MARCH 1, 2017
Portland and Seattle Volume XXXIX No. 22
25
CENTS
News ...............................3,9,10 A & E .....................................6-7
Opinion ...................................2 Dr. Jasmine ......................9
Calendars ........................... 4-5 Bids/Classifieds ....................11
CHALLENGING PEOPLE TO SHAPE A BETTER FUTURE NOW
JOHN LEWIS SPEAKS
From left to right, Multnomah County Chair Deborah
Kafoury, Central City Concern staff members John
Karp-Evans, Elissa Black and Freda Ceaser, and
Commissioner Loretta Smith at the announcement
of ‘Flip the Script.’
Program attempts to
reduce recidivism by
working directly with
parolees
By Melanie Sevcenko
Of The Skanner News
W
hen Freda Ceaser was re-
leased from prison in 2004,
she was determined never to
return.
“While I was there, I saw people come
and go, and sometimes two or three
times,” Ceaser told The Skanner. “See-
ing that helped me realize — you can ei-
ther learn from this, or you can be that
person that keeps coming back.”
Originally from Portland, Ceaser
came from a modest family of pastors.
She graduated from high school and left
home at 18. After losing her apartment,
See FLIP on page 3
PHOTO BY SUSAN FRIED
‘Flip the
Script’
Congressman John Lewis answers questions from the audience after he and his co-creators, Andrew Aydin and artist Nate Powell talked about their
graphic novel trilogy “March” at the Illsley Ball Nordstrom Recital Hall in Benaroya Hall Feb. 22. “March,” the third installment of which was awarded the
2016 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, tells the story of the Civil Rights Movement as Lewis experienced it.
Small Business Lender Rebrands as Ascent
Formerly known as Albina Opportunities Corporation, the organization
makes loans to businesses that can’t access traditional credit
By Christen McCurdy
Of The Skanner News
AP PHOTO/ARIANA CUBILLOS
F
Jineth Frias poses for a photo in a T-shirt
featuring her slain son, Bassil da Costa, at an anti-
government protest marking the third anniversary
of his killing by security forces during weeks of
unrest in Caracas, Venezuela. In the three years
since his death, her family’s predicament, like that
of Venezuela, has only worsened. Her refrigerator
is almost always empty and she’s lost 22 pounds, in
what Venezuelans call the “Maduro Diet.”
Venezuelan
Food Shortage
page 10
Oscars Mishap
and Wrap-up
page 7
ive years ago, after 15
years driving a truck
for Waste Manage-
ment, Tyrone Bailey
decided to strike out on his
own.
Bailey had had a side
job as a truck driver for
a construction company.
When his boss there re-
tired, Bailey started his
own business, Bailey’s
Construction, providing
hauling and excavating for
construction sites.
Recently he received a
$50,000 loan to upgrade to
a larger, better-outfitted
truck, making him eligible
for a wider variety of jobs.
The loan — and other ser-
vices, including technical
consulting and support —
came from Ascent Fund-
ing, which just recently
changed its name from Al-
bina Opportunities Corpo-
ration.
“They’ve been pretty
awesome for me,” Bailey
told The Skanner. “I’m kind
of new with this entrepre-
neurship stuff. It’s year
number five. Because of
them I’ve been able to keep
going.”
Albina
Opportuni-
ties Corporation, a Port-
land-based nonprofit pro-
vider of business loans
and advisory services, an-
nounced its name change
in mid-February.
The organization was
founded in 2008 and has
extended more than $6 mil-
lion in loans and lines of
credit in its existence, fo-
cusing on minority-owned
and women-owned busi-
nesses located in low-in-
come neighborhoods. The
organization only offers
loans or credit to orga-
nizations that have been
turned down for conven-
tional bank credit.
“I’m proud to be a part of
it, that they will help a little
guy like me,” Bailey said.
“If I go to the bank or some-
thing like that, it’s so much
red tape that I don’t have
qualification (for credit).
One way or the other some-
thing is missing.”
He said in addition to the
See ASCENT on page 3
Kevin Washington Named CFO of Impact NW
Washington brings to Impact NW more than 20
years of financial experience
By Melanie Sevcenko
Of The Skanner News
T
he educational and social ser-
vices provider Impact NW
recently named Kevin Wash-
ington its new chief financial
officer.
Originally from Detroit, Michigan,
Washington earned a master’s de-
gree in accounting from Walsh Col-
lege, an MBA from Temple Universi-
ty, and a bachelor’s in business from
Morehouse College.
He brings to Impact NW more than
20 years of experience as a cost ana-
lyst, financial analyst and accountant
from diverse industries that include
entertainment, healthcare, construc-
tion and alternative energy.
After two years in Tokyo, Wash-
ington had been living and working
in Honolulu when he learned about
a position at Impact NW. While his
Kevin Washington
professional background is largely
in multi-national for-profit compa-
See WASHINGTON on page 3