Leadership Eastside’s (LE) Class of 2010 shared its community project presentations at the Redmond campus of Lake Washington Technical College (LWTC) May 8.

LE is composed of business people and volunteers from Redmond, Kirkland, Bellevue, Bothell, Kenmore, Sammamish, Issaquah and other Eastside communities united in their enthusiasm to get connected, build leadership skills and make a difference.

The projects covered a range of grassroots issues, all oriented toward civic improvements/participation.

Striving to register voters, especially non-or-limited English speakers, was the VOTE project team of Lin Zhou, manager of corporate and continuing education at LWTC Redmond, Terry Claypool of the King County Library System and TJ Ginthner of Boeing. The group distributed “VOTE!” toolkits with supporting materials in English, Spanish/Portuguese, Mandarin, Hindi, Russian and Korean.

A Workforce Housing presentation featured Alice Chao and John Kaschko of Group Health Cooperative, Nancy Corning of the University of Washington, Kenmore’s Stacy Liedle of Centex Homes and other LE participants. The group described how organizations such as ARCH (A Regional Coalition for Housing) and Habitat for Humanity help low-income families achieve the dream of home ownership and combat NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard!”) prejudices from more affluent residents.

An Urban Farmers presentation praised organizations bringing that bring donations of fresh produce from private yards and community gardens to food banks. That project team included Bellevue’s Jason Popp, a Microsoft employee; Bothell’s Chris Bailey, representing Premera; Issaquah’s Jennifer Spall of Wal-Mart; and Sammamish resident Irmgard Tank of Boeing.

“Diverse Public Spaces — more third places in Eastside communities” addressed the need for gathering places such as farmers’ markets where people of all ages and cultures can comfortably mingle. Entertainment, educational opportunities and ethnic foods are ways to draw them in, as well as ample seating, access to public transportation and proximity to other resources, LE team members found.

LE project team members for P.E.P. (Philanthropy Experience Project) mentored teams that fundraised for a wide range of charitable and humanitarian causes. Examples included “Nothing But Nets,” in which Redmond High School students purchased 200 mosquito nets to prevent malaria in Africa; the Girls Group at Redmond’s Old Fire House Teen Center that provided safe drinking water for more than 100 children in Third World countries; a Keystone group from Bellevue’s Teen Center that gave toiletry kits to Tent City residents; and three girls from Redmond High School who did babysitting to buy water-purifying Life Straws for children in Africa.

Adults on LE’s P.E.P. Squad team included Tony Gee of Microsoft; Michael James of Symetra Financial, Mollie Purcell of City of Bellevue, Cindy Bezanson of The Boeing Company and Julie Metteer of the Kirkland Downtown Association.

To learn more about Leadership Eastside, visit www.leadershipeastside.com.