Installation of Postmaster

Coeur d’Alene Chamber Members are cordially invited to attend the oath of office ceremony and installation of David L. Hoover as Postmaster of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at one in the afternoon at the Coeur d’Alene Library Community Room 702 E. Front Ave. Refreshments following.

Partners in Business Meeting

The next Partners in Business is on Wednesday, October 1st at the Idaho Department of Labor’s Coeur d’Alene office. Address: 1221 W. Ironwood Drive, Suite 200 in Coeur d’Alene. Lunch will be available at 11:30am and the program will start at noon.

“Utilizing the Hidden Resources” in business will be presented by Bill Jhung, Director of the Idaho Small Business Development Center. (The October newsletter is attached.)

Olive Garden will supply spaghetti with marinara sauce, penne with meat sauce, garden- fresh salad, and breadsticks for $8.00. Bottled water is included.

If you prefer to bring your own lunch, attendance will be $2.00, which includes bottled water.

Please RSVP by 5:00pm on Friday, September 26th. Feel free to contact me by email or phone.

Darkness to Light's Stewards of Children Sexual Abuse Prevention Training

North Idaho Panhandle Kiwanis Presents:

Darkness to Light’s Stewards of Children
Sexual Abuse Prevention Training
Presented by: Ruth A. WIllford, RNC MSN Kootenai Medical Center

**Free of Charge**
Offered to employees and volunteers of local Non-Profit organizations providing care, curriculum, or services to area children.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 4:30-7:30pm
Coeur d’Alene Public Library Community Room
Please RSVP- Jina Copstead (208) 818-5394

Steward of Children is a comprehensive sexual abuse prevention training program that educates adults to prevent and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. The Stewards of Children program is designed for organizations that serve children and adolescents, proving prevention training for staff, volunteers, parents and other interested adults. We will begin by offering this program to all interested non-profit organizations. Core features of this training are as follows:
• A video integrating segments of sexual abuse survivors relating their stories of violation and healing, with segments from the author of the curriculum and from professionals who interface daily with the problem of sexual abuse.
• An interactive workbook for each participant.
• Discussion about critical issues in sexual abuse prevention and the relevance of these issues within organizations that serve children and adolescents.

Sponsored by: North Idaho Panhandle Kiwanis

Community Forum on Ending Homelessness

On Monday, September 15th at 6:30 p.m. at the Harding Family Center, 411 15th Street join the City of Coeur d'Alene for a forum to discuss the homelessness problem in our area. The forum will provide the community with research and data collected regarding homelessness in the Coeur d'Alene area and provide an opportunity for questions, answers and discussion.

RDI Teams Up With Habitat for Humanity

Beginning September 1, RDI Heating & Cooling will begin yet another mission to help support our community. John Hoffman, customer care specialist at RDI, has initiated a collaborated effort with Jim Brannon, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity, to launch a program that will benefit all people of Kootenai County.

RDI has set a goal to raise $1000 for Habitat for Humanity. From September 1 through October 31, they will be presenting Kootenai County homeowners with an incentive to help them reach that goal. Every customer that receives a furnace or heat pump maintenance from RDI will get a $20 discount on their fee when they donate $10 to Habitat for Humanity.

This partnership is just one of the many humanitarian efforts made by RDI. "We help to make our customers lives better by helping to make our community better," says John Hoffman of RDI, "We believe it is our duty to be at the forefront of this movement; helping those less fortunate than us."

Schedule your furnace and heat pump maintenance between September 1 and October 31 and experience the difference RDI can make in your home and in the future homes of those less fortunate.

Call RDI Heating & Cooling at 762-9857 to schedule your next maintenance and support your local Habitat for Humanity.

Idaho’s RideShare Dollars in High Demand

With gasoline prices at or over $4.00 per gallon, Idahoans are more interested than ever in finding efficient ways to get to work, services and events. Whether they are businesses looking to address parking demands and ensure efficient and timely commutes for those coming to work from the area’s rural reaches, communities seeking increased multi-modal infrastructure by providing bicycle racks to stimulate efficient access to school, or commuters wanting to avoid increased congestion in their daily commute, there is a program that helps meet these unique and changing needs. The RideShare Program assists in special efforts to promote commuting, which conserves energy, improves air quality and reduces congestion.

Recently, the Idaho Transportation Department Division of Public Transportation received requests in excess of $260,000 for this Federal Highway Administration-funded program that in Idaho translates to $60,000.

The RideShare Program features a number of flexible and individualized features particularly conducive to meeting Idahoan’s unique needs.

An interactive website called RideshareOnline.com is a free service provided by the Idaho Transportation Department that introduces commuters to others who might want to carpool or vanpool to work together. RideshareOnline.com maximizes the opportunity to coordinate transportation and leverage existing resources at the most individual level possible.

Users can access this site 24 hours a day to find a carpool partner to share the ride to work and defer the cost of a daily commute. Through this site, user can match their work schedule and other commute needs so that their time spent commuting is not appreciably different than if they were driving themselves.

