OPINION
4A
THE DAILY ASTORIAN • FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2017
Founded in 1873
DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor
JIM VAN NOSTRAND, Managing Editor
JEREMY FELDMAN, Circulation Manager
DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager
JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager
CARL EARL, Systems Manager
OUR VIEW
E
ach week we recognize those people and organizations
in the community deserving of public praise for the good
things they do to make the North Coast a better place to
live, and also those who should be called out for their actions.
SHOUTOUTS
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK
A circle of giving
— and giving back
By DAVID PERO
The Daily Astorian
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Members of the public were invited to walk the new track during
the grand opening of Patriot Hall at Clatsop Community College in
Astoria on Tuesday.
• Clatsop Community College, which this week conducted
its grand opening ceremony for Patriot Hall, the cavernous
three-story gymnasium which was redeveloped in a $16 mil-
lion project that began in 2015. The project was paid for through
a countywide bond measure and state money that state Sen.
Betsy Johnson helped secure. Johnson was a guest speaker at
the event and called the project “bold and transformational” and
lauded the community for making the project happen during her
stirring remarks. The 30,000-square-foot building features a bas-
ketball court with 540 seats, studio and office space, classrooms,
expanded cardiovascular and weight training areas and a third
floor elevated track with views of the picturesque Columbia
River. The hall’s design also makes its energy use 70 percent
more efficient than other buildings of the same type. College
President Christopher Breitmeyer gave a special thanks to the
college’s neighbors for their patience through the construction.
The ribbon for the opening was cut by the third-floor track and
the Swenson family, longtime supporters of the college, ran the
first official lap. The college plans to conduct a rededication of
the building on Nov. 11, in honor of the old Patriot Hall’s origi-
nal dedication on the first Armistice Day in 1921.
• U.S. Army National Guard Col. Dean Perez, who has
led the statewide Oregon Training Command headquartered at
the Camp Rilea Armed Forces Training Center for the past four
years. Perez recently turned over command to Lt. Col. Noel
Hoback, of Grants Pass, at a ceremony in Salem and will be
heading for a two-year duty tour at the Pentagon in October.
Perez said he plans to return to Astoria when his new tour con-
cludes. • The Cannon Beach Museum and History Center,
which recently staged its annual Cannon Beach Cottage and
Garden Tour. The tour offered more than 500 people who
signed up a chance to visit homes with creative architecture, sce-
nic landscaping and historical significance, this year in the city’s
north part of town. The event also included concerts, a luncheon
and a garden tea.
• The Willapacific Branch of the American Association
of University Women, which is celebrating its 70th year on
the Long Beach Peninsula. The AAUW’s mission is to advance
equity for women through advocacy, education, philanthropy and
research, and the branch promotes that mission with a variety
of events that include the recognition of six Ilwaco and Naselle
high school junior women who excel in science, technology and
math. Each year it also awards a scholarship to an Ilwaco senior.
CALLOUTS
• Members of Congress who have ignored suggestions from
Oregon U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, along with
U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, to change the way the federal gov-
ernment pays for fighting fires on public lands. The federal
government doesn’t treat fighting wildfires like combating and
recovery from other natural disasters from a budgeting stand-
point. Instead of putting money aside in a separate account for
the specific purpose like it does for other natural disasters, it
underfunds wildfire fighting efforts and lumps it into the budgets
of agencies including the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of
Land Management. Those agencies then have to essentially bor-
row money from other places within their own budgets to use
to fight the big blazes. That often leaves the agencies with less
money to do other primary work like thinning overcrowded for-
ests, which play a role in the severity of the fires. Congress needs
to listen to Wyden and the Oregon delegation, since the cost of
fires across Oregon this year continues to grow.
Suggestions?
Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let
us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look.
F
all is here — our coast’s tradi-
tional time of transition. The
weather gets grumpy, children
are back in class
and tourism fades.
But what
doesn’t slow is the
region’s renowned
spirit of gener-
osity and giving,
supporting a wide
variety of organizations and causes
which enrich our lives.
If anything, autumn brings out
the spirit even more as organizations
seek support to help those in need,
especially in preparation for the
coming winter months. The com-
munity always responds by volun-
teering and giving — both at home
and at work — creating a continuous
circle of giving and giving back.
You don’t have to look hard for
examples.
For instance, Columbia
Memorial Hospital Foundation
volunteers have both contributed
and spent countless hours raising
millions of dollars toward the
hospital’s new state-of-the-art
cancer center, which is scheduled
to open next month. The Knight
Cancer Collaborative, a partnership
with Oregon Health & Science
University, is located next to the
hospital and is the only facility of
its type on the North Coast. It will
provide an enormous benefit to the
entire region.
“This has been one of the great-
est community-supported projects
that I have witnessed in my career,”
CMH Chief Executive Officer
Erik Thorsen said in a recent Daily
Astorian news story.
Likewise, that circle of giving
and giving back resonates with the
hospital’s 600 employees, who play
a tremendous role in numerous local
nonprofits and events. According
to Penny Cowden, the CMH
Foundation’s executive director,
the employees have also set up a
“Friendship Fund” to help others
at work who may face financial
hardships. At the county’s largest
employer, Georgia Pacific’s Wauna
Mill, donations from employees
and the company provide the
largest percentage of money that
the Clatsop County United Way
receives and passes on to nonprofit
agencies each year. The mill’s 750
employees also support a variety
of local organizations along with
educational programs in the Knappa
Submitted Photo
Sue Farmer, the interim executive director of The Harbor, left, and
Jerry Sandness, store director at Fred Meyer, right, hold a $5,000
check from Fred Meyer employees to the domestic violence and sex-
ual abuse prevention group.
Colin Murphey/The Daily Astorian
Columbia Memorial Hospital
Foundation volunteers have both
contributed and spent countless
hours raising millions of dollars
toward the hospital’s new state-
of-the-art cancer center.
School District and at the Columbia
River Maritime Museum.
Fundraising, volunteering and
giving back are part of the mill’s
daily culture because the giving
stays locally, according to Kristi
Ward, the mill’s public information
officer. “We give to our local
community because we want a
healthy and thriving community
and we want to make a difference
in the lives of our neighbors and the
children that we see every day,” she
said.
In Warrenton, the 325 employees
at the Fred Meyer store give to a
yearly campaign that can either go
to the Fred Meyer Foundation or the
United Way. The foundation assists
local nonprofits with a focus on the
needs of youth and feeding the hun-
gry. This year, the Warrenton Fred
Meyer had the largest percentage of
associates who gave to the campaign
of any store in the company, accord-
ing to store director Jerry Sandness.
The employees chose to direct
a donation to The Harbor, a local
nonprofit with a mission of provid-
ing advocacy, prevention, support
and hope for survivors of domestic
violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Last year, The Harbor aided more
than 1,400 people who were “in
dark hours of need,” according
to Sue Farmer, the organization’s
interim executive director.
Earlier this week, Sandness and
the employees presented a $5,000
check to Farmer and The Harbor’s
staff to aid the organization’s efforts.
Sandness said the store and its
employees are also strong supporters
of the Clatsop Community Action
Regional Food Bank, among others.
Giving back is part of the company’s
longtime fabric — it’s been a sup-
porter of Junior Achievement for the
past 43 years.
While we don’t often write
about fundraising campaigns and
check presentations on our Opinions
page, those examples are only three
of dozens — if not hundreds —
that occur each year throughout
the region. Providence Seaside
Hospital, U.S. Bank, Pacific Power,
Hampton Mills, Martin Hospitality,
Northwest Natural and a great many
more regional businesses and their
employees are strong, active sup-
porters of giving.
At The Daily Astorian, we try to
highlight that news each week in our
Shoutouts on this page and on the
pages of our Community section.
We also publish our annual Giving
Back guide in October that spot-
lights the wide variety of nonprofit
organizations across the region and
the good work they do.
All of the region’s organizations
make a difference, and there’s a
story to tell about each. While we
can’t attend every event or presenta-
tion, we always want to publish the
news and pictures from them. Let us
know about them at news@dailyas-
torian.com and we’ll make sure the
community knows about them, too.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
The Community Store
here was a hamlet of a store,
once, called The Community
Store. How heartened I was, as a
young man, to find the kind of place
that I’d only glimpsed in folksy TV
shows and movies. It had the type of
community, tribalism and intimacy
that was being erased from the land-
scape. It was the antithesis of the
supermarket, one stop shopping, and
the big box store.
A place where cashiers would
put something in a bag, without rig-
ging it up — at least at full price —
because they knew a person’s needs
were more pressing. How many
times did I have to avoid tripping
over children playing in an isle, wit-
T
ness someone strumming an instru-
ment, sharing a home-cooked meal,
taking a nap in the loft, or sharing
the joys, tribulations and sorrows
of life?
One travel guide referred to
The Community Store as the “local
hippie hangout.” I thought it was
heaven.
I imagined, one day, there would
be a little co-op on Alameda Street,
and one in Alderbrook; that these
tiny stores would start to pepper our
city’s landscape and begin to rebuild
a sense of neighborhood and shared
responsibility; stores with their own
quirky little identities; stores that
knew the name of every child and
elder in their neighborhood, and
took care of them, as their own.
Once the manager of The Com-
munity Store said to me, “You live
out by Deborah’s; she’s out of town,
why don’t you go by and water her
plants?” In a nation where peo-
ple sometimes see other people
attacked, and do nothing, it was one
of the most beautiful things I’d ever
heard.
Now, the Astoria Co-op wants to
spend $8 million on a store, in a tsu-
nami zone (“Astoria Co-op launches
capital campaign for new $8 mil-
lion grocery in Mill Pond,” The
Daily Astorian, Sept. 18). It’s not a
dream I share, or rationale I under-
stand, but I’ve been mistaken about
so much.
M. ALEX “SASHA” MILLER
Astoria