The skanner., January 11, 2012, Page 3, Image 3

local news
Connected
continued from page 1
outs – an upswing by any measure.
“Women, for this particular call, are sig-
nificant because we will be attempting to
approach many of the young ladies in our
community who are also impacting the
males’ behavior,” said Connected founder
John Canda.
He says the group is ready to schedule a
meeting on the women’s program, even as
the group is seeking more volunteers.
“Initially I made the call to 100 men,
which we’re working on and I’m glad to say
we’re growing toward our goal numbers,”
he says.
But shortly
after the initial
call for partici-
pation Canda
says he started
receiving mes-
sages
from
women who felt
left out of the
effort.
“And I absolutely had to apologize and
say, everybody is invited always, but specif-
ically I wanted men to come forward
because they have the problems, or, more
difficulty, with showing up.
“If they want to be involved in the first
project they can, but I wanted to specifical-
ly make a call for women and make the
same appeal but different — to work specif-
ically with the young ladies,” Canda said.
Canda stresses that all volunteers are wel-
come to participate in Connected in any
way they wish, but that the group started
recruiting male volunteers first for a reason.
“Fathers have just not been present — for
many different reasons — that is not intend-
ed to disrespect anyone. I know that every
situation is different,” he said.
“However increasingly, internationally,
we’ve heard about fathers being absent, or
not taking a
particular
interest
in
their children
and abandon-
ing families.
“Most
of
the
young
people that I
have worked
with in the
past 25 years — sadly that fact has been in
the forefront, that they’ve grown up without
fathers,” Canda says. “Which, in my mind,
and others believe, is a cause for a lot of the
delinquency that we see.”
Canda said that typically women are
already present in the lives of the young
people.
“The relationships that I’ve seen most
young people have, particularly young men,
have been with women in their family, and
so they tend not to have the same problem
relating to and with, women,” Canda said.
“Fathers, or men on the other hand, I think
have been the cause of many things happen-
ing – and not happening – in the lives of
children.”
Canda says Connected will continue to
walk through Holladay Park Friday nights
from 6 to 8 p.m., but he hopes the new
female volunteers can fan out through the
city to build even stronger relationships
with young women.
“We have some different things in mind,”
Canda told the Skanner News this week.
Canda says about 75 women have stepped
up so far.
“So that translates into lives of the young
people, and I see it in their eyes,” he says.
Find out more on Connected’s Facebook
fan page, in person at Holladay Park on
Friday evenings at 6 p.m., or by emailing
Canda at johncanda@comcast.net.
Last summer, Latay and her family held the
Red Cross parade banner for Northeast
Portland’s “Good in the Neighborhood”
event. Even more recently, the Allen
Temple CME Church held a dedicated
blood drive in Latay’s honor. “Faith-based
drives like these help get the word out to the
community, friends, and family.” Tiffany
said.
“People should give blood – you might
Latay is not alone in her rare blood type.
Donated blood is needed to help save the
lives of organ transplant patients, cancer
patients, accident victims, premature
babies, and others. Although ethnicity does
not necessarily determine blood compatibil-
ity, blood transfusions from blood donors of
the same ethnic background help recipients
avoid complications. African Americans
sometimes have subtle differences in red
their transplant possible. 70 percent will not
find a match in their family and will turn to
Be the Match Registry, the largest and most
diverse registry of volunteer marrow donors
in the world. Each year, 10,000 patients
need a marrow transplant from an unrelated
donor, but only half receive one. Be The
Match Foundation needs your help to make
sure every patient counts! Visit their web-
site at www.marrow.org, or call 1-800-
MARROW2 (1-800-627-7692).
More than 112,560 people are currently
awaiting an organ transplant, 55.04 percent
of whom are minorities. One donor can help
save more than 50 lives; yet 18 people in the
United States will die today awaiting an
organ transplant. Donate Life Northwest
urges people to help save lives by joining
the Donate Life Northwest Organ, Eye and
Tissue Registry. For more information
about
the
registry,
visit
www.donatelifenw.org, or call 1-800-452-
1369.
‘Fathers, I think have been
the cause of many things
happening – and not
happening – in the lives of
children’
Connected volunteers at the Lloyd Center.
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Latay
continued from page 1
of Oregon. The family is very knowledge-
able on the blood disorder, but because
symptoms often start as fatigue, infections,
and episodes of pain, it used to be difficult
to determine the cause.
“Now that Latay is older, she knows how
to handle it,” Tiffany said. “She knows what
to look for, and so do her school teachers
and friends.”
With a rare blood type, donating means a
lot to Leonard. He said rare blood donations
provide a great benefit because it’s hard for
hospitals to find matches for patients with
rare blood types. Leonard said, “If you
don’t give, the chance of matching blood is
much more difficult.”
Diane Lamberth is Latay’s grandmother,
and said she feels fortunate. “Latay has
never had to wait for her blood type during
an emergency,” Diane said. Because of that,
the family is grateful for blood donors.
“Somebody stepped up to donate,” Leonard
said.
“We are big advocates of the Red Cross
and donating blood and anything we can do
to help - we’re there,” Tiffany said. Latay’s
family has done just that; volunteering for
numerous blood drives and outreach events.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blood, Bone Marrow,
and Organ, Eye and Tissue Donor Registry Drive
is Saturday, Jan. 21 from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at
the Red Cross Portland Donor Center, 3131 N.
Vancouver Ave.
not be able to give a thousand dollars, or ten
thousand dollars, or a fifty-thousand dollar
benefit, but everybody can try to give
blood,” Leonard said. “The thing about
blood is, it’s not black or white, it’s not
Asian or Hispanic, it’s about all people
helping each other.”
blood cell proteins, increasing the likeli-
hood that a suitable blood donor for a recip-
ient will be someone with a similar ethnic
background.
Every day, thousands of patients with
leukemia and other life-threatening diseases
search for a marrow donor who can make
children in our foster care system,” Oregon
DHS Director Bruce Goldberg wrote in a
staff memo
about
the
changes at the
time.
The 2009
Casey Family
Foundation’s
annual Status
of Children
report marked
Oregon as the
state
that
removed
more children from their homes than any
other.
The report that year found 27,485 investi-
gations into alleged mistreatment or neg-
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DHS
continued from page 1
called, “Even the Best Foster Homes Can’t
Replace Family Support.”
The initiative comes after the DHS moved
to restructure its top leadership in 2009,
bringing in former state Sen. Margaret
Carter as a deputy director and Tina Edlund
as deputy director of the Oregon Health
Authority for planning and policy imple-
mentation.
Carter, in particular, was brought on to
shake up the system.
“She will also help lead the important
work we are doing to protect and enhance
the safety and security of children, seniors
and people with disabilities, and to directly
address and correct the over-representation
of Native American and African American
Raise Me Up’s new Facebook page
includes links to media coverage,
volunteer events and training
opportunities around Oregon, all
focusing on reducing the number of
kids in foster care
lect, but only 10,421 were verified by state
investigators to be abuse or neglect; 40 per-
cent of these children taken into the foster
system were adopted out of their homes.
Oregon statistics for years have shown
that African American and Native American
youth are disproportionately removed from
their homes and placed into foster care,
even though studies have shown their par-
ents are no more abusive than white parents.
According to the DHS, Oregon’s rate of
out-of-home placement for children is about
10 percent per 1000 children, compared to
the national rate, which is 6 percent.
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January 11, 2012 The Portland Skanner Page 3