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About Columbia Gorge news. (The Dalles, OR) 2020-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 2020)
Columbia Gorge News HoodRiverNews.com • TheDallesChronicle.com • WhiteSalmonEnterprise.com Wednesday,September2,2020 13 HR Rotarians take shifts as food bank volunteers ■ By Kirby Neumann-Rea Columbia River Gorge Throughout the Gorge, individuals and organiza- tions have stepped up to help non-profits meet COVID pandemic needs by signing up or organizing volunteer service and other outreach efforts. One example is the Hood River Rotary Club, which has emerged as a steady cadre at Hood River FISH headquar- ters several times a week, greeting food bank clients and bringing food to their cars. At FISH, volunteers with clipboards take food orders from clients and other vol- unteers assemble the baskets and return them to cars. The process is safe and straight- forward, but it depends on a regular crew of volunteers who know the system and can be there when the clients arrive. Rotarian Paul Crowley has taken the lead in the club’s participation at FISH. In an email, Crowley said that in the middle of March, when the pandemic was just starting to be real, Rotary President Emily Curtis reached out to Rotarians asking how the club might help the community through this difficult time. Within about an hour, at Rosauers, Crowley ran into FISH Treasurer Becky Bugge, who is also a former co-work- er of Crowley’s. “I asked Becky if there was some way Rotary could assist at FISH. She almost started to cry,” Crowley said. FISH’s Board of Directors had just met and determined that their core group of faith- based volunteers are general- ly of an age that places them at high risk from the virus. FISH needed to temporarily change a large part of its volunteer base. “I sent an email out to Rotarians asking them to help. To date, about 20 Rotarians have volunteered,” Crowley said. The team cov- ers three shifts a week. “When we first started this project a lot of Rotarians, too many Rotarians, showed up,” Crowley said. “In short order, our group whittled down to the core group. “As we began, we were all thinking that we would done in maybe eight weeks. As we all now know, we’re really still in the first stage of the virus,” he said. Twenty-two weeks later, the team has covered 66 shifts. The following Rotary- connected volunteers have participated consistently since the beginning: Doug Campbell, Crowley, Adrienne Davies, Julie Gilbert, David Meriwether, Dale Price, John Estes, and Terri and John Vann. “No one understood what we were getting into when this started. We were thinking that things would return to some level of normalcy after about eight weeks,” Crowley said. “That didn’t happen. We recently met and reassessed our commitment. As a group we’ve agreed to stick it out until FISH can re-engage its regular volunteer base. “It’s been rewarding work,” Crowley said. “We’re pleased to have an opportunity to live the Rotary motto: Service Above Self.” For anyone interested in volunteering, Crowley points out that it’s safe, since volunteers operate under a strictly-enforced safety pro- tocol. Volunteers wear gloves and masks, and all recipients are served in their cars — for now FISH has had to change from its model of letting Julie Gilbert stocks the shelves in the FISH food bank; the shelves and coolers are designed for self-service marketing, but that model had to be set aside due to COVID concerns. Kirby Neumann-Rea photos clients do their individual marketing. Clients are also required to wear masks and if they don’t have one, they are immediately given one. The shopping carts, handled only by volunteers, are sanitized after every delivery. Non-perishable food items, or monetary donations are always accepted. For dona- tion details, and hours and locations of the four Hood River food banks, go to fish- food-bank.com. Dale Price takes an order from a client. Behind him is Marianne Durkan, FISH board president. Price, like all volunteers, wears a mask as he works, so he wears an unmasked photo of himself so people can see his full face. Above left, Rotarians Paul Crowley, right, and John Estes make contact-free food deliveries to clients in their cars. 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