit cold turkey and returning to his childhood church turned out to be the final puzzle piece. He and Carol have been together ever since. They even joked at the beginning of their marriage what they would call a company if they had one together, coming up with “CKDream” and even creating a logo. They had no idea what their imagined company would do or what steps they would ever take to have a company, yet here they are today, “full circle,” as they both put it.
Carol Kimura, formerly Lendio, first came to the South Bay at 19 after growing up in the small town of Waialua, Oahu. A self-described “country girl,” she admired her father, a construction worker, and mother, a homemaker, for sending her to Saint Francis Convent School, where she joined extracurriculars like the Nurses and First Aid clubs, hoping to go into a career in the healthcare industry.
After moving in with family in South Bay and starting her studies at El Camino College in Torrance, she married and left school to raise a family. Many years later she returned to her education when she went back to school to get an associate’s degree and certificate for pre-K, working full-time for four years before leaving to spend time with her grandchildren, then returning part-time to education, where she works currently in the role of “runner” at a local school, giving teachers their morning breaks. She has also been a Sunday school teacher at Gardena Valley Baptist for over 20 years.
However, motherhood and teaching aren’t her only talents. She fondly recalls the many nights she danced to R&B music at clubs before settling down and how people would compliment her dancing. “I fall in love with the music and we’re one,” she said with a huge smile. Amidst a busy schedule of children, marriage and career, she didn’t have time for her musical side until her fifties, when she began studying hula and became part of the Kaulana Ka Hale Kula ‘O Na Pua ‘O Ka ‘Aina dance group, with whom she won third place one year at a hula competition.
In addition to her dedication to family, dance and teaching, Carol worked for over three decades in aerospace, starting out in administration as a warehouse clerk, then moving to the role of production planner and then inventory analyst. Her extensive experience from this career keeping track of tiny parts like bolts and chips in large warehouses fits well into CKDream’s work; she’s at ease in their garage, where she’s surrounded by tools, stored parts and stacks of K-Stand components awaiting assembly and delivery.
You can check out the K-Stand in person at the Heritage of Aloha Festival on Saturday and Sunday, May 18-19, in Santa Fe Springs. To place an order online and sign up for K-Stand’s updates on the launch of their upcoming Kickstarter project, visit their website at www.k-stand.com. Follow them on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/kstand2019.
Keith and Carol Kimura are two-time graduates of the Entrepreneur Training Program (ETP) organized by the Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC) Small Business Assistance Program and made possible with the support of the Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program (API-SBP), Small Business Administration (SBA) and Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute (GVJCI). These workshop training series cover a variety training topics for any entrepreneurs planning to launch their own small business. LTSC offers these 24-hour trainings three times a year in both English and Japanese around Los Angeles County.
A second pilot whale has been found dead in a Hebridean loch after experts feared more than 60 of the animals had been at risk of becoming beached.
The pod had left the shallow waters of Loch Carnan in South Uist on Saturday, but returned later that night.
They have now headed out of the area - but an animal welfare charity confirmed another whale's body had been found.
Tests on a body found earlier suggested the female died from disease, not because it was stranded on rocks.
Marine experts said the rest of the pod had now left the loch and appeared to be heading south.
Dave Jarvis, from the British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR) team, said it was thought the second whale had died elsewhere and floated into the area on the tide.
Mr Jarvis said: "During the late afternoon, BDMLR operations manager Stephen Marsh was alerted to a possible sighting of a second dead whale in the sea loch.
"A search was mounted and sadly the sighting was confirmed.
"It was too dangerous to recover the body of the adult, although another attempt might be made tomorrow [Monday] although it was noted that there seemed to be little damage to the parts that were visible.
"Due to its location and orientation, it is thought that the creature probably died elsewhere in the area and floated in on the incoming tide.
"It is currently impossible to comment on why this animal died."
BDMLR said the post-mortem examination of the first dead whale found "potential evidence of an infection" in the animal's melon, a fatty organ found in the forehead.
It also showed external injuries to the whale were not enough to cause its death.
Tests showed the female whale was just coming to an end of a lactation and rescuers said they hoped her young calf would have been fully weaned.
The whales were first spotted around Loch Carnan, in the Western Isles, on Thursday, sparking fears they would die in a mass stranding.
Some of the animals had injuries to their heads and a substantial operation to save them was launched.
Mr Jarvis said the operation was now being wound down after it appeared the whales had left the area but those involved would continue to keep a watch for any sign of the whales.
Rescuers said wounds spotted on some of the other whales would heal naturally over time.
Environment Minister Stewart Stevenson said: "I am pleased to hear that the pod has left the loch and hope they remain in deeper waters.
"The loss of life is very unfortunate but a number of teams working together in South Uist have ensured that a greater tragedy has been averted."
At the end of October last year, some pilot whales almost got stranded in the same sea loch. Less than a week later, 33 whales, believed to be the same group, were found dead on a beach in Co Donegal.
Pilot whales prefer deep water but come inshore to feed on squid, their main food.
YIELDS ON Treasury bills (T-bill) on auction today will likely move sideways as market players are seen to stay on the sidelines to await firmer leads.
The Bureau of the Treasury is offering P15 billion worth of T-bills on Monday, broken down into P4 billion and P5 billion in three- and six-month papers, respectively, and P6 billion in one-year debt papers.
A trader said on Friday that rates of the T-bills on the auction block today will move sideways to five basis points higher from the previous auction.
“Based on the previous auction results, medyo mataas na rin kasi ang rates (the rates are quite high),” the trader said in a phone interview.
Last week, the government partially awarded the T-bills it offered, borrowing just P11.075 billion out of the programmed P15 billion. The 91-day T-bill’s rate slid 2.3 basis points to 5.612%, while 182- and 364-day IOUs fetched higher yields at 5.982% and 6.052%, respectively.
At the secondary market on Friday, the three-month, six-month and one-year securities were quoted at 5.727%, 5.954% and 6.087%, based on the PHB Bloomberg Valuation Reference Rates.
“(Market) players will be waiting on the sidelines while waiting for firmer leads. Probably any developments locally such as the reserve cut if meron (there will be any),” the trader said.
Noting that inflation is “right now…under control,” Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Benjamin E. Diokno said a cut in benchmark interest rates will be considered at the central bank’s third policy review for this year on May 9.
“We’re considering it. I’m sure that will be on the agenda in the next policy meeting,” Mr. Diokno said in an interview with Bloomberg Television Friday.
“Demand for the shortest end may stem from anticipations from the market of an RRR cut in the coming months, and then policy cut may follow suit once inflation returns to mid target which is at 3%,” Kevin S. Palma, Robinsons Bank Corp. peso sovereign debt trader, said in an e-mail on Saturday.
He added that yields on the T-bills to be auctioned off today will likely move sideways from the previous auction, with demand concentrated on the shortest tenor.

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