OFF PAGE ONE
Friday, November 25, 2016
East Oregonian
Page 3A
HERMISTON: Has been holding community dinners since 1988
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mings — including potatoes,
stuffing, mixed vegetables,
rolls and fruit salad.
Humphreys said the
kitchen crew cooked 35,
20-pound turkeys Wednesday
night, and carved the birds
early Thursday morning.
Reser’s Fine Foods, of
Pasco, also donated 78 cases
of mashed potatoes, some
of which will be kept for
the Community Fellowship
Dinner next month.
And for dessert? Ninety
pies, including pumpkin,
cherry and apricot.
“We have never run out of
food,” Humphreys said.
Hermiston has been
holding Community Fellow-
ship Dinners since 1988,
which Humphreys said have
steadily grown in popularity.
The last few years have set
records for turnout, with
more than 800 people on
hand. Yet Humphreys said
the food somehow always
manages to stretch.
“It all just seems to
work out,” she said. “The
volunteers just show up, and
the food always seems to be
enough.”
Behind the serving line,
9-year-old Brady Flanagan
of Hermiston was a first-time
volunteer, helping his brother
and grandmother dish up
slices of pie. His job was to
be in charge of the whipped
cream, dolloping a generous
spoonful for anyone who
asked.
Eunice Flanagan, Brady’s
grandmother, said she’s been
serving at the dinner for eight
or nine years now, always
dishing up pies. It was the
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Volunteers plate meals on the serving line Thanksgiving day during the
Hermiston Community Fellowship Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday at the
Hermiston Senior Center.
Kitchen volunteers Sally Thomas, Richard Correa and Jan
Cassens use wooden dowels to empty a bag of mashed
potatoes into a bowl during the Hermiston Community
Fellowship Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday at the Hermiston
Senior Center.
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Volunteers on the serving line plate meals at the Herm-
iston Community Fellowship Thanksgiving Dinner on
Thursday at the Hermiston Senior Center. Volunteers
spent the last two days preparing 35 turkeys and 73
cases of mashed potatoes for this year’s dinner.
Volunteer Sophia Helfer, 9, serves a plate of food
to Larry Zumwalt at the Hermiston Community
Fellowship Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday at the
Hermiston Senior Center.
only job open when she
started, and she’s stuck with
it ever since.
“I really liked doing it,”
she said. “Then, I started
adding the grandkids.”
Rodney Walley, 48,
decided to attend the dinner
with his cousin, Albert Smith.
Both men live in Hermiston,
with Walley coming to
Oregon from Florida approx-
imately two years ago to be
with family.
Walley said he doesn’t
have a wife or kids of his
own, and saw the fellowship
dinner as a perfect oppor-
tunity to try and meet some
new faces in his new home.
“When I first came to
Hermiston, I felt a little out
of place. I was lonely a little
bit,” he said. “This makes me
feel a little better about the
situation.”
Humphreys said the
people she meets at the
fellowship dinners don’t fit
into any one group. They are
families, individuals, people
of all ages and backgrounds,
seeking a little camaraderie
and friendship for the holi-
days.
To keep the community
fellowship tradition alive for
nearly three decades speaks a
lot about what kind of town
Hermiston is, she said.
“We have an awesome
group of volunteers,” she
said. “This town is willing to
draw together, and we help
each other out.”
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
BUSINESS: 2015 Saturday shoppers spent $16.2B at small business
Continued from 1A
special discounts or give-
aways for customers who
come in on Saturday.
In Echo, Debbie Schef-
field of Gathered Over Time
said her shop has joined with
The Vintage Shops at Echo
Station for a Christmas Open
House on Small Business
Saturday to draw people in
“that wouldn’t have thought
of us otherwise.”
“We’re
participating
because we know darn well
that small businesses —
really, micro-businesses like
ours — provide the backbone
of small-town America,” she
said.
The open house will run
from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a
chance to “mingle and jingle”
with drinks and treats from
6-7:30 p.m. The open house
will include discounts, door
prizes and product giveaways.
Scheffield, who mostly
runs Gathered Over Time
by herself with some help
from her husband, said she
is looking forward to being
a part of something bigger in
the business community.
In Hermiston, Mayor
David Drotzmann officially
encouraged residents to shop
on Small Business Saturday
with a proclamation read
during the Nov. 14 city
council meeting. The proc-
lamation noted economists
have estimated that for
every $100 spent at a small
business, $68 remains in the
community.
Two96Main, a pop-up
home decor store at 296 Main
Street, is usually only open on
Thursdays but will be open
on Small Business Saturday.
For purchases of $100 or
more, Andee’s Boutique will
be offering a $20 discount on
Friday and Saturday. Lucky
Endz Gifts, Bloomz, Indulge
and other Main Street busi-
nesses will also be offering a
variety of deals.
Hermiston Drug & Gift
is offering 25 percent off all
gifts and jewelry on Black
Friday and 10 percent off on
Saturday.
“It’s just a thank-you for
our customers for shopping
with us,” bookkeeper Linda
Thompson said.
Some Pendleton busi-
nesses will also be offering
deals on Small Business
Saturday. Hamley & Co.
Western store will be offering
hot cocoa and cookies in addi-
tion to discounts such as 75
percent off clearance items.
Pendleton Art + Frame will
have 20 percent off drawing
and paint kits. MaySon’s
Old-Fashioned General Store
is offering 10 percent off.
Information is provided
on the Pendleton Chamber of
Commerce’s website about
special deals at a total of 11
small businesses.
According to Fortune
Magazine, in 2012 Americans
spent $5.5 billion at small
retailers on Small Business
Saturday. As the idea spread,
that number grew, and in
2015 shoppers spent $16.2
billion at small businesses the
Saturday after Thanksgiving.
