Young Reporters sharing news stories form their neighborhoods

In the May 21 issue of The Northern Light, we offered local kids the following newsroom assignment:  In each neighborhood and community, interesting things are happening. Maybe a neighbor dog had puppies, or maybe there was a birthday parade on your street or maybe you have a funny story that happened to your family. Choose a news story you would like to share.

When writing the story, remember to answer the 5Ws: Where, When, Who, What and Why. Be sure to ask permission to share the story from those folks referenced in the story.

Here are the winning submissions from Assignment #6. Congratulations to our winners! For details about our Young Reporters series and the next assignment, scroll to the bottom of this page. 

Video chats and eruptions

By Carrie Balback, age 10

ovid-19, but the good news is we get to spend more time with our family. I have been hanging out with some of my family members on video chat. It has caused us all to do things differently. We are so grateful that stores are still open and that Blaine school district is handing out lunches to bus stops and local places in Blaine and Birch Bay.

It’s great to hear that people are helping the community by mowing lawns, weeding, donating food, and writing letters to stores to tell them that we appreciate all that they are doing. We appreciate all the work everyone is doing and hope we continue after the pandemic too.

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Mount St. Helens’ eruption, some of the fourth grade Blaine elementary school students did a pop explosion using soda pop and Mentos candies, and most of them went super high, and we all did it at our own homes before and during a video chat with our teacher on May 18. We videoed mine in slow motion!

My neighbors and I have been taking turns on the road to ride bikes or play basketball. I have been taking care and playing with my rabbit, Rocky, for entertainment.

Thank you so much to everyone for staying home, staying safe, and staying healthy.

The Golden Birthday

By Kaatri Glanzer, age 14

The stay-at-home rule makes for interesting birthdays for some people. I had my birthday back in March, before things were closed down, but my older sister’s was only a couple weeks ago in May. We didn’t have a car parade because we live on a very steep hill, but we did our best to make her golden birthday (she turned fifteen on the fifteenth) one to remember.

It was a Friday so we still had to do our schoolwork but, nevertheless, we had a delicious breakfast of cinnamon French toast and sausages. As we dived into our classes, there was a knock at our door. One of the families we are very good friends with had come to deliver a box of donuts and birthday cards! We talked for a while from our porch before they drove off. We just had breakfast so we saved them for later, as a snack. But that was only the start of a whole lot of fun!

In the afternoon after lunch and schoolwork, there was another knock but from our back door. Our neighbors had brought a huge bag of chips, gummy bears and red licorice! How much more exciting could this day get?

Even more exciting apparently, at around three in the afternoon, our grandmother came through our backyard with tie-dye supplies. We added tye-dying to the list of fun things we did that day. We spent two hours folding and wrapping rubber bands around plain white t-shirts and then covering them in dye. We still had to wait for another six hours before we could unfold them and see how they turned out.

In that time we ate donuts, opened dozens of cards, and snacked on Harry Potter cookies one of my teachers, Mrs. Czesak, had made for the whole family. You would not believe how many cards my sister received. There were some from as far as Yakima! Later that evening, we snuggled in to watch the 2014 Annie, which is my sister’s favorite movie. We ended her golden birthday with some good laughs as a family.