A6
COMMUNITY
East Oregonian
COMMUNITY BRIEFING
Catholic Daughters donate to
pregnancy clinic
HERMISTON — Our Lady of Angels
Catholic Daughters of the Americas Court
No. 1692 recently held a bake sale to raise
money for TruCare Pregnancy Clinic in
Hermiston. Catholic Daughters Regent Kristi
Smalley presented a $1,000 check to Kristi
Atkins, TruCare’s executive director, June
11 in Hermiston.
A nonprofi t organization, TruCare was
originally founded as Pregnancy Care
Services in 1993 in Pendleton, opening a
Hermiston offi ce in May 2011. In early 2018,
TruCare became an independent entity from
the center in Pendleton.
TruCare provides free and confi dential
services in English and Spanish. It provides
options counseling, community referrals and
parenting classes. Parents also can obtain
needed baby supplies through the center.
The facility is at 140 S.W. 11th St., Herm-
iston. For more information, contact 541-567-
2393, kristi@trucareprc.com or visit www.
trucareprc.com.
Pendleton woman
shares photographic
journey to Mongolia
PENDLETON — A new exhibition
featuring the photography of Debbie McIn-
tosh is on display at Pendleton Center for the
Arts.
“Mongolia Winter Migration” includes
23 photographs that highlight the Pendleton
woman’s recent photography expedition to
Mongolia. She was able to document Kazakh
nomadic herders and hunters, who occa-
sionally allow photographers and writers to
accompany them.
The exhibit is available for in-per-
son viewing Tuesday through Friday from
11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from noon
to 4 p.m. in the art center’s East Oregonian
Gallery, 214 N. Main St., Pendleton. Admis-
sion is free.
For more information about the arts
center, email director@pendletonarts.org or
visit www.pendletonarts.org.
Chamber Ambassadors tee
off with networking event
PENDLETON — Door prizes, compli-
mentary snacks, a no-host bar, a 50/50
drawing and networking are featured in the
upcoming Pendleton Chamber Ambassador’s
Kick It Up After 5.
The free event is Thursday, June 24, from
5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Clubhouse at Birch
Creek at the former Pendleton Country Club,
69772 Highway 395 S., Pendleton.
An RSVP is required. Due to limited
space, those planning to attend are encour-
aged to register early via www.eventbrite.
com For more information about chamber
activities, call 541-276-7411 or visit www.
pendletonchamber.com.
Grant benefi ts
Stanfi eld youths,
supports summer activities
STANFIELD — The Stanfi eld School
District, Stanfi eld Public Library and Stan-
fi eld Parks & Recreation recently received a
grant that will benefi t youth in the commu-
nity.
Library Director Cecili Longhorn said in a
press release the Oregon Community Recov-
ery Fund grant helps in fi nancing fun enrich-
ment opportunities for youths that will help
in building a stronger partnership between
the school district and city departments. In
addition, she said it will provide the means to
hire six youths from the community to help
with summer activities.
“We will be off ering art and craft activi-
ties, physical activities/games, trips, movie
nights and more,” Longhorn said. “Now is the
time for us to work together as a community
to support our youth and keep them active
Thursday, June 17, 2021
Spiritual tests help our souls grow
SARAH
HAUG
LIGHT OF UNIT Y
B
Kristi Smalley/Contributed Photo
Regent Kristi Smalley of Our Lady of Angels
Catholic Daughters of the Americas Court
No. 1692 presents a donation on June 11,
2021, to Kristi Atkins, executive director of
TruCare Pregnancy Clinic, Hermiston.
and engaged during the summer.”
Those activities include Lifetime Fitness
& Fun with Tyler Watson on Monday and
Wednesdays from 10:30-11:30 a.m.; Art with
Michelle Hopper on Tuesday and Thursdays;
and free Grab & Go Lunches for all youth at
11:30 a.m. For more information about the
programs, call Longhorn at 541-449-1254.
School district Superintendent Beth
Burton is excited about the opportunity for
youths in the community.
“The pandemic has been tough on kids,
and this is a way for us to work together
to provide positive activities and outreach
during the months that school is not in
session,” she said.
The special fund was established in March
to rapidly deploy resources to communi-
ty-based organizations at the front lines of
the coronavirus outbreak. Resources are
prioritized where and when they are criti-
cally needed, with a focus on Oregon’s most
vulnerable populations.
Anyone may contribute to the Oregon
Community Recovery Fund, including
online. Also, nonprofi t organizations can
review funding guidelines and apply for
grants on the website. For more information,
visit www.oregoncf.org.
Echo Market sets up June 19
ECHO — Produce, vendors, food, enter-
tainment and games for the kids are featured
during this weekend’s Echo Market.
The event is Saturday, June 19, from
4-7 p.m. at Fort George Park, South Dupont
and Bridge streets. The market is available
the fi rst and third Saturday of each month.
The relaxing event off ers family-friendly fun
and a chance to catch up with your neighbors.
