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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
M
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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
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