RETIREMENT: Lower-income households are making less than a decade ago
Continued from 1A
amount is $73,200. That’s
about 15 months of the
median household’s income.
One group doesn’t have
to worry as much: the richest
10 percent of households.
They typically have more
than $413,000 in a retirement
account, according to the
analysis of the Fed’s latest
data, which is from 2013.
The rest of us look a lot
more like Nancy Harvey,
a 54-year-old child-care
center owner in Oakland,
California, who has less than
$2,000 saved. Her plan, as
of now, is to continue with
real-estate classes in hopes
that it can provide a second
job.
“I have to work and
pray and hope my health
continues to remain good so
that I can continue to work,”
she says. “I still have a mort-
gage and all the insurance
that goes along with that,
and I have to pay payroll
for my employees, which is
really important to me. I can
honestly say I’m frightened
about the future.”
Harvey isn’t alone, as the
gap widens between the few
households who don’t have
to worry about a comfortable
retirement and everyone else.
The anxiety even stretches
across political affiliations.
Nearly equivalent percent-
ages of Democrats and
Republicans say they’re
not managing very well in
retirement planning, a recent
survey from Lincoln Finan-
cial found.
The looming crisis is
the result of a system that’s
increasingly put workers
in charge of saving for
and managing their own
retirement. Because the U.S.
households at the top have
reaped most of the income
gains over the last decade
— and because they have
disproportionately
more
access to retirement plans to
begin with — experts say the
gap in retirement savings is
only growing wider. They’re
expecting to see more elderly
Americans working longer,
moving in with their kids and
tapping assistance programs.
THE INCOME DIVIDE
It’s easier to save when
you’re making more money,
and the vast majority of the
income gains have gone to
the top in recent years.
The top 10 percent of
U.S. households made more
than $162,180 last year, up 6
percent from a decade earlier
after adjusting for inflation.
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icans, incomes have barely
stayed ahead of inflation.
Lower-income households
are making less than a decade
ago.
The benefit of making
more money goes beyond
having more to save. High-
er-income households also
get a bigger after-tax benefit
from putting money into a
401(k) or another tax-advan-
taged account.
ACCESS TO PLANS
The death of the tradi-
tional pension means the
burden is on us to save, and
that’s why access to 401(k)
and other retirement plans is
so important.
Most
lower-income
households will save when
they have access to a retire-
ment plan. The problem
is that most don’t get the
opportunity.
Eighty percent of high-in-
come working households
have access to a 401(k) or
similar defined-contribution
plan, according to the U.S.
Government Accountability
Office. For low-income
working households, it’s
just 35 percent.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
To help close the gap,
states are trying their own
measures. California recently
passed a law requiring
employers to automatically
enroll their workers in a
state-run program and deduct
money from each paycheck.
Experts prefer a broader
fix from the federal govern-
ment but call the state
programs an encouraging
step. In the meantime, many
workers are simply working
longer.
David Tucker is 74 and
still waking at 1:15 each
morning to get to his job as
a skycap at Reagan National
Airport outside Washington,
D.C.
He says he may consider
retiring next year or cutting
down to a few days per week.
And what would he look
forward to in retirement?
“I would like to feel what
it’s like to wake up and not
go to work,” he says. “For a
while, that’s all I would like
to do. I wouldn’t worry about
anything else.”
AP Photo/Hadi Mizban
Iranian civil defense personnel search for survivors in
the rubble, at the scene of a car bomb attack near the
city of Hilla, Iraq, Thursday.
IRAQ: Troops drove IS from
three neighborhoods in Mosul
Continued from 1A
Minister Hassan Qashqavi
was quoted by the semi-of-
ficial Tasnim news agency
as saying that 80 people
were killed, including 40
Iranians. Conflicting death
tolls are common in the
aftermath of large attacks.
The Islamic State group
claimed the attack in a
brief statement carried by
its Aamaq news agency,
saying it was a suicide
truck bomb.
The Iraqi officials said
the target of the attack
appears to have been a bus
carrying Iranian pilgrims
heading home after taking
part in a major Shiite
religious observance in the
holy city of Karbala. The
blast left the bus and some
dozen cars charred.
The Shiite observance
marks the 40th day after
the death anniversary of a
much revered, 7th century
imam. It routinely attracts
hundreds of thousands
of pilgrims, including
many Iranians who travel
overland into Iraq for the
occasion.
The officials spoke on
condition of anonymity
because they were not
authorized to speak to the
media.
Thursday’s attack came
a day after several small-
scale bombings in and
around Baghdad killed 31
people and wounded more
than a 100, a particularly
bloody day even by the
standards of the Iraqi
capital, which has for more
than a decade endured
near-daily violence blamed
on IS or its forerunner,
al-Qaida in Iraq.
In northern Iraq, mean-
while, troops drove IS
militants from three more
neighborhoods in Mosul,
the
country’s
second
largest city, where U.S.-
backed offensive has been
underway for more than six
weeks.
Brig. Gen. Haider
Fadhil of the special forces
told The Associated Press
his men have retaken the
neighborhoods of Amn,
Qahira and Green Apart-
ments and were expanding
their foothold in the
densely populated district
of Zohour.
The neighborhoods are
all east of the Tigris River,
where most of the fighting
has taken place. A U.S.-led
coalition is carrying out
airstrikes to support the
troops.
PENDLETON
CENTER
for the
ARTS
Roberta Lavadour
Executice Director
tele:541-278-9201
214 North Main, Pendleton, OR 97801
email: Director@pendletonarts.org
Www.facebook.com/pendletoncenterforthearts
Classes & Events: www.pendletonarts.org