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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