BEV THOMPSON, OWNER of Eastside Harley-Davidson, lives on Lake Sammamish and has a thing for pink flamingos. She also has a thing about helping breast cancer patients.
So does Federal Way's Barbara Purdom, a breast cancer survivor who volunteers with Angel Care Breast Cancer Foundation, an organization that provides emotional support for the newly diagnosed.
If you pick up a copy of the organization's 2009 calendar, you'll find a picture of Purdom -- discreetly photographed but sans everything but angel wings -- in Thompson's pink flamingo paddleboat.
Purdom's one of a dozen breast cancer survivors featured in the 2009 calendar, the seventh edition. (The first year, CBS flew a camera crew in and featured the "angels" on "The Early Show.")
About 23,000 calendars have been sold since the project began.
Redmond's Jan Harris, a 15-year breast cancer survivor, launched Angel Care in 1997 with just two volunteers. She now has 33 in the Puget Sound area and nine in Boise.
"It's about being a positive role model in a time of need," says Harris.
The calendars, priced at $15, go on sale Oct. 2 at Parkplace Books in Kirkland. To order, call 877-417-3484 or download an order form at www.angelcarefoundation.org.True love's ways
They met in junior high in Spokane and dated for six months in high school. Then, Melissa Sanders and Andrew Morrison, both now 25, went their separate ways.
She moved to California, he to Seattle.
For six years, they weren't in contact. Then, in the summer of 2004, he found an old e-mail address and sent her a message.
Four years later, Morrison is a public defender in Tacoma, Sanders works for Children's Services in Bremerton, and they will exchange vows at St. James Cathedral on Saturday.
But first, they have a promise to keep. That morning, they'll take part in St. Vincent de Paul's Friends of the Poor Walk at Kennedy High School in Burien.
Sanders will wear her veil. Morrison will wear a "tux" T-shirt.
Call it an act of another kind of love. Two years ago the couple began making in-home visits to needy Seattle residents on behalf of St. Vincent de Paul, writing vouchers for groceries, rent and clothing help.
When she realized the walk was on her wedding day, Sanders didn't hesitate. "The general consensus was that we were crazy," Morrison says. "People said, 'You can take a day off.' "
One last thing: Their reception is scheduled at the restaurant run by FareStart, an organization that provides food training programs for the homeless and disadvantaged.The snowboard connection
It happened at Roosevelt High School. Nate Moxley, mixed up with the wrong crowd, was smoking dope -- and selling a little on the side.
Then, he got busted, yanked out of class and "paraded through the school in handcuffs," he says. Kicked out of the Seattle district, he enrolled at Tukwila's Foster High for a semester before re-entering the Seattle schools, first Garfield, then Roosevelt.
At Garfield, he spotted a flier offering free snowboarding and signed up.
"I knew there was a catch," he says with a laugh. "The catch was community service."
Moxley, now a 32-year-old college graduate, still is involved in the program, called the Service Board.
Only now he's the director.
And the organization, which has program sites in White Center and Seattle, still connects kids with community service by inviting them to go snowboarding.
"The Service Board awakened in me a sense of giving back," says Moxley, who spent a year in AmeriCorps before going to Western Washington University and volunteering with a Native American mentoring program while in college. "To do for others gives a sense of being connected to something bigger than yourself."
The organization's annual fundraiser, "An Evening in Havana II," is scheduled Thursday at the Havana Club in Seattle. For tickets, go to www.brownbagtickets.com.
For information on how to donate or get involved, go to www.theserviceboard.org.
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