FORT WALTON BEACH — Sharing and Caring seeks volunteers and food donations for the Zombie Walk coming up Oct. 18 in Fort Walton Beach. Individuals and groups are welcome, and earn volunteer community service hours.

ZOMBIE WALKING

Registration is 4-6 p.m. at Fort Walton Beach Landing, and costs four canned goods per person. Donations are sent to the Sharing and Caring food pantry. Sign in by 5:30 to qualify for prizes, and pick up a map for the event.

Makeup artists will zombify attendees for a small donation. Games (brain eating contest included), prizes and music for all ages are part of the fun. Dogs are welcome.

The walk concludes with a meandering of zombies through downtown Fort Walton Beach to their final destination, the landing, for "Thriller"-style dancing. Free dance lessons are available throughout October.

TO VOLUNTEER

Helpers will register participants, do advertising and help clean up, lead walkers, assist at the makeup booth and more.

To sign up, email fwbzombiewalk@yahoo.com; call 850-240-1857; or visit the Facebook page.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Zombie Walk and food pantry drive coming in October: volunteers wanted

CRESTVIEW —  A child advocacy group seeks sponsors and donations to complete a family visitation center.

The Judge Ben Gordon Jr. Visitation Center would allow familiesdealing with child abuse, custody or divorce proceedings to meet in a safe, secure location.

The not-for-profit organization already has sites in DeFuniak Springs and Shalimar. Executive Director Sharon Rogers said the Crestview location, 6187th Ave., Crestview, will be the first visitation center the organization owns.

“It will be state of the art,” she said. “We have been going through a process of making it as safe as possible.”

That means two parking lots, security cameras and a supervisor overseeing visitations, she said.  

In February, the organization –named after a former local judge and an avid child advocate –purchased a Crestview house to use as visitation center.

A $128,000 Impact 100 of Northwest Florida grant helped to purchase the residence. Now, renovations are underway, and several businesses have provided goods and services to the facility.

In addition to providing a secure location for family visitations, Rogers said the facility could offer several services to the community.

“The main use is for (monitored) exchanges,” she said. “The facility (also) could be used for small family services, group meetings for abused women or … a fatherhood group for young men,” she said.

Family psychologists could use the facility for services. It could also be used for other local child advocate organizations like Guardian Ad Litem, she said.

The organization will soon train volunteers to oversee visitations. She hopes to have the facility open with city approval upon construction completion, Rogers said.    

WANT TO HELP?

You can support the Judge Ben Gordon Jr. Visitation Center at www.gofundme.com/e3br1c. See www.familyvisitationcenters.org for more information on its services.

Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Matthew Brown, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Community sponsors, donations sought for family visitation center

CRESTVIEW — By day, they’re doctors, an accountant and a funeral director. By night, they’re out on the dance floor or in the community raising money for Covenant Hospice.

They’re this year’s Crestview Dancing Stars, members of the professional community who voluntarily display their ballroom dancing skills — or lack thereof — during the Oct. 4 Covenant Hospice Blue Jean Ball.

Optometrist Dr. Wanda Batson, Joel Davis of Davis-Watkins Funeral Home, gastroenterologist Dr. Khalid Moussa, and certified accountant Stephanie Overstreet are busily raising money while learning dance steps at the Crestview Fred Astaire Dance Studio.

“We’re hoping for $12,000 this year,” coordinator Bonnie Grundel said. “We set a high goal.”

Last year, the ball’s Dancing with the Crestview Stars segment raised $10,000 for the hospice’s services from the stars’ solicitations of family, friends and business associates.

Davis, whose funeral home has supported the Blue Jean Ball every year since it was started eight years ago, said his dancing skills are minimal.

“I only danced at my wedding,” he said.

He’s hoping Fred Astaire instructor Hannah Kania will coach a good performance out of him. It’s a job she relishes.

“I love doing this so much,” Kania said. “To be a part of people's lives like this, to help raise donations for Covenant Hospice, it’s so amazing.”

