S moke S ignals
OCTOBER 1, 2015
5
Community Fund tops $67 million in giving
By Brent Merrill
Smoke Signals staff writer
Spirit Mountain Community
Fund hosted its third-quarter grant
distribution on Wednesday, Sept.
16, in a new location at Chachalu
Museum & Cultural Center in
Grand Ronde.
During the ceremony, the fund
distributed 43 grants totaling
more than $1.8 million. The small-
est grant was $2,500 to the Open
Hearts Open Minds Coffee Creek
Theater Arts Program and the larg-
est grant of $322,500 was awarded
to the Grand Ronde Tribal Police
Project.
In all, the fund distributed 25
large grants and 11 small grants.
The fund distributes grants to
Oregon Tribes annually and those
awards are distributed during each
year’s third-quarter presentation.
Since its inception in 1997, the
fund has awarded 2,214 grants
totaling more than $67 million.
Tribal member Kathleen George,
the Community Fund’s director,
welcomed grant recipients to
Chachalu following a drum song
by Tribal artisans Travis Stewart
and Brian Krehbiel.
“It’s the opportunity to welcome
our partners to Grand Ronde and
take a moment to celebrate togeth-
er the work of your organizations,
the grassroots work that makes
this state a better place to live,”
said George.
Tribal Council members Denise
Harvey, Ed Pearsall and Brenda
Tuomi and Tribal Council Chair-
man Reyn Leno attended, as well as
the fund’s Board of Trustees Chair-
man Sho Dozono, board member
and Tribal member Ron Reibach
and the fund’s Grants Coordinator
Julia Willis.
“We are tremendously excited to
renew our support for your work,”
George said. “One of the most im-
portant things I get to do today in
addition to sharing the grants is
also to share with you our very,
very sincere and strong heartfelt
thanks for the work that you do.
I am so pleased to be a part of the
fund. We consider it an honor and
a privilege to support the work that
you do.”
Leno said he is proud of the
Tribe’s Community Fund.
“It was the idea of our council
since Restoration in 1983,” said
Leno. “This community took care
of us so we want to take care of the
community. That’s what the whole
fund is based on and it’s been highly
successful. We love to see what you
do. We love to have you come here
and see what we do. We really like
to have people know who we are
and we are glad to be able to help
you.”
Dozono, who has been on the
fund’s Board of Trustees since the
beginning, thanked the Tribe for
its generosity and said he has felt
privileged to be a part of the giving
for the last 18 years.
“This is the best job I have ever
had. It has been an amazing experi-
ence for me.” said Dozono. “It’s been
a wonderful experience.”
The first grant of the day for
$5,000 was awarded to Antonio
Photo by Michelle Alaimo
Spirit Mountain Community Fund Director Kathleen George talks with
grant recipients during the fund’s third-quarter check presentation held at
Chachalu Museum & Cultural Center on Wednesday, Sept. 16.
Jackson, executive director of
Building Blocks to Success, for the
LEGO Robotics program.
Building Blocks is a nonprofit
organization based in Multnomah
County that exposes youths to sci-
ence, technology, engineering and
math through LEGOs and robots.
“We are really empowering kids
and inspiring them that they can
be anything they want to be and
the only limits they have are the
limits they place on themselves,”
said Jackson.
Jackson said his program has
more than 80 youths ages 6 to 14
who attend Saturday morning ses-
sions on the campus of Concordia
University in northeast Portland.
“We are setting the expectation
that college is a reality for them and
college is where we expect them to
go,” said Jackson. “The little ones
– we are telling them that they are
college students.”
George said it is no accident that
the children attend sessions at a
university.
“They are taking these young,
underserved kids, most of them
are coming from families that
didn’t have the opportunity to go
to college, and they are working on
LEGO robotics,” said George. “They
are saying to these kids, ‘This is a
place for you where you belong’ so
that long before they think about
whether or not they are going to col-
lege, it’s a place where they belong.
I think that is a powerful message.”
Jackson said the grant money
will be used to purchase more com-
puters and more robots.
“This grant has helped us tre-
mendously,” he said.
One of the large grant recipients
of $20,000 was the McMinnville
School District’s Jumpstart – Ready
for Kindergarten Program.
Jumpstart is a national early ed-
ucation organization that recruits
people, usually former teachers or
community volunteers, to serve
preschool children in low-income
neighborhoods. The program cur-
riculum helps children develop
language and literacy skills that
children need to be better prepared
for kindergarten and to close the
literacy gap at a young age.
The program is in its fifth year
educating parents with young
children. The program reports that
children participating in its before-
school-age reading program have
measurably better success than
children who are not read to.
The school district provides read-
ing kits with binders that help par-
ents track their reading activities
and the progress their children are
making.
“It’s tremendous,” said McMinn-
ville School District Administrative
Assistant Mary Dressel of the grant
dollars. “As a school district we
couldn’t prioritize that many kits
for that many families. We try to
reach out to needy families.”
Dressel said the binders cost $22
and the kits cost $60 for each fam-
ily, and that the award from Spirit
Mountain Community Fund covers
that cost.