Sarah Centerwall, Author at Sunnyside Neighborhood Association

News From Sunnyside Environmental School (SES)

Though we didn’t have much of a winter, that was probably preferable for students on field studies. (Not to mention a good topic of conversation about climate change.) That being said, spring is now here, the flowers are beautiful, and the air smells sweet. SES has some great events coming your way this month, both indoors and out. Can’t wait to see you there!

2026 SES Gala and Auction 4/18 at Revolution Hall

Search your albums and memories for your best school picture from days long gone. This year, our Gala theme is School Picture Day. Think crisp collars, bold colors, and the outfit you begged to wear (and absolutely did). Expect vintage school vibes with a polished twist: hall passes, headshots, nostalgia, and just enough mischief to make your inner kid proud. This year, the SES Gala and Auction will be held at Revolution Hall on April 18, 2026 5:30-9:00 pm. This event is our largest fundraiser of the year. The funds raised ensure that SES can continue with our beloved gardening, field study, and Marine Biology programs.

If you aren’t up for a night out, you can always bid on the live auction from your sofa. There are always tons of fun items to bid on. The online auction runs from April 7–18.

Tickets are $35 – $110 sliding scale. This includes event entry, bidder number, one drink ticket, one school portrait, and dessert. Buy yours today to support SES and enjoy a fun evening!

You can find more information and the link to the tickets and live auction at instagram.com/ses_ptsa.

Hope to see you there!

4/10 Dolores Huerta Walk and Roll to School Day; Bike Fair

PBOT Safe Routes to School’s next community event is on April 10th with El Camino De Dolores Huerta Walk + Roll to School Day. Families can celebrate Huerta’s dedication to social justice by walking or rolling to school. Huerta, who still fights for immigrant and women’s rights, co-founded the United Farm Workers union with Cesar Chavez. She sees education as an important tool in the fight for equality. Let’s leave our cars in the driveway and join this fun way to celebrate social justice and the environment!

Earth Day Celebration 4/25, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m. starting and ending at SES

This year’s Earth Day celebration is a collaboration of Sunnyside Environmental School, Making Earth Cool, SOLVE, and 350PDX. It is a free, family-friendly event open to all. The day will be filled with fun activities including an Earth Parade and a costume contest. The event will start with activities at SES such as mask making, face painting and litter pick up. The Earth Parade will begin at 1 p.m. and will include giant puppets and marching bands! After the parade there will be a dance party with DJs PLNTDD and Cuica as well as a costume contest hosted by MC Blue Horse Grandmother and Ms. Frizzle. The best dressed will strut their stuff to see who the crowd chooses as a winner with the loudest cheers.

If you’d like more information go to makingearthcool.com to get the deets.

Fundraising Fridays 3:15–4 p.m.

Looking for a fun way to start off the weekend? Fundraising Fridays are back! Check out progress on the new outdoor classroom and support middle school Marine Biology trips on Friday afternoons by buying sweet treats and SES merch. Middle School students will be at the outdoor classroom every Friday from now until the end of the school selling this stuff. Fundraising Fridays allow middle school students to do their community service and raise money to support these yearly trips that make SES so special. The money earned helps the school ensure that every student can attend these amazing trips no matter their economic situation.

Have questions about SES? Email [email protected] and maybe I’ll answer them in a future column!

Critic’s Corner

“You knew I’d write a book about you someday. You said once that I’d dredged up the whole hit parade minus you. I’ll never know how you’d tell it. For me it begins here. Like this.”

So opens Lily King’s magnificent sixth novel, Heart the Lover. A companion of sorts to her previous book, Writers and Lovers, it returns to the same protagonist, centering on her time in college. The story begins when she meets Sam and his best friend Yash — two intellectuals whose world she becomes swept up in. They bestow her with the Gatsby-inspired nickname “Jordan,” and her senior year quickly becomes a tangle of witty banter, literary discussions, and a raucous card game from which the title originates.

