C-TRAN is proposing a five cent increase to most cash fares, and additional increases to monthly passes, effective Sept. 1. Details related to the proposal are available here. The deadline to comment is noon on Tuesday, April 10. The public can learn more by attending one of these open houses:

Tuesday, April 3
5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Fisher’s Landing Transit Center
Rose Besserman Room, second floor
3510 S.E. 164th Ave., Vancouver

Thursday, April 5
Vancouver Community Library
Klickitat Room, fourth floor
901 C St. in downtown Vancouver

Lou Brancaccio makes pizza.

Mike Gaston expects a big turn-out.

Camas Library goes to the movies.

Washington State University Vancouver is offering a Native American Film Series at 5:30 p.m. April 4 to 6 in the Dengerink Administration building, room 110. The series is free and open to the public. Each evening opens with a 30-minute guest lecture at 5:30 p.m., followed by the film screening at 6 p.m. Each film in the series addresses Native American experiences with boarding schools.

• Wednesday, April 4, Older Than America
  Georgina Lightning, the film’s director and actress, will speak before the screening. In this contemporary drama of suspense, a woman’s haunting visions reveal a sinister plot to silence her mother from speaking the truth about the atrocities that took place at her Native American boarding school.
• Thursday, April 5, Our Spirits Don’t Speak English: Indian Boarding School
  Jacqueline Peterson, WSU Vancouver professor emerita of history, will speak before the screening. This documentary uncovers the dark history of U.S. Government policy which took Indian children from their homes, forced them into boarding schools, and enacted a policy of educating them in Western ways.
• Friday, April 6, The Only Good Indian
  Grace L. Dillon, associate professor of indigenous nations studies at Portland State University, will speak before the screening. In this film, set in Kansas during the early 1900s, a teenaged Native American boy is taken from his family and forced to attend a distant Indian “training” school to assimilate into white society.

The film series is presented by the WSU History Club, the River Cities Anthropology Society, the Latina/o Student Association, the Native American Club, and the Diversity Council. For more information, call 360-546-9738. WSU Vancouver is located at 14204 N.E. Salmon Creek Ave. east of the 134th St. exit from either I-5 or I-205 and is accessible via bus.

No beans about it, “the coffee’s on” in Clark County Kiwanis Clubs. Division 44 clubs are selling Café Feminino, coffee grown by a coalition of African and Latin American women. Profits from the sales will be donated to UNICEF through the Kiwanis International initiative, the Eliminate Project. Kiwanis International and UNICEF  are joining forces to wipe out maternal and neonatal tetanus (MNT), which kills one baby every nine minutes, as well as a many women. To eliminate MNT, 129 million mothers and babies must be immunized. The sale of one bag of coffee by local Kiwanians will generate enough funds to purchase about two doses of the life-saving vaccine.

Rain Drop Roasters of Ridgefield obtains the African coffee beans and roasts them for Division 44 Kiwanis clubs, for a percentage-based fee. Each 8-oz. bag is decorated with custom labels that explain the Eliminate Project and the Clark County Kiwanis clubs’ involvement in it. Customers can choose whole bean or ground style, regular or decaffeinated. The fair trade, organic coffee is $10 a bag. The clubs plan to sell the rich-flavored coffee at community events. Individual club members are also selling it. To purchase coffee, call Linda Herrington at 360-574-3747 or Bruce Davis at 360-600-7486.