P R IN T : Arts& Culture
Wednesday, Oct 24,2012
»Jfr g
H.O.P.E. helps
the hungry
Luke Frank
Associate Arts & Culture
Have you ever had to skip a
meal to pay for bills, rent, gas or
some other necessity? Well, there’s
H.O.P.E. for you.
H.O.P.E. is an acronym for
Helping Other People Eat and is
an Oregon Food Bank supported
program run by five churches in the
area that will give you food if you
qualify and have the need. All you
have to do is show up, show your
ID, show a rent receipt or utility
bill showing your current address
and once a week they will give you
a food box, the amount based on
family size, that will feed you nutri
tionally balanced meals for three
days. They also have thrown in the
consideration o f toilet paper.
For those without identification
or proof o f residence, you can still
show up and they will take ybur
word for it. H.O.P.E. will make sure
that you don’t go hungry, they don’t
turn people away.
“I’ve been there before, too, and
I didn’t know that this was avail
able to me and I would like to
have known,” said Kelly Stewart
who works with the Oregon City
H.O.P.E. program.
“When you think you have
enough packed, you have a bunch
o f people come in and you’re like,
‘Ahh! ’ We need to start repackaging
boxes again,” said Stewart o f the
demand.
“The need is great” said Ron
Schlosser, master gardener in
charge o f the garden at United
Methodist Church, one o f the five
churches participating in H.O.P.E.
The beautifully maintained garden
uses a raised bed technique and
has so far produced about 1,700
pounds o f food for the church pan-
tries. Schlosser and his six or so
volunteers grow com, potatoes,
green beans, carrots, tomatoes, vari
ous species o f peppers, sunflowers,
green onions, lettuce, spinach, cel
ery, sweet peas and basil.
The garden is in its third year
and has almost doubled in size
Kelly Stewart volunteers at The United Methodist Church, going through
boxes that have been donated to the helpful program.
Bob, turning 90 next month, and Grace, 94, have volunteered at The United Methodist Church fo r 25 years.
The couple moved to West Linn in 1955, and moved into a retirement home in 1993 where they currently reside.
since it was originally planted.
Schlosser instituted Plant a Row
for the Hungry, an initiative started
by The Garden Writers Association
in 1995. The concept is for garden
ers to grow just one more row of
vegetables and donate the produce
to local homeless shelters and com
munity programs like H.O.P.E.
“Grow an extra row to donate
to a food pantry,” said Schlosser.
“The idea is to grow vegetables that
don’t require much refrigeration.
Small operations such as ours can’t
afford to refrigerate large quantities
o f vegetables.”
“It’s amazing,” said Rynn
Mazur, a volunteer for the last year
with the United Methodist Church’s
H.O.P.E. program. “This church has
a garden and we provide produce
for many o f the churches.”
The United Methodist Church
is the second smallest o f the five
churches involved in Oregon City
H.O.P.E. Serving about 25 to 30
families a week with the typical
family size being four, that’s 120
people fed on average.
Most o f the food comes from
the Oregon Food Bank and much o f
that is provided by the federal gov
ernment. The partners at H.O.P.E.
get some o f their food for free and
some o f it is bought by the churches
at five cents a pound. The bread is
donated by various stores across the
city and a lot o f the extra cans of
food are donated by reaching out to
schools and the public.
“Sometimes . we have food
drives,” said Mazur. “The schools
donate quite a bit of canned food
from food drives.”
“We haven’t missed a week in
all this time,” said volunteer Bob
Dichtel o f he and his wife Grace’s
25 years o f dedicated service to the
church.
“We want to help people,” said
Grace Ditchel as they left arm in
ami.
The Dichtels are the kind o f peo
ple who H.O.P.E. truly appreciates.
H.O.P.E. is almost completely
run by volunteers and is urging
for help in feeding the people of
this city. They accept donations
o f clothes, canned goods, plastic
bags and whatever else that can be
put into use to help others. If you
want to help the hungry and needy,
you can also donate to the Oregon
Food Bank. It may be a neighbor, a
friend or even a family who needs
your help and every little bit goes
a long way. For more information
visit www.oregonfoodbank.org.
Oregon CityH.OJP.E.
. weekly locations,
dates and times:
Mon. - Church o f Nazarene at
716 Taylor Street, from 6:30 p.m.
to 8:30 p.m.
Tue. - First Presbyterian Church
at 1321 Linn Avenue, from 1 p.m.
to 4 p.m.
Wed. - Oregon City United
M ethodist Church at 18955 South
End Road, from 1 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.
Thurs. - St John the Apostle
Catholic Church at 417
Washington Street, from 4 p.m. to
5 p.m.
Fri. - First Baptist Church o f
Oregon at 819 John Adams Street,
from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.
