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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 2, 1986)
Local VISTA workers help solve community problems By Tom Hill Of Ih* KnwralH Groups try inn to solve com* munity problems are often Ion# on enthusiasm but short on knowing how to proceed. Help ing groups like these get started is the aim of the Lane County VISTA Project. VISTA stands for Volunteers In Service To America. The VISTA office, located at the Eugene Family YMCA at 2055 Patterson St.. is part of a federal program established in 1964 to combat poverty. Each VISTA worker serves for at least one year. lane County VISTA, one of 16 in Oregon and alniut 500 across the country, matches : VISTA workers with public and private non-profit; groups needing guidance. Kathy Ask. the project's director, said the VISTA workers’ Jobs are not to participate in the. groups', actual projects, but to help the groups organize .and implement their plans. The idea is to help the groups become self-sufficient, she said. ' She compared the relation ship to a parent with a child who does not know how to tie his or her shoelaces. "It 's'a heck of a lot faster just . / to tie. them:yourself.-, but you don't want to do. that all* the • time I>ocause.yoO don’t want to lie tying their shoes' for them ' when they're A teen-ager.”' The temptation to biaome in volved in the nuts arid boltsOf programs js strong and can decrease the VIST A workers' ef fectiveness, she said. Idealism and energy are im portant for the workers, Ask said. They work at least 40 hours a week and are always considered on call, she said. In addition, they must be good communicators and listeners, must be well-organized, and above all, must be "people per sons.” she said. And they should not be too concerned with getting rich, she said. The workers are paid $405 a month. Although a large part of her job involves dealing with mun dane matters such as paper work. Ask said the more en joyable side is giving technical help to the pregram workers. . Ask said, she is disappointed at dwindling budgets and fading support for the National VISTA program .within the Keagan administration. The ad-' ministration tried to phase o.ut . VISTA but the action was block ed by Congress, she said/ Even so. funding/leyels arid the numlxtr of program workers have dropped recently. For ex-, ample, 5,000 people applied .for VISTA jobs in log 1. compared to a projected 2.500 for - fiscal year l«M7v ‘. . , "It's frustrating.” shesaid !‘l : think VlSTA is one. of th,e most cos I - e If e ci i y fe- prog rtf m s areu nd .*'■.• ’• .' / ■ / • ■ ’ • The Lane County VISTA.Pro ject has an annual budget of about $ir>.do(). Ask said. Two people work id the office; Ask . a Ihree-quar}er t ime emplovee. and a part-time clerical worker. If the office received riuire funds. Ask said she would like her position to become full time and would like to extend VISTA services into rural areas such as Oakridge and the McKenzie River area. Some examples of local groups and programs VISTA has worked with include: •Senior Wheels: a transporta tion service for senior citizens in Cottage Grove. •Organically Grown Inc.: a farmer's marketing cooperative in Eugene. • " •The Patterson Pre-school Cooperative: a parent-run day care center. •The Lane County Relief Nursery: a month-old program that helps parents learn dhild raising techniques to.curb child abuse: " ■" .';' •v.. •Parents Anonymous: a discus sion group for parents who have abused their children or fear they may. . • . . •W omens pace: a shelter, for bat tered. women arid their children that encourages the: women tp support themselves after .they . leave the shelter: . •. • ’ One point Of agreement is that ’the'VISTA worker’s job is not" si mply To 'do th i’ngs‘for people. The ,w p r k-e r v h e l-pM n. g Worm; ns pace,'. Pamlynn Pegg, said .''"This" is nipt a Case, where . the' VISTA, (worker) .comes in . .and’ solves people’ s", problems for them.’-- • . • >. .. ' . 'Womenspace director • Ann Tryk said. ''We learned long* ago that doing tilings for people .does little for them" in (be long run. . ", Pegg said one of her biggest challenges is keeping the members of the group interested in contributing their efforts. “Everyone would like to do it. but they find reasons not to.” she said. “They don't feel good enough about themselves to volunteer.” Pegg admitted the low pay workers receive sometimes causes financial problems, but said she never questions whether the job is worth it.. Lee Pettigrew, a VISTA worker for Parents Anonymous, said many factors offset the low pay. Among these are job satisfaction, medical and dental benefits, the chance to learn about how the community works and the chance to help build a project from the ground up, Pettigrew said. VISTA workers also receive federal job credit, which means they move to the top of the list for any federal job they are qualified for, she said. Witch Continued from Page 4A about why she identifies with witchcraft. ‘!I guess H'* the sense that th« world is being snttn as alive. It was the sense of being an isolated kid in the country and 1 could go outside and had like I was communing with whatever was out there." she says. «■ This connection to nature is at the heart of witchcraft, she says. Queen explains that many who call'themselves witches say they could talk to animals who would approach She admits there's no. way to make it sound not trite, but the feelingthat everything is interconnected and One makes anything possible. “If I’m interconnected with the natural world, then yeah, I can communicate with things." she says. "Witchcraft says everything is sacred, which is analogous to the Native American belief that the earth is sacred and holy.” she says. Queen says that because of this, many en vironmentalists are drawn to witchcraft. "The highest (Milling of witchcraft is Karth because she's the goddess," Queen says. "You don't go around profaning Cod and you don't profane the goddess." Queen says witches will often get together and focus on healing the world, on peace or on "stopping that nuclear power plant from going up." Also, Queen says that many feminists are drawn to witchcraft because the major religious image is the goddess VVomenare'ableto get a "sense of validat ion’.' that is not available in other religions, like Christianity, where the ministry was all-male until recently, she says. •The large number ofdesbians associated with witchcraft. — one coven in'Kugene is made up of all lesbians -—.is a somewhat recent development. Queen says.. ' •, ■; •’ -. •> ••'. V . ' "This i* pirtly _becaUse"only in the last 10 years has there boon an organized gay and lesbian movement.” she says.o She s«h*s these tools as merely props but they are used as a means ‘to get down'real far into the collective unconscious." Queen now uses holy days like the summer and winter .solstices to. celebrate her religious community and devotion to the goddesses, but this Wasn't always so. “Before, I was real skeptical about all the spiritual shit. 1 knew I liked everything I knew in tellectually about witchcraft Hut people dancing around the fin? and singing to goddesses, come on!” she says. “I finally decided to do it. There's no ex plaining it — I can go around and say I'm con nected to the rest of the world, but it wasn’t until I did the rituals that 1 felt it as a real presence.” she says. MEDICAL SCHOOL APPLICANTS IMUSM CUUU m the Dan madical canter of in* Amencil Ml* coamopowan San jot# Coala R<a F»iat>i'»nad nonprofit univaraity madical achool Ml curriculum including a» chnicaia ovai 2 500 bad modarn madical center American atyiad curriculum limited opening* tor North Americans Laaaa avatloM*. My olaaaaa mm Mag MM. 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