146TH YEAR, NO. 145
ONE DOLLAR
DailyAstorian.com // MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 2019
Food pantry serves
more than 1,300
Co-op
breaks
ground in
Mill Pond
A larger store for the
natural foods grocery
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Photos by Edward Stratton/The Daily Astorian
Hundreds of federal workers and their families affected by the government shutdown went to the Be the Light food pantry
Saturday and Sunday at the Astoria Masonic Lodge.
Help for
workers during
government
shutdown
By EDWARD STRATTON
The Daily Astorian
Expansion
M
ore than 1,300 federal
employees and their fami-
lies left in economic limbo
by the government shutdown lined
up Saturday and Sunday outside the
Astoria Masonic Lodge for the Be
the Light food pantry.
Inside, a small army of volunteers
shepherded them through a main hall
lined with food, toiletries and other
daily living needs donated by civic
groups, businesses and residents
over the past week.
Stacey Benson, a Coast Guard
spouse, organized the pantry with
the help of volunteers from other
Coast Guard families, MOMS Club
of Astoria, local Boy Scouts and
other groups. Volunteers counted
1,374 attendees, almost entirely from
the Coast Guard, with several from
other agencies like the National Park
Service.
Boy Scout Troop 211 from Asto-
ria helped gather donations for the
Coast Guard over the past week.
The Astoria Co-op Grocery broke
ground Friday on a new 7,500-square-
foot store at 23rd Street and Marine
Drive it hopes to open by Thanksgiving.
The natural foods store, located in
the Shark Rock Building in downtown
Astoria, has been planning the expan-
sion to Mill Pond since 2014, when
membership numbered nearly 3,000.
Since then, membership has climbed to
more than 4,100.
The new store will cost an esti-
mated $9 million to build, said Matt
Stanley, the co-op’s general manager.
The co-op’s portion is approximately
$4 million. Another $5 million is com-
ing from property owner Astor Venture
LLC, which gave the co-op a 20-year
lease.
“In eight weeks, we raised over
$1.6 million in the fall of 2017,” Stanley
told a crowd gathered for the ground-
breaking. “That was the big equity push
that we needed to actually get here
today.”
Grading on the site will begin today.
Work will begin on the foundation
within a couple of weeks.
The site is subject to liquefaction,
requiring rock piers 20 feet down, and
a dam around the project to prevent the
store from sliding in an earthquake, said
Don Vallaster, an architect and partner
in Astor Venture. Vallaster expects the
foundation work to be completed by the
end of February before crews start pour-
ing concrete.
The line of federal employees and their families outside the Be the Light food pantry
at times stretched down Franklin Avenue.
WANT TO HELP?
To donate money for gift cards, go
to paypal.me/momsclubastoria. For
a tax receipt, or information, email
AstoriaMCtreasurer@gmail.com
They and some other scouts from
Portland were on hand over the
weekend to help move supplies.
“A lot of people affected by
this are my friends at school,” said
Kegan Rascoe, a senior patrol leader
with Troop 211. “They’re struggling
to feed their families.”
The average federal worker lost
more than $5,000 in pay during the
first month of the shutdown, accord-
ing to The New York Times. There
are an estimated 9,600 federal
employees in Oregon furloughed
or working without pay. The Coast
Guard was last paid on Dec. 31.
There are more than 42,000 Coast
Guard personnel working without
pay, including most of the 500 in
See Pantry, Page A7
‘A LOT OF PEOPLE AFFECTED BY THIS ARE MY FRIENDS AT SCHOOL.
THEY’RE STRUGGLING TO FEED THEIR FAMILIES.’
The project has faced several hurdles,
from fundraising to appeasing neighbor-
hood concerns over access. A proposed
entrance on the narrower Steam Whistle
Way faced opposition from neighbors
worried it would snarl traffic, endanger
safety and hurt property values.
Access was changed to 23rd Street,
and the two sides reached a compromise
before an appeal of the project reached
the Astoria City Council.
The co-op has touted the new location
as an opportunity to build a more effi-
cient, dedicated grocery store expand-
ing its selection of products, including
a deli and more local produce and meat.
The site will include 48 parking spaces
and a loading dock unavailable at
the cramped Shark Rock Building
location.
The expansion will increase the
co-op’s impact on the local economy,
including adding the equivalent of
about 30 additional full-time positions
to an existing 20, each with an average
wage of $16 an hour and benefits, Stan-
ley said.
“This is truly a grassroots project,” he
said. “It’s not unlike 45 years ago, when
a small group of people came together
to build something, a small storefront,
to provide something that none of them
as individuals could do.”
Kegan Rascoe | a senior patrol leader with Troop 211
See Co-op, Page A7
A pastor finds her calling
Patterson looks to
restorative justice
By KATIE
FRANKOWICZ
The Daily Astorian
t was a footnote to the ser-
mon’s overall message of
justice, but Rebecca Patter-
son, pastor of First United
Methodist Church in Asto-
ria, couldn’t help pointing
out that the text included
one of two times in the
Bible where Jesus loses an
argument.
“And guess what,” she
said. “Both times he loses
I
the argument to a woman.”
According to the Gospel
of John, Jesus performed his
first public miracle — turn-
ing water into wine — at a
wedding in Cana, a village
or town in the region of Gal-
ilee. He performs the mir-
acle after his mother tells
him, essentially, to “fix it,”
when the party runs out
of wine. Jesus responds:
“Woman, what does your
concern have to do with me?
My hour has not yet come.”
How Mary responds to
this sass is not recorded, but
she prevails. John goes on to
recount how Jesus went with
the servants and did what his
mother asked, transform-
ing six large jars filled with
water into a wine that was
even better than what the
guests had been drinking.
Something
ordinary
becoming
extraordinary.
Patterson connected this to
how people nowadays can
practice restorative justice in
their everyday lives with the
tools, habits, abilities and
See Patterson, Page A7
Katie Frankowicz/The Daily Astorian
Rebecca Patterson, pastor at First United Methodist Church
in Astoria, which hosts the Astoria Warming Center, has been
leading the small congregation for the last six months.