For more information, including to set up
as a vendor, or hosting a food, community or
display booth or being featured as an enter-
tainer, call Teres at 541-720-0831, Amanda
at 541-701-1531 or email myechomarket@
gmail.com. The vendor sales booths are $12
each market and community and display
booths are free. Money collected for booth
fees benefi t the Echo Heritage Association.
e generous in pros-
perity and thankful
in adversity. This
extract from the Baha’i
writings encapsulates an
ideal about how we should
strive to live our lives.
I’ve lived in a faith
community throughout my
life, but this ideal is diffi -
cult! I fi nd it much easier to
be generous in prosperity
than thankful in adversity,
especially when I’m experi-
encing hard times.
When your car dies on a
remote highway, it’s pretty
diffi cult to be thankful for
the chance to rise above the
experience and learn from
it, not to mention express
gratitude for what you do
have. It’s only later, maybe,
that you realize those car
payments were more than
you could aff ord, or the
car was a total lemon you
are better off without. Or
that you can be proud of
yourself for managing
your anxieties and fears
enough to simply get the
job done. In the meantime,
you’re stuck on the side of
the highway with no cell
service 60 miles from home
with three kids in the back
seat.
It is impossible to truly
know the adversity others
have overcome to reach the
present day. For many, their
lives have been beset with
perpetual fi nancial diffi -
culties. Others have never
suff ered materially but have
been woefully deprived of
love. Still more have lost,
and lost, and lost again.
To say in the midst of
adversity that a person
should be thankful seems
horribly condescending and
cruel. We fear tests, espe-
cially those we’ve encoun-
tered before and don’t want
to endure again. We pray
to have them taken away or
resolved. And yet, spiri-
tual and emotional growth
comes from those times
when “bad” things happen.
If we’re given every
material benefi t, we
become spoiled and soft.
Just as physical tests help
our bodies grow, spiritual
tests help our souls grow.
This is true for everyone.
I wonder whether the
current attraction of apoca-
lyptic and post-apocalyptic
fi ction derives from some
deep desire to be overtly
tested. It may feel easier to
face down a zombie horde
than to fi gure out how to
pay the bills on Monday. A
sudden apocalypse would
free us from our daily lives
and give us the opportunity
to really show our mettle.
That said, I am quite
sure the Zombie Apoca-
lypse would do me in right
quick. Better to face the
real future without fear.
Even more — and this is
a really startling idea —
better to ask God to give us
those very same tests we
fear, so we can face them
and our fears, and over-
come them both.
As the Baha’i writings
also say: The troubles of
this world pass, and what
we have left is what we
have made of our souls.
———
Sarah Haug is a member
of the Baha’i Faith and has
called Pendleton home since
2002. You can fi nd her most
days walking on the riverwalk
with her husband, Dan.
Buckwheat provides nourishing bouquet
BRUCE
BARNES
BLOOMIN’ BLUES
Scientifi c name: Eriogo-
num baileyi
Common name: Bailey’s
buckwheat
This interesting plant is
in the buckwheat family, and
is probably seldom noticed.
It grows from southeast
Washington to southeast
California and Arizona,
adjacent Idaho, and in Utah.
The plant prefers sand or
gravel or heavy soils, in
deserts to grassland or shru-
bland. Depending on which
botanist you ask, the plant is
divided into two to several
varieties, or split off from
Bruce Barnes/Contributed Photo
Bailey’s buckwheat, Erigo-
num baileyi.
other species, most of which
vary by rather weak diff er-
ences.
In spite of many years
tramping around the Blues,
I had never seen this plant
until last summer — in our
backyard. And lots of it. It’s
back this year. The leaves
are already spread out and
ready to bolt.
In our area the plant
sprouts and puts out its
leaves in early spring. The
only leaves on the plant are
mostly fl at on the ground at
the base, each leaf is narrow
at the base, and nearly circu-
lar at the tip. Then in late
spring or summer it sends up
very thin, erect or ascend-
ing, branching stems. The
stems are loosely covered
with tiny white clusters of
fl owers. Each cluster is only
about 2 to 4 millimeters
across.
By about mid summer the
branches have produced a
rather eye-catching bouquet
up to 20 inches across and
nearly as high.
Tribes in the plant’s area
have used the plant to treat
skin ailments. They also
pounded the seeds into meal,
then mixed it with water for
a beverage, and they also ate
the meal dry.
Local dispatcher completes
basic course
SALEM — Dispatcher Deena Josue of
the Umatilla County Sheriff ’s Offi ce recently
completed a three-week basic telecommuni-
cations course at the Oregon Public Safety
Academy in Salem.
Presented by the Oregon Department of
Public Safety Standards and Training, Josue
and classmates graduated June 11. The
course included such topics as emergency
call handling techniques, stress management,
criminal law and an overview of fi re-rescue
and law enforcement operations.
The DPSST provides training to more
than 25,000 students each year throughout
Oregon and at the safety academy in Salem.
For more information, visit www.oregon.gov/
dpsst.
— EO Media Group
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