Sunday, June 14, 2009

Eastside Restaurant Review: Saigon In and Out

I'm so excited to introduce a new feature to Santa Barbara's Eastside Blog! I'll be asking residents and neighbors to write reviews of their favorite Eastside restaurants. This post comes from Cara -- who happens to be my darling baby sister and neighbor.



One of the best little spots for lunch or dinner in town!

Their menu is full of flavorful vietnamese dishes. You have to try the fresh coconut juice! Amazing!

Wonderful curry chicken. Fresh ingredients. And if you are in the mood for food with a kick, they have some amazing spicy dishes. It's perfect for a low key, quick, affordable dinner. They have such a friendly wait staff (Hi Patricia :). And with their new location on State, its difficult to keep my Saigon obsession in check. Stop in next time your in the neighborhood. You won't be disappointed.

Saigon In and Out
318 N. Milpas St.
Phone: (805) 966-0916
Hours: Sun-Thur 11am-9pm & Fri-Sat 11am-10pm
www.saigoninandout.com

Monday, June 8, 2009

Free Family Photo Event

Working together with Specialty Color Services, the Franklin Neighborhood Center Advisory Committee and the Santa Barbara Art Alliance Project we are pleased to announce the first ever Free Family Photo Event!!

This is a 100% FREE event to honor the families of Santa Barbara's Eastside.

Local photographers will be donating their time and talents to provide families with these high-quality precious keepsakes. Specialty Photo Printing, located at 230 E. Cota Street, has generously offered to provide a free portrait to each family which will be available for pick up after the event.

Saturday, June 13th
11AM - 5PM

FRANKLIN NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER
1136 E Montecito Street


Questions in Spanish: call Ricado at 805.963.7605
Questions in English: contact Chrystal at 805.252.5084 or eastsidesb@gmail.com

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Clean-Up Stats!

I received this email from Lorraine with Looking Good Santa Barbara today. Thank YOU, Lorraine, for coordinating such a great event!!

Good Afternoon!

I want to thank you all for the incredible Eastside Community Clean-Up event last Saturday. We had a great turnout and have the following statistics to be proud of.

450 - # Volunteers {YAHOO!!!!}
56 - # City Blocks cleaned-up
5.26 Tons collected at courtesy dumpsters to discourage illegal dumping
2.63 Tons of Green Waste Collected
7.87 Tons of Trash collected
10.5 Tons of TOTAL WASTE COLLECTED that would have otherwise been on City streets
88 People removing hundreds of small graffiti tags throughout the neighborhood
1000 Door Hangers (with information on parkway maintenance, illegal dumping, abandoned shopping carts and graffiti) distributed

1 - Creek Restoration at Punta Gorda & Liberty
1 - Park Maintenance Project at Sunflower Park {LOOKS GREAT!!}
51 - Trees Planted (Note: Randy Fritz, Tree Inspector said, "with the quality of volunteer tree planters that showed up we could have planted another 20 trees.")

1 - Private Property at 301 N. Soledad Street cleaned-up, including window replacement, hauling away old, piled up items and, weed abatement and laying wood chips

1 - Large bee hive removed from private property courtesy of JP's Bees {YIKES}
1500Lbs. of Electronic Waste Collected
4 - Areas where weeds were abated
2 - Bridges repainted

All done in 3 hours! {SO GREAT!}

Of course all of this could not be done without the help of many including:

All of the Church Groups (list below) with Calvary Chapel and New Life Church taking lead to proviide top notch volunteers, planning assistance, lunch and donations for supplies for the event.

JP's Bees for removing a very large beehive from a private property residence in preparation of clean-up.

MarBorg Industries for their generosity in providing portable bathroom units, refreshments, courtesy dumpsters, rolling trash carts and manpower for the event.

Franklin Advisory Committee for their support and large attendance at the event.

Larry Cassidy & ABS Glass for providing a window replacement at 301 N. Soledad Street.

Kristina Brumbaugh & Los Prietos Boys Academy for weed abatement work and providing much needed equipment.

Tri-County Produce for providing healthy snacks.

Kathi King with Choose to Reuse for providing free canvas shopping bags to all who made a pledge to make the switch from paper and plastic bags. {Read a little bit about Kathi's campaign here on page3. I'm super excited about her program and hope to devote a post to her soon!! Thanks for the Chico Bag, Kathi!}

Don's Net Café for providing students to help with event logistics.

City staff including the Streets Division for all their work preparing for and help running the event, Ricardo Venegas/Community Services for their help in coordinating the private property projects and translation assitance, Parks for running the Sunflower Park and tree planting projects, Creeks for organizing the creek restoration (and George Thomson for his follow up volunteer work on Monday), Environmental Services for running the E-Waste Collection and assisting with event preparation and the Police Department for making staff available to ensure a safe event.

Churches Involved:

  1. Bethany Church
  2. Calvary Chapel
  3. Community Covenant Church
  4. Free Methodist ChurchPura Vida Church
  5. Hope Community Church
  6. Montecito Covenant
  7. New Life Church
  8. New Life Church - Español
  9. Santa Barbara Coast Community Church of the Nazarene
  10. Santa Barbara Community Church
  11. Santa Barbara Mission

I will send a link to photos in a separate e-mail. MANY THANKS AGAIN! Looking Good Santa Barbara!