JANUARY 1, 2005
Smoke Signals
Marion-Polk Food Share Moving Into New Digs
Community Fund grant helps the food bank buy the Puentes Brothers former tortilla plant.
8
By Ron Karten
The most shocking fact is this:
half of the 66,000 hungry Orego
nians served by Marion-Polk Food
Share (MPFS) are children.
Folks fed by MPFS food represent
17 percent of the two-county popu
lation. "Emergency food boxes last year
were up 24 percent from the year
before," said Carolyn Homan,
Deputy Director of MPFS. "It's been
in the double-digit increases for the
last five years."
MPFS provides food to the poor
through 55 local organizations like
the Grand Ronde Food Bank, and
today, the agency gives out
almost four times as much
food as it gave out in 1987,
when it spun off as a pro-v
gram of the Mid-Willamette
Valley Community Action
Agency. ' MPFS programs
have simultaneously ex
panded the range of foods
it provides.
"It's changed dramati
cally," said Homan, to now
include "rice, beans, flower,
oil and produce."
The numbers alone ex
plain the need for new fa
cilities. On January 10,
when MPFS moves into
new digs in the Salem Industrial
Park, the group will almost triple,
to 29,000 feet, its existing storage
capacity.
It was almost a year ago that the
Spirit Mountain Community Fund
granted MPFS $125,000 for the
new digs. The old Puentes Broth
ers' (Don Pancho tortillas) building
in the Salem Industrial Park brings
that gift to fruition.
"The Spirit Mountain grant was
the first one we got," said Homan.
"You can't believe what a boost it
was."
MPFS raised $2.6 million for se
curing and remodeling the facility.
The building fund came in addition
to MPFS's regular fund raising for
its $1.2 million annual operating
budget.
The group paid $1.35 million for
the Puentes Brothers' building.
The rest of the money raised will
go to remodeling and general fund
raising campaign costs, according
to Homan.
Today, federal food distribution
programs include school breakfasts
and lunches, summer programs and
nutrition incentive programs, and
organizations like MPFS have
added some local wrinkles of their
own.
Margaret Grant, retiring Execu-
The irony of those already flush
with food getting the good stuff so
that the poor can get the basics is
worth observing.
MPFS also holds several food
drives each year as well as "a whole
string of those kinds of (fund rais
ers)," said Homan.
In recent years, the facility re
ceived a grant to buy a refrigerator
truck for outreach. "Before, (the
food banks and other organiza
tions) would come in once a month
to pick up food. They would need a
volunteer to do it. Now, the food
comes out to them every week," said
pn
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New Home Future home of the Marion-Polk Share. The 29,000-square foot facility in the Salem Industrial
Park was partly funded by the Spirit Mountain Community Fund. The agency is set to move in on January 20.
tive Director of the program, devel
oped "Operation Hungry Child"
that provides sack lunches for kids
during spring breaks.
"Teachers had noticed that kids
would get anxious when spring
break time came," said Homan.
"They knew they weren't going to
get lunch (during the break)."
Last year, MPFS distributed 5,000
sack lunches during spring break.
In Salem each year, MPFS also
holds a fund raiser called, Chefs
Night Out. Great chefs from the
area take time out each October to
cook up their best stuff. Contribu
tors pay to enter and then go from
chef to chef enjoying from all their
best. Local wineries contribute, too.
Homan.
The rural outreach helped ease
congestion at the MPFS facility and
also helped even out their food sup
ply. That in turn keeps small rural
facilities from having to increase
their warehouse capabilities as their
list of clients grows. The refrigera
tor truck also enabled MPFS to in
crease delivery of perishables.
By June, 2004, three years into
the project, the rural outreach
project had distributed 3,023,383
pounds of food."
The current incarnation of na
tional efforts to provide food for the
poor goes back to the dust bowl days
of the 1930s when, according to a
U.S. Department of Agriculture
website, "Many individual farmers
lost their farms, while the total
amount of farmland increased.
Farmers planted more acreage to
try and make up for poor prices
thus further depressing prices by
increasing surpluses in a time of
falling demand. At the same time,
millions of people in the cities lost
their jobs and were without means
of support for themselves and their
families. The danger of malnutri
tion among children became a na
tional concern. The paradox of food
being plowed under and livestock
being destroyed while people went
hungry caused the
Federal government
to act."
While the federal
government provided
help in 1933 for much
of the nation's poor, it
did not create a pro
gram for Reservation
Indians, who were too
far off the beaten
track to take advan
tage of food stamp
programs, until the
"Food Distribution
Program on Indian
Reservations" pro
gram of the 1960s.
Margaret Grant, the first and
only Executive Director of MPFS,
L has headed the Salem food bank
since before its inception in 1987,
when it was still a program of the
Mid-Willamette Valley Community
Action Agency. Now, she is set to
retire.
She recalled that in 1985, the
food bank got an $80,000 grant
from the Gannett Corporation to
buy the building on Front Street
that the group is now leaving.
"Getting this building was huge,"
said Grant. "We'd been operating
out of parking lots, then a house
that somebody had given us with
out water or telephone. When we
got a port-o-potty, it was a big deal."
Runner Takes Her Talents To College
Tribal member Shannon McKenzie starts at Lewis-Clark State College in Idaho.
"I live my life based on the quote, 'to give anything less than
your best is to sacrifice the gift.'"
Tribal member Shannon McKenzie
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By Ron Karten
Long a standout cross country
and track star at Sam Barlow High
School in Gresham, Tribal member
Shannon McKenzie has brought
her talents to Lewis-Clark State
College in Idaho.
Running now as a freshman for
the school, McKenzie already is
listed as a runner of note on the
college's website. Just for future
reference, the website reported
that McKenzie finished 36th at the
NAIA Region I Cross Country Cas
cade Conference held at Lents Park
in Portland early in November.
The women's cross country team at
Lewis-Clark is ranked 13th in the
nation, according to the website.
McKenzie, who just about owned
Lewis-Clark State college student and
Tribal member Shannon McKenzie.. ,
the 1500 and 3000 meter races in
high school, continues to focus on
competition and running as she
grows, and has added radiography
to her future ambitions.
"I am very active in school and
running," she wrote in her 'College
Student Spotlight.' I am currently
taking 15 credits and on plan for a
degree in radiography."
Not surprisingly, McKenzie gets
a lot of pleasure out of a lot of sports.
She named soccer "and especially
rollerblading" among those she con
tinues to pursue, and added hiking,
swimming and camping among her
activities. f:;,.. w
McKenzie attends Lewis-Clark on
a cross countrytrack scholarship
with additional help from the Tribe.
Her parents are David and
Sherrie McKenzie. Her brothers
are DJay and Keath. And her sis
ter is Sharrah. Her grandparents
are Bill McKenzie and Kathleen
Parazoo.
"I live my life based on the quote,
'to give anything less than your
best is to sacrifice the gift,' she
wrote. Steve Prefontaine said that.
She's become part of our dreams
since we've been part of hers. Bob
Dylan said that, sort of.