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By Derek Minemyer, June 16, 2019, 2 KTUU ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) - Alaskans joined non-profits across the country in building thousands of bunk beds for children in need on Saturday. Sleep in Heavenly Peace is a national non-profit with a local chapter here in Southcentral Alaska. Around 50 volunteers spent the day at Anchorage Home Builders Association, building bunk beds as part of SHP's annual Bunks Across America event. According to the website, the organization intends to break a...

Juneau Community Foundation awards $1.8M in grants to local nonprofit service providers in the areas of homelessness, food security, substance abuse disorders, domestic violence, suicide prevention, senior care, hospice, mental and physical health, education and income stability. These grants are provided through a unified process that includes funding from the Juneau Community Foundation’s Hope Endowment Fund ($1,053,978) and the City & Borough of Juneau’s Social Service Funds...

N ine months and a long Arctic winter have come and gone since the abduction, sexual assault and murder of 10-year-old Ashley Johnson-Barr in the northwest Alaska hub community of Kotzebue. Signs of Ashley can be found everywhere in this town of 3,200. At the cemetery, groups of kids gather at the purple-painted wooden cross marking her grave. They leave trinkets, teddy bears, necklaces, even sports medals. People slip bouquets of artificial flowers through the chain link fence at Rainbow...

The purpose of this FOA from the federal Administration on Children, Youth and Families - Children's Bureau is to fund cooperative agreements that support the development, implementation, and evaluation of primary prevention strategies to improve the safety, stability, and well-being of all families through a continuum of community-based services and supports. During the project period, grantees will address site-specific barriers and mobilize communities to prevent child maltreatment,...

Supportive community members can make major difference, experts say A cold wind whipped in front of the Alaska State Capitol on Friday afternoon, sending pinwheels spinning and a police barricade tumbling. The pinwheels and the traffic barricade were there for a rally in honor of National Go Blue Day, which aims to raise awareness about child abuse and neglect. The annual event also tries to bring attention to the importance of families and communities working together to build a more...

How a troubled childhood led to bettering outcomes for Alaskan Native children If only for a short time, there was some happiness in Patrick Anderson ’75’s childhood: swimming in a slough off Alaska’s Prince William Sound, eating fresh herring eggs, and picking berries for his large extended family and placing them into empty 3-quart cans. It was a traditional life of Tlingit and Aleut peoples in Cordova, Alaska, in the early 1960s. But when Anderson was 8, his family moved to Seattle, where...

In a downtown Anchorage courtroom last Tuesday afternoon, a judge declared Andrea Conter and Mitchell Hershey mother and son. It was an unusual adoption: Hershey was a week away from turning 21, and has been in Alaska’s foster care system for more than half his life. Conter is a 53-year-old bookstore manager who had barely considered motherhood until two years ago, when a Facebook post about a college-aged boy who needed a home changed both of their lives. In the fall of 2017, Conter, who is...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) — Valerie Davidson is Alaska's version of a rock star. Well-liked and respected, she's often stopped in public by people for a hug or chat. The 51-year-old Yup-ik from Southwest Alaska first made headlines when she was just an 18-year-old college student who spoke out against alcohol abuse in villages. These days, she's serving as the state's first woman Alaska Native lieutenant governor. She's also a sexual abuse survivor "Even though it's really hard to talk about,...

Last Wednesday, March 13th, I had the opportunity to present a Legislative Lunch and Learn to legislators, legislative staff, administrative staff, and the public in the Alaska State Capitol Building. To a room of ~ 30 - 40 people munching on lunch provided by the Alaska Children's Trust , and broadcast live via Gavel to Gavel (now archived here ), I had the honor to premiere the policymaker version of our History and Hope curriculum. This curriculum, and the policy-maker version, was...

The Department of Health & Social Services, in collaboration with the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority, recently released a draft of their 2020-2024 Strengthening the System: Comprehensive Integrated Mental Health Program Plan . The purpose of the program plan is to provide a blueprint for the creation of a comprehensive integrated mental health program for the state. Specifically, the program plan outlines the objectives and strategies to integrated services for beneficiaries of the...

For the first time in nearly seventeen years, members of the Alaska House of Representatives will relaunch the House Children’s Caucus. This edition of the caucus will be co-chaired by Representative Chris Tuck (D-Anchorage) and Representative Sara Rasmussen (R-Anchorage). “Because children are at the heart of our communities, we should cherish and protect them at all costs. The earlier we invest in the health and education of children the better the outcomes for our communities. We all...

The Nov. 30, 2019, earthquake destroyed more than half of the bowls Molly Estes had made in her quest to help others in need via the 25 th Annual Empty Bowl Project set for Sat., March 9 from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Dena’ina Center in downtown Anchorage. “The whole week (students were out of school post the quake), there was this rush of worry,” Estes said, noting that she had finished 63 bowls prior to the seismic event. “I was anxious to get back.” But it didn’t stop her drive. The...