COINS FOR CACHE FINDERS
Casey Sims bolds the screen print design for the T-shirts that will be awarded to those who find the three caches at the Oregon City campus.
STORY AND PHOTOS BY SHAYLYN STRUNA
You don’ t have to be a pirate to go treasure hunting.
On Saturday, May 21, Casey Sim s, a counselor at CCC,
will be hosting a geocaching event. This event has been
18 months in the m aking. Bringing together different
departments at the college, this project has been very
elaborate.
“ It’s a high-tech treasure hunt played worldwide with
millions of people, and millions of hidden caches,” said
Sim s. A cache is some sort of container hidden with
items inside.
Sims first had the idea of a geocaching event about
a year and a half ago. He first had to apply for a mini
grant. The CCC Foundation really liked the idea o f a
geocaching event.
Vicki Sm ith, the Interim Executive Director o f the
Foundation, said, “ The Foundation really likes to see a
lot of partnerships within the college. It’s a way to really
include the community to get community members on
cam pus.”
There will be three caches at the Oregon City campus
and one cache each at the Harmony and W ilsonville
campus. Sim s will be set up in Gregory Forum at the
OC campus at 11 a.m . on the day of the event to hand
out passports.
A fter you have the passport, you will use the app,
called Geocaching, to find the GPS coordinates, or you
can look online at geocaching.com. The app is free and
available to Android and Apple users. You will follow
the coordinates to get to the general area, and then be
given clues to find the cache.
Once the cache is found, you will find a piece of metal
8 (Mamas Print MAY 18.2016 thedadamasprintcom
with a word on it. You put in under the paper in your
passport and rub a pencil over it to etch the code onto
your paper. Lori Hall, the public information officer at
CCC, had the idea to use the rubbing instead of a code
to discourage cheating in the gam e. Sh e’ s also had
experience with geocaching.
“ So we had one, we put a little statue w ith it and
said it likes being near water. People had brought it to
waterfalls in Oregon. And then all of a sudden it ended
up in Germany, it went to Saudi Arabia, it went to Egypt,-
it went all over the world,” said Hall.
The caches w ill be preloaded w ith trinkets. It is
suggested to bring your own treasures to leave for other
to find.
The first 200 people to find and log all five caches will
get a coin that’ s being manufactured for this project.
The prize for finding the three caches at the OC campus
is a free T-shirt.
C h arles L etten m aier is in the m an u factu rin g
departm ent and was recruited by Sim s to produce
the coins. Jo h n Phelps, a w elding instructor here at
Clackamas, was asked to help make the caches.
Kevin Anspach from creative services has been involved
in the design of this project. He created the custom event
logo. Many other people from CCC have been involved
in the creation o f this event.
The geocaching event will run through summer and
finish sometime in the fall. If by chance, you happen to
fall in love with the game, don’ t worry. There are plenty
o f local caches waiting to be found.
“ A nyone can hide a cache and lo g it in to the
system, as long as it meets their [the geocaching app]
requirem ents,” said H all. “ A lot o f the tim e, you’re
gonna see something cool that you’ve never seen, some
of the caches aren’t actually a box, it’ s a view or a unique
location you might not normally see.”
Sims is really proud of the work that has been done
and hopes to impress and fill the community with all
the fun that this project will bring.
Sims said, “ I’m so full of gratitude, it inspired me to
try to do something different and go beyond. ”
T h e se c o in s w ill b e a w a rd e d to th o s e w h o fin d an d
lo g a ll fiv e c a c h e s a t th e th re e ca m p u s lo c a tio n s.