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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 3, 2017)
BAGE A12, KEIZERTIMES, FEBRUARY 3, 2017 Tix on sale for Cherry IHN, Blossom Theatre Fest continued from Page A1 The Salem Theatre Network will be hosting the Cherry Blossom Theatre Festival, a city-wide event in downtown Salem March 17 through 19. The festival will feature 20 performances, fi ve workshops, six of Salem’s downtown theatre venues, exclusive wine and beer tasting, and passports and prizes. A one act competition will feature performers from Beaver- ton Civic Theater, Gallery Theater and Pentacle Theater. Four area theater companies, including Keizer Homegrown Theater, have performances slated. Workshop topics include acing audi- tions, tools for devised performances, directing actors, nailing mass auditions and body awareness on the stage. A River City Rock Academy performance will close out the weekend. Passes for the entire weekend are available to purchase at sa- lemtheaternetwork.org. There are discount passes for students with a special educational track, and there are VIP passes for adults with wine and beer tastings. SALEM landlord and we need more of those.” IHN receives federal Hous- ing and Urban Development grants to help homeless families get back on their feet. Execu- tive Director TJ Putman said the organization has a 96 per- cent success rate in transition- ing families to more stable liv- ing environments. Each week, an IHN church opens up its doors to homeless families who eat dinner, spend the evening there and then have breakfast before returning to the IHN day site in west Sa- lem to prepare for school and work. Keizer’s Salem Menno- nite Church and Church of Je- RV SHOW SUPER SALE sus Christ of Latter Day Saints are supporting congregations, but do not host. Families must have children to be part of the program. As families progress through IHN’s continuum of care, they can eventually qualify for hous- ing assistance that covers securi- ty deposits and assists with rent payment. The families them- selves contribute a minimum of $50 and as much as a third of their income depending on their resources. It costs about $3,500 per family to make the leap from homelessness to their own living space. While federal grants pay for some of the most essential aspects of the program, volun- teers at each church supply the backbone that makes it possible. St. Edward has been host- ing families for 17 years, and three of the present-day volun- teers, Corky and Letha Caron and Mary Hancock, have been there from the start. AT THE OREGON STATE FAIRGROUNDS Thursday thru Sunday NEXT WEEKEND! FEB. 9 – 12 ALL THE TOP BRANDS! YOUR FULL SERVICE RV DEALER SINCE 1969 trailer sales JUST WEST OF I-5 • 3282 Silverton Rd NE - Salem 503 .585.7713 - wagersrvs.com KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald Corky Caron fi xes a plate of food for an IHN visitor at St. Ed- ward Catholic Church. “One of the fi rst things we did was an exercise where we had $800 and we had to fi gure out how we would budget and live our lives. It really got us thinking,” Letha said. The program was quite a bit different then, families in need didn’t yet have all the services the program now offers, but much of it hasn’t changed. Before families arrive, Corky and Letha help move the beds and furniture from the previous church to St. Edward and then set up living spaces for the fam- ilies in four classrooms where the families will stay. “That’s one of the things that’s different with St. Edward. Each family has their own pri- vate space. In other churches, they are sometimes in one big room with partitions,” Letha said. There are about 80 available volunteer shifts for the week, but Letha said the same people sign up year after year to help out with the effort. In an aver- age year, St. Edward will host three times for about 15 people or four families. Last week, the nearly 10 children at St. Edward ranged in age from 8 months to mid-teens. Volunteers provide a variety of assistance ranging from meal preparation and clean-up to ministry. Corky does his best, after serving up food, to visit with families and lift spirits - often encouraging them to eat more at the same time. Meals them- selves are given more thought than one might expect, the re- sult of a decree from Corky. “The families end up eat- ing a lot of pasta at the other churches, and when we heard that Corky decided there would be no pasta at St. Ed- ward,” Letha said. Chicken parmesan was the featured meal during the Keiz- ertimes’ visit. Another volunteer serves up Mexican-inspired cuisine every Friday the church hosts. “We try to follow Jesus’s path in helping people. That’s my motivation,” said volunteer Annie Chan. That path can be fraught with moments of joy and tears. It might mean encouraging a teary, anxiety-fraught visitor out of their room to have a meal. It might also mean bear- ing witness to acts of kindness no one would believe if they hadn’t seen it themselves. “One night, we had a family that didn’t have a car and one of our volunteers had an extra car and they gave it to the family. That was a tearful night,” Han- cock said. While the program is by- and-large a success, forces out- side IHN can have an impact on what the program is able to do. Ryan Chytka, along with his wife and three children, have been moving from church to church for two months. It’s been tough to fi nd a stable place that can accommodate the family’s size. “Rent’s just gone so crazy and there’s been nothing in our alloted amount,” said Chytka. “We have back-up plans but nothing set in stone. It’s still a gummy worm.” Chytka dropped out of high school to take a job on a log- ging crew when he was a teen- ager. “My fi rst check was $2,500 and I was 16 years old. I thought, ‘Who needs school?’” he said. He and his family were liv- ing in LaPine last year when he was involved in a four-wheeler accident that left him strug- gling to perform simple tasks like speaking. “It scrambled the egg pretty good,” he said. Still, he and his wife were on track to purchase their own home until the deal fell through and they were given 60 days no- tice. With fi ve mouths to feed, the family quickly spent down their nest egg and other fam- ily members encouraged them move back over the mountains. “We tried to get established in McMinnville, but noth- ing was happening and then my wife’s mother heard about this program, so we signed up,” Chytka said. He would love to fi nd work that is still within his capabili- ties, especially given that get- ting approved for disability might take years. “I’m willing to do anything so we can get on our feet,” Chytka said. “It’s tested our will, but my wife and I are trying to stay strong for each other and our kids.” Chytka and his family can apply for extensions to stay in the IHN program, but he was unsure what progress had been made on their application. Unfortunately, need is also on the rise. Putman said IHN has seen a 31 percent increase in requests for services in the past year and has had to turn away 40 to 50 families each month. Despite those challenges, Corky is a stalwart believer in what IHN is capable of doing for a family in a crisis. “About seven or eight years after we started, one of the fi rst families we hosted saw (Letha and I) coming out of Fred Meyer. They came up and thanked us and told us they were completely self-suffi cient now. I turned to Letha and said if that’s the only family help out of doing all this, it’s totally worth it,” Corky said. THE WILLAMETTE VALLEY’S Best Kept Secret ASSOCIATE GOLF PACKAGE Now available for only Valentine’s Day is Tuesday, February 14th $ 875 annually MENTION KEIZERTIMES AD FOR AN EXCLUSIVE OFFER! CALL 503.982.1776 Enjoy unlimited play on the toughest 5400 yards private course Associate Members Must Be 50 & up B OUCHER J EWELERS 4965 River Rd N Keizer • 503-393-0701 www.WoodburnEstatesGolf.com