The new Tacoma Narrows bridge may have gone dark, but the effort to light it has not. Volunteers at NarrowsBridgeLights.org are waiting for approval as a nonprofit agency. With that, they can use a $1.5 million state grant to hang 8-foot LED tubes at 40-foot intervals across the bridge. The low-energy lights can be programmed to display any color the eye can see.

Meanwhile, the team is lining up partners to host solar arrays that will plug into the electrical grid and power the lights.

They had hoped to have the lights up in time to welcome the Tall Ships in July, said Desa Gese Conniff, but that’s out. Look for them this winter.

Betty Wani may be closer to having her family join her.

Wani, 20, was born in Sudan and landed in Uganda as a refugee. Her father brought her to Covington in 2004 to live with two young half brothers and a stepmother. In 2005, he killed his wife and himself.

A relative, Margaret Nalonga, brought Wani and the boys into her Parkland home. She supported Wani’s determination to graduate with honors from Kentlake High School.

Wani is attending Tacoma Community College on a Governor’s Scholarship and works part-time at Swan Creek Library. Three days a week, she’s up early to take the little boys to day care. She studies hard, helps around the house and misses her mom and four siblings, who are in a Ugandan refugee camp.

Though Wani knows a great deal about being a refugee, she knows nothing of immigration law. She filed a $1,777 application to bring her family over, only to have it turned down.

Since then, dozens of you have stepped up to help. An immigration lawyer is working on her case at no cost. A Tacoma family has offered financial support.

Grace Scartaccini, Wani’s caseworker at Pierce County Alliance, is hoping to find a church whose members will help sponsor Jesika Poni Wani and her four children. Now she, like Betty Wani, is optimistic.

“The overwhelming support from the community has just been so positive,” Scartaccini said.

“It will happen,” Betty Wani said of her efforts to reunite her family. “It is part of God’s plan.”

Matthew Simmons continues to battle the mystery illness that has attacked his lungs and weakened his immune system. But friends are easing his family’s financial burden.

Simmons worked as an emergency medical technician and volunteered with the Riverside Volunteer Fire Department until the disease struck. Since then, he has developed pulmonary fibrosis. He’ll eventually need a lung transplant.

Though generous readers have offered plane tickets to Denver, where Simmons hopes to get a diagnosis at National Jewish Medical Center, he has not been well enough to travel. The father of three has spent the past month in St. Joseph Hospital.

Though the family now has state assistance and medical coverage, they have about $100,000 in uncovered bills, said Simmons’ wife, Michelle.

Firefighter friends have earned $6,000 through karaoke and car washes. First Baptist Church of Lakewood raised $2,000 with a concert by Out of Thyme. Friends and strangers have been donating to the Matthew Simmons fund at Wells Fargo banks.

Now it’s your turn to help, if you like auctions and spaghetti.

Tacoma Firefighters Local 31 is planning a spaghetti dinner and auction May 10 at its union hall, 1109 S. 50th St. Dinner will be at 3 p.m., and tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for kids 12 and younger. For information, go to www.unitedfff.org or call Ed Gorre at 206-550-5158.

“We just want everybody who has offered love and support to us to know how much they are appreciated,” Michelle Simmons said. “We have special thanks for co-workers and all the fire departments who are helping. We could not do this without them.”

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677

kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com

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