Kania will also dance with Moussa, who praised the community’s professional dancers.

“They make you look good,” he said.

“I’m really excited,” instructor Augustine Smith, who is coaching Overstreet, said. “It’s good that we can use our skill like this to support Covenant Hospice.”

Fred Astaire owner David Colón said he grew up in a home with parents who were “always involved,” so “giving back to the community got to be a habit.”

Helping Covenant Hospice with annual fundraisers, including the spring Dance for Life dancing showcase, is easy, he said.

“We fell in love with their attitude toward the community, so we continue to work with them,” Colón said.

Grundel said this year’s Blue Jean Ball theme, “Arabian Nights,” embraces the “allure and opulence” of the romantic legends gathered from India, Persia and North Africa.

“It’s going to be beautiful and fun,” Grundel said. “It’s going to be lavish, with lots of colors and lots of fabric.”

WANT TO GO?

WHAT: “Arabian Nights” Covenant Hospice Blue Jean Ball

WHEN: 6 p.m. Oct. 4

WHERE: Crestview Community Center, 1446 Commerce Drive, opposite the library

TICKETS: $60 each; available at Covenant Hospice, 4100 Ferdon Blvd. S.; by phone, 682-3628; or at www.covenanthospice.org

Editor's Note: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Joel Davis as Carl Davis in the photo caption. 

Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: ‘Crestview Dancing Stars’ prep for 'lavish' hospice benefit

CRESTVIEW — Hurricane Ivan's 165 mph winds caused 92 deaths and more than $18 billion in damage across Florida, Louisiana and Texas, among other areas.

The Category 3 storm made landfall in North Okaloosa County on Sept. 16, 2004.

The Okaloosa County School District closed campuses until the storm passed. Meanwhile, Davidson Middle School and Baker School served as emergency shelters, and many local businesses extended their hours to help shoppers get what they need.

The Davidson shelter served more than 400 evacuees.

Food and drinks  were trucked in from the Okaloosa School District’s warehouse in Niceville. Red Cross volunteers were on hand to help check people in so a record of who was there could be kept.

Families  brought with them whatever they could fit into their vehicles, not knowing how long their stay would be.

Three meals a day were served form the school kitchen, along with snacks and drinks.

Following the storm, the Hub City became a hub for basic supplies: food, ice and especially gas. The stretch of Ferdon Boulevard between Main Street and Interstate 10 basically became a parking lot during business hours.

REMEMBERING IVAN

City officials remember Hurricane Ivan as the lesser of storms to hit Crestview in the past couple of decades.

Aside from trees being knocked down, a few roofs torn off buildings, and a week without electricity, the city escaped relatively unscathed, unlike communities to the south.

“Really, the city wasn’t hit that bad,” then-councilman Ellis Connor said. “There were a lot of power outages, which interrupted the traffic signals. The police and fire had a lot of extra activity moving people through town.”

With Davidson Middle School designated an evacuation center — that ultimately served 400, mostly south county, residents — traffic heading up State Road 85 clogged the city’s main north-south artery all the way through town.

“While the storm is approaching the coastline, any of the evacuation that is taking place takes place in the middle of Crestview,” Fire Chief Joe Traylor said.

SCHOOL’S OUT

Mayor David Cadle was then director of the Crestview High School band, which was affected when the school's observation tower and flood lights around its practice field behind the school blew down.

“As the band director, it really messed our season up,” Cadle said. “It took our tower down and it took all our light poles down, so the practice field was filled with glass. We didn’t have any place to get up and observe band rehearsals.”

Traylor said he and Police Chief Travis Gillihan breathed sighs of relief when flooding didn’t happen during Ivan.

“During the flooding events we’ve had, we’re isolated,” Traylor said. “During Georges we were an island.”

NO FLOODING PROBLEMS

“It was Opal and, before that, Georges, that hit us bad,” said city planner Eric Davis, then an assistant city planner. “It’s usually not the wind that gets us, it’s the water. If we get the rain in the wrong place, if it hits the Yellow or the Shoal (rivers), we’re in trouble.”

“I don’t recall significant damage,” Connor said. “A few awnings down and shingles and metal off of rooftops, but the main problem we had was the traffic coming through town. That’s a nightmare for the police and fire.”

Cadle, whose predecessor George Whitehurst was mayor during Ivan, said the city’s recovery was considerably more rapid than the low-lying coastal communities south of the Eglin Reservation.

“The city recovered very quickly,” Cadle said. “We had damage but our damage wasn’t as severe as the people around us. We bounced back. But Crestview people do that.”

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: IVAN: ‘The main problem we had was the traffic coming through town’

A Bay Area Food Bank survey reveals information about Gulf Coast hunger.

More than 250 partner agencies recently participated in Feeding America's National Hunger Study in which 600 people seeking food assistance answered detailed questions.

Here are the findings:

•More than 61,000 households in the food bank's 24-county service area receive food assistance from partner agencies.

•Most of those households sought assistance several times throughout the year.

•More than 70 percent of those households reported having to decide between food, utilities or rent to get by.

•More than 25,000 people weekly receive food assistance

•25 percent of those seeking food assistance struggle financially but make too much money to qualify for federal food assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Bay Area Food Bank serves a 24-county area spanning the Florida Panhandle, South Alabama and South Mississippi.

Feeding America is a nationwide network of 200 food banks serving the United States. 

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: New report reveals region's hunger statistics

Clowns Without Borders and international clown Kevin Brooking will appear 6 p.m. Sept. 20 at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Emerald Coast in Valparaiso.

Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for students and children. The church is at 1295 Bayshore Drive in Valparaiso, at the corner of Bayshore Drive and John Sims Parkway. 

Clowns Without Borders, founded in Barcelona, Spain in 1993, offers laughter to relieve suffering. 

The idea began when a professional clown was invited to perform in a refugee camp in Croatia. This performance unexpectedly attracted audiences of more than 700 children, proving that there is a great need for clowns and entertainment in crisis situations everywhere, according to a news release.

Contact Jan Mullins, 974-1483, for more information.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: International clown performing Saturday

VALPARAISO — Get ready for the “Biker’s Blast for the Past” Motorcycle Poker Run this Saturday.

Early online registration costs $15 and ends Thursday, but bikers can register the day of the event at a cost of $20 per person.

It begins at 8 a.m. at the Heritage Museum, 115 Westview Ave., Valparaiso, with music and a live broadcast by 99 ROCK and refreshments from Panera Bread.

Riders leave the museum at 10 a.m.; participants can take the 85-mile "blast," or do the "around the town" run, which covers stops within 10 miles of the museum.

A festival party is from 1-5 p.m. afterward. It includes  vendors, a DJ, and dancing under the "Big Top," courtesy of Tents of Northwest Florida. Historic exhibits, tours and demonstrations and traditional poker run fun,  raffles, games and grand prizes are also planned.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: “Biker’s Blast for the Past” motorcycle poker run is this weekend

Hear success stories of research, serendipity and cousin-finding using websites and records during the Oct. 7 lecture, “Genealogy Online Success Stories" at the Crestview Public Library.

The program begins at 10:30 a.m. with coffee and cookies served at 10 a.m. when the doors open.

Guest speaker Elizabeth Powell Crowe, of Navarre, has been pursuing genealogy for more than 30 years. Her various editions of Genealogy Online have sold almost 200,000 copies. The 10th edition comes out Oct. 22. 

She has worked as an editor for numerous genealogy or technology-related publications including Computer Currents magazine, Valley Leaves, LeDespencer magazine, and the Computers in Genealogy newsletter, and contributed articles to Digital Genealogist magazine.

The library is located at 1445 Commerce Drive in north Crestview.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Next month: 'Online Genealogy Success Stories'