E xcitem en t burns for new kiln
Chris Morrow
The Clackamas Print
C lack am as
C om m unity
College has purchased a new,
computer controlled gas kiln cost
ing an estimated $25,000 from
the school’s capital reserves. The
new kiln will be replacing the
kiln that has been with CCC for
nearly 11 years which is rife
with malfunctions, hazards and
the scars o f age.
“The kiln that we have now
has been repaired many times, our
whole burner system needs to be
replaced,” stated Nora Brodnicki,
art departm ent chair and a
ceramics instructor in an email.
Maintaining the old kiln and
replacing its components is not
a simple task, according to Kelly
Kate Simmons points out the signs o f age in the old kiln; loose bricks
in the ceiling have begun to slide down and separate from the rest.
<X>
■
â
WEDNESDAY-W/24
co
.’st-
CM
o x
CD
o£ |£| JO
CO
a*
5 «
e
«
O
• Oregon
Shakespeare
Festival: Ashland;
Times Vary, $21 -
$82.50 Non-member,
$21 - $62.63
Member (through
Nov. 4)
THURSDAY-10/25
• Tales from
Beyond the
Grave: Oswego
Heritage House,
Lake Oswego, 7
p.m., Free, ADULTS
ONLY
White, the administrative assis
tant for the art, theater and digi
tal multimedia communications
departments.
“There is only one per
son in the Portland Metro-area
who was skilled enough to
repair the old kiln and he had
to build any parts that needed
to be replaced,” stated White.
“It is a huge time commit
ment to get a good firing. This
new kiln will autom ate much
o f the process. This will help to
keep the energy costs down,”
stated White in an email.
The old kiln displays obvi
ous signs o f deterioration. The
bricks in the ceiling o f the kiln
are loosening and the door is no
longer sealing properly and has
to be plugged up w ith bricks.
The gaps around those bricks
allow for a substantial loss o f
heat. The electronic mechanism
for lighting the kiln does not
w ork reliably so it often needs
to be lit manually w ith a propane
torch which can be dangerous.
“Sometimes the pilot light
doesn’t stay lit throughout the
evening,” said Kate Simmons,
studio technician for the art
FRIDAY -10/26 X
- • Sinatra Fest
2012: Tony
Starlight's, Portland
(Oct. 26 - Oct. 28}
• I Digress:
Buffalo Gap Saloon,
Portland 9 p.m.
SA TU R D A Y -1 ® /2 !
• PDX Zombie
Walk: OMSl
overflow parking,
Portland, Free,
10 a.m.
• All Time Low:
Hawthorne Theatre,
Portland 6 p.m.
$20-$23
department, sculpting instructor
and gallery instructor. “You come
in and you expect the kiln to be at a
particular temperature, like 1,400
degrees or so and it isn’t because
it hasn’t been- burning all night.
That sets you back a whole day.”
According to Simmons, fir
ing ceramics isn’t ju st art, it is
a complicated science. Glazes
m ust be carefully
form u
lated in order to produce the
desired results and the firing
process is closely monitored.
“Each glaze reacts to the
temperature in its own w ay and
w e’ve done a lot o f testing o f dif
ferent glazes to decide what kind
w e’d like to make available to our
students, which glazes are reli
able and not going to run, which
o f them show the colors that we
think they’re going to show, how
they behave when they’re next
to another ceramic object with
different colorants in it,” said
Simmons. “With the old kiln the
reduction firing process needs to
be watched hourly to see if w e’re
climbing too fast or if w e’re stay
ing at a particular temperature.
The new kiln will be program
mable so w e’ll be able to set
’ SUNDAY-10/28
• Chin Up Rocky:
Branx, Portland 6 45
p.m. $8
• All American
Rejects: Crystal
Ballroom, Portland 8
p.m. $25-$28
in the temperature increases and
decreases that w e’re looking for.”
The new kiln is commercial
ly manufactured by Geil Kilns;
the parts, if and when they need
to be repaired or replaced, will
be relatively easy to obtain.
Also, L tanks to the computer
ized control system, the firing
process will be easier and safer.
The kiln has been spe
cially selected by B rodnicki
and is the same kind employed
by
P ortland
C om m unity
College campuses at Sylvania,
82nd Avenue and Cascade.
“All o f our PCC counterparts
agreed that Geil kilns are safe,
efficient, easy to use and main
tain,” states Brodnicki. “The com
puter system on this kiln will help
us to save energy and run our kiln
with greater energy efficiency.”
Campus Services w ill be
dism antling the old kiln in
order to clear a spot for the
new kiln which has yet to be
rem oved from its packaging.
“Since we ju st got it, I have
the [instructional] DVD and
I plan on sitting down and
watching that,” said Simmons.
MONDAY W/29
TUESDAY-10/30
• The Toadies:
Crystal Ballroom
Portland, 8 p.m., $20
• Waka Flocka
Flane: Roseland
Theater, Portland, 8
p.m., $25