In their company, friendship deepens as do her own intellectual ambitions. Jordan begins a romantic relationship with Sam, but slowly realizes that Yash, in all his fervor and offhand charm, embodies the kind of love she desires. Around its halfway mark, the novel skips in time, cloaking the aftermath of Jordan and Yash’s ardent, volatile relationship. The last act, fixated on a few days decades later, is a culmination of all that has been unresolved and misunderstood. Jordan, who feels so shaped by these boys, finally realizes how central she herself has been to their lives and story. She is forced to reckon with not just her own grief, but the role she has played in the emotional ecosystem the three have constructed.

King’s prose is immersive without being showy. It has a kneading quality — pressing into a moment, folding it back, testing the tension. The familiar elements of a collegiate love story are present, but they are handled with restraint. Nothing is strained or exaggerated for effect. Even at its most conventional, the novel never feels manipulative. The emotional pitch rises naturally from the characters’ limitations: what they fail to say, what they fail to see. While the novel has every chance to fall into cliche, King’s sincerity steers it away from being saccharine or melodramatic. A skillful writer, King handles both the heavier themes and the sweeter moments of her novel with finesse. Heart the Lover stands as an artificially constructed meditation on how people inevitably shape our lives, and how we, perhaps unconsciously, shape theirs.

This article was first published in The Franklin Post.

Mindful Media Tech Tip

My family loved the Sunday Parkways so much that every year we’d try to do all of them. As the years went by, I started to notice that our day-long bike rides—and even our family time at home—were getting interrupted by phones. Now that we carry around a device that allows us to bank, buy cat food, check our work email, get the latest news, and stay in touch with friends all over the world, it’s no surprise that constant productivity and connectedness is distracting. Checking our phone instead of being fully present with the people in front of us today is so common that there’s even a term for it—“Phubbing” (a combination of “phone” and “snubbing”).

Obviously, leaving phones at home or completely off during family time is a great option. But years ago, when I talked to my husband about minimizing phone interruptions during family time, he pointed out that he was running a business with employees that might need to reach him. He also had an elderly dad who was living alone and who might have an emergency. As nice as it sounds, for many of us being unreachable for six hours (or even two hours) is not an option.

When we can’t fully disconnect, how can we still give the people around us the attention they deserve, and be fully present for the moments that matter? Eventually, my family worked out a compromise that really works, and I invite you to try it too!

This month’s Mindful Media Tech Tip is called Real Life Live For 55. The basic idea is that phones are put away for 55 minutes of every hour. Here’s how it works: Before leaving on a family outing, one person collects everyone’s phone and stores them (ringers off) in a purse or backpack. Your family gets to enjoy 55 minutes of fun and connection with everyone fully present and undistracted. After 55 minutes, anyone who wants to can check their phone, for five minutes only. When five minutes are up, the phones are stored away for another 55 minutes and the pattern repeats every hour.

The first few times you try this, it can feel a little clunky and overly scripted, but here’s what I’ve found: five minutes of intentional phone checking every 55 minutes is a small price to pay for almost an hour of undistracted presence. Without a plan for intentional phone use, people tend to get pulled away by their phones randomly (and more frequently). No sooner has one person pocketed their phone and rejoined the conversation then someone else gets a text and drops out. With the average person checking their phone 186 times a day (or every five minutes of waking hours), it’s easy to wind up in a state of “continuous partial attention.”

Here’s why Real Life Live For 55 is an easy solution:

• For many people, it’s more realistic than completely disconnecting for several hours.

• Having only five minutes to check requires people to prioritize what’s
actually important, and leave everything else until later.

• For folks who have a harder time parting with their phone, knowing they
can check-in once an hour makes it easier for them to put it down for a while.

• It’s a workable compromise between family members who want everyone to fully disconnect, and family members who prefer to stay connected to their devices.

Great times to try Real Life Live For 55:

• Family time, in or out of the house
• At grandma’s house
• Date nights
• Spending time with the kids but still feeling pressure to get things done

Real Life Live For 55 isn’t just for families with kids. It’s a great option for couples, friends, co-workers, or any group of people that wants to create more time together undistracted by the constant pinging of our phones.

For more healthy screen time tips for families, go to the Printouts page of my website: mindful-media.net.