Public Vanpools are also a feature of the program. When money is available, entities have been able to obtain Rideshare Vans using Rideshare funds and local matches to generate Rideshare Programs within their communities. Vans are typically equipped with air conditioning, tinted windows, reading lights, am/fm radio, and bike racks – making for a relaxing and productive commute environment. Depending on the environment, riders can meet at prearranged locations or in more rural areas, arrange to make stops at residences along the way. Several vanpool services already exist in Idaho.

Increasingly employers, and particularly hospitals, are finding Rideshare a popular alternative to addressing employee transportation needs. By helping to lower commute costs, employee retention increases and demands on parking lots decrease. Some employers choose to provide preferential parking for carpoolers, and they make their vans available for additional employee uses and other community vanpool needs when the van is not in use. The greater their effort to coordinate with others and leverage the public resource, the more meaningful the mobility asset becomes to the local community and the State’s mobility infrastructure.

So, when applications exceed funds available by more than four times the funds available, how does Idaho maximize this limited resource in an environment of dramatically increasing demand?

The obvious answer is to continue to encourage all Idahoan’s who are interested in carpooling to utilize RidershareOnline.com. The web-based service already serves the entire state, and is limited only by the number and amount of participants in any given area. The system is designed to protect one’s confidentiality. A mapping system verifies the applicant’s originating address and shows the approximate location of other commuters on the match list and is specific to the day and time of travel to any destination. Those individuals can be selected that best suit the applicant’s commute route. The database regularly solicits an update; information can be updated at any time.

Another benefit of the web-based program is its ability to help identify interest and demand for a vanpool service in any given area.

Idaho’s existing RideShare Program also supports a subscription to Statewide Rideshare Software and the marketing of the same.

According to Division of Public Transportation Administrator Randy Kyrias, ITD is pleased with the interest in this program and notes that this demand “further emphasizes the need for coordination and the need to leverage community resources to ensure Idahoan’s mobility.” Applications will be assessed by the degree to which they meet customer service, coordination and connectivity objectives as outlined in the state’s strategic vision in Idaho’s Mobility and Access Pathway (IMAP). For more information about IMAP, go to: http://itd.idaho.gov/PublicTransportation/statewide_mobility_plan.htm.
Grants will be issued subsequent to that assessment.

For more information about RideshareOnline.com, contact Kirk Montgomery, ACHD Commuteride, (208) 387-6163 or Kmontgomery@achd.ada.id.us.

Salty Design Foundry Featured in HOW Magazine

Salty is excited to announce that two designs were recently published in HOW Magazine's Self Promotion Design Annual. The Gravity Anarchy catalog and the Long Story Short Coffee business card pieces are both featured. They could be found on page 67 in October's edition. This is huge for Salty, it isn't often that you see work from this area recognized at this level. The fight for good design continues. You can read more about it at Salty's blog : saltydf.blogspot.com.

Wood Art Show & Joe Simpson’s Paintings

The Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center
(at the old church in Post Falls)
4th Street at William Street
September 16 through October 10th, 2008

Featuring 19 different Wood Artists displaying works of wildlife, bowls, furniture, décor, carvings and many other interesting and wonderful pieces: Charlie Benson, Everett Best, Chris Billingslea, Can Chadwick, Jim Christiansen, Mary Dee & Allen Dodge, Russ Fairfield, Carl Herron, Dick Kurth, Greg Moffatt, Adam Olscamp, Jim Osmanski, Jerry Poindexter, Tom Reul, Rick and Fran Riddle, Ron Rock, Paul Rubero, Sterling Sanders, and the Coeur d’Alene School of Woodworking.

Painting by Jo Simpson are also featured. All pieces are for purchase and a special gallery reception -- where visitors can meet the Artists, view their works and partake of light refreshments and wine—will be held on the third Friday of the month, September 19 from 5 pm – 7 pm.

There is no charge for visiting the wood art show during normal gallery hours of 9:30 am – 2:30 pm, Monday through Friday, or by special appointment. There is also no charge for the special gallery reception, however donations are welcome and the JACC does receive a portion of the revenue from all purchases made during the duration of the show. (The Jacklin Arts & Cultural Center is a non-profit, 501 (c)(3), Promoting the Arts and Community. Questions may be directed to (208) 457-8950.

Learn about the Job Accommodation Network

Are your clients protected by The Americans with Disabilities Act? If so, mark your calendars!

Tuesday September 16th ~ 1:00-2:30 pm
Idaho Department of Labor 1221 W. Ironwood Drive #200
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho 83814

An informative chat for service providers with Bobby Ball, Executive Director of the Idaho Task Force on the Americans with Disabilities Act. Learn about J. A. N. (The Job Accommodation Network): A free consulting service designed to increase the employability of people with disabilities by:

1. providing worksite accommodation solutions,
2. providing technical assistance regarding the ADA,
3. educating about self employment options.

Sponsored by: Idaho Task Force on the Americans with Disabilities Act
Hosted by: Disability Action Center & Idaho Department of Labor

Please call for reservations 664-9896 (DAC)
or 769-1558 ext. 3996 (IDL)
Do YOU know their rights?