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September 18,1991
"The Eyes and Ears o f The Community"
Volumn XXI, Number 38
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Offers Three Point Plan For
Northeast Portland:
Executives Loaned to United Way
for Fund Raising
Jobs For At-Risk Youth, Funds For Housing Renovation
AndMinority Business Development Program
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Linda Jones
Companies from throughout the
Portland/Vancouver area have loaned
75 employees to United Way o f the
C olum bia-W illam ette to help raise th is
year’ s campaign goal o f $20.5 m illion .
Natural Gas Company, adding tnat men
efforts w ill bring in more than 60 per
cent o f this year’s total.
Local organizations provide people
to United W ay fo r 12 weeks w hile con
tinuing to pay their regular salaries and
expenses. This arrangement allows
United W ay to keep adm inistrative and
campaign costs to m inim um . In addi
tion to the benefits for United Way,
there arc bonuses fo r the executives
and their companies as well.
“ To be effective fund raisers, we
provide these executives w ith training
in communications and public speak
ing; account, project and tim e manage
ment; and negotiation and goal-setting
skills.” says Ridgley. “ I t ’ s a great
learning experience for the employee
and a no-cost way fo r companies to
further develop their executives.”
u a v l U U I A U ll, u i i u v u
▼
▼ a y u i u iv
C olum bia-W illam ette; Lucious Hicks
IV , Pacific Power and Lig ht; V ickie
Hughes, U.S. Bancorp; Felicia M.
Jackson, C ellular One; Linda Jones,
T ri-M e t; V icto r L. Norris, Northwest
Natural Gas company; V. Marcus O r
ange, U.S. Postal Service (participat
ing in the Combined Federal Campaign
fo r federal employees).
Donations raised in this year’ s
United W ay campaign w ill help fund
nearly 200 human service programs in
M ultnom ah, Clackamas and W ashing
ton counties in Oregon, and Clark County
in Washington. These programs ad
dress such needs as positive social de
velopment for young people, recrea
tional and medical services for the eld
erly, and food and shelter fo r homeless
families.
N IK E , Inc. is beefing up its com
m itment to fig h t gangs in Portland by
com m itting ten jobs to at-risk lo w -in
come youth, N IK E President Richard
K. Donahue announced today. Donahue
also challenged local employers to match
N IK E ’s o ffe r o f jobs fo r kids as a means
o f keeping them out o f gangs.
A t a press conference held at N IK E ’s
factory outlet store on M artin Luther
King Jr. Blvd., Donahue also announced
that $50,000 in profits from that store
w ill be reinvested in two Northeast
Portland revitalization projects. The
Northeast Com m unity Development
Corporation (NEC DC ) and the Oregon
Association o f M in o rity Entrepreneurs
(O A M E ) w ill each receive $25,000
grants from N IK E as part o f a pledge
made in 1984 by the athletic footwear
and apparel company to reinvest p ro f
its from its store into economic devel
opment programs in the Northeast neigh
borhoods.
Addressing the jobs-for-kids in i
tiative, Donahue stated that N IK E w ill
make available ten entry-level jobs for
at-risk youth over the next eighteen
months at the Company’ s various Ore
gon facilities, and indicated he w ill
seek sim ilar commitments from other
iployers in the area.
Donahue explained that N IK E ’ s
:ision to com m it a block o f jobs to
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at-risk youth came in response to re
cent appeals from com m unity groups
tackling gang problems in Northeast
Portland. “ Every agency we work with
tells us they can draw kids away from
gangs, but the key to keeping them out
is finding them job s.” he said.
‘ ‘We have to offer these kids hope,
and hope means know ing that they’ ll
get a chance to do something produc
tive w ith their lives,’ ’ Donahue stated.
“ I f ten more companies fo llo w our
lead, that’ s 100 kids o ff the streets,
showing the rest that there are other
options besides gang life .”
N IK E actively supports several
youth programs such as the Portland
House o f Umoja and Self-Enhance
ment, Inc., and has provided funding
to the Portland Organizing Project,
which has held a series o f meeting
recently to address the youth em ploy
ment issue, according to V irgin ia
Hensen, N IK E ’ s D irector o f Public
A ffairs. Hensen said N IK E has al
ready made youth em ploym ent a cor
porate objective, hiring ten m inority
interns at the Com pany’s Beaverton
W orld Campus over the summer, and
two students from the Portland School
District’s Partnership Program. A youth
from the House o f Um oja is also
employed fu ll-tim e at N IK E . In addi
tion, N IK E is paying the first year’ s
W H A T D ID T H EY KN O W A N D
W H E N D ID T H E Y K N O W IT? No,
we’ re not talking about the Watergate
burglars and the Nixon Adm inistra
tion. The reference is to the talented
and gifted m inority engineering train
ees shown above. Such an inquiry should
embrace their parents as w ell and, cer
tainly, their teachers.
This is a very serious matter, for i f
you can’ t recognize or identify ta le n t-
or even i f you can, you have no effec
tive vehicle to nurture and develop it -
- then, we arc back to that terrible
indictment; “ A mind is a terrible thing
to waste. ’ ’ However, it may be d iffic u lt
:
T H EM SELVE S...”
Few o f us have the inform ation
retrieval facilities necessary to collect,
process, correlate and evaluate the flood
o f education-relevant data that over
whelms our systems. Consequently, we
all tend to depend upon selected (and
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A t the press conference, Donahue
also reiterated the Com pany’s 1984
pledge to reinvest a percentage o f the
net profits from its factory outlet store
in Northeast Portland economic devel
opment programs.
Northeast Portland C om m unity
Development Corporation, which has
received a total o f more than $50,000 in
N IK E store profits over the past tw o
years, received another grant o f $25,000.
The funds w ill go to offset general
operating expenses at NECDC. The
agency is currently embarking on an
“ A d o p t-A -B lo ck” program, in which
corporations are being solicited to
“ adopt” an entire Northeast neighbor
hood block and lead clean-up and res
toration efforts fo r all the homes lo
cated on i t
The Oregon Association o f M in o r
ity Entrepreneurs (O AM E) also received
a $25,000 grant from N IK E . Part o f
those funds w ill go to general operating
expenses, and part w ill be used to de
velop a short term loan program fo r
m inority businesses. O A M E offers
business planning and networking re
sources to m inority businesses, and has
recently published a directory o f local
minority and women-owned businesses.
Conclusion
by P r o f . M c K in l e y B u r t
trusted) publications, commentators,
reporters, advisors, organizations, per
sonal investigations or, even friends
and neighbors. N ow , why may this not
be enough? Just consider the interac
tions I had w ith parents the past week.
“ H ow do I balance this “ glad tid
ings’ ’ advisory on S A T scores from the
Superintendent against this Oregonian
reporter’s desultory evaluation? - W ith
the state, county and c ity all promising
further cuts and fallouts from Proposi
tion 5 , 1 can’ t plan or budget anything
for my k id ’ s college education. So what
i f the ‘ Historic Black Colleges’ are the
best bet, I can ’ t even send them as far as
said.
M
Parents Face School
to “ see the forest fo r the trees." O r as
I like to say, “ to see the dance fo r the
dancers” -- and their numbers are
overwhelm ing as they sw irl about this
academic stage. That is why the title
fo r this series, “ Parents Face School
Daze.” And why in last week’ s article
I gave that example o f initia tive, “ m i
nority parents have O R G A N IZ E D
salary o f a professional employment
recruiter at the Urban League, Hensen
Beaverton - Are those ‘ Voucher Plans’
going to further the weakening o f local
school bases? And what about all the
attacks on the Baseline Essays and other
m ulti-cultu ra l materials including m i
nority history. Isn’ t this going to make
it a ll but impossible to pursue m otiva
tion and im age-building in any mean
ing fu l manner?”
A fte r that round w ith one group o f
parents at a neighborhood community
center, the very next day I was w ay
la id " by several friends whose daugh
ters teach in the local district. (Some
patience here, please, I am making the
cast ‘ hat parents, w ith a little planning
and organization on their own, can bring
order out o f a perceived chaos). Now,
this latter group saw an international
significance to “ all what's coming down
man. ” A t home one neighbor was hear
ing that “ critical funds and resources
arc being diverted from ‘black’ pro
grams to support other m inorities — not
only an increasing number o f Hispan
ics whose disabilities need addressing
but the same fo r new RUSSIAN IM M I
G R AN TS.” (See 9/13 Oregonian ar
ticle, “ Public Schools Reflect More
Ethnic D iversity” ).
The other friend, a former teacher
whose considerable talents were con
sistently underutilized, had critical com
ments about “ the great rush to im port
or superimpose Asian or European edu
cational systems on a faltering and d is
abled American basket case.” He quoted
from a recent article o f mine -- a p o
lem ic where I had made some rather
acid comments about those who w ould
ignore the successful efforts o f some
Americans to create “ Schools o f E x
cellence” under some o f the most
adverse o f conditions. Though many o f
the advocates for a “ Free Trade Educa
tion Z o n e " are sincere, i f naive, about
restoring the system to excellence by
continued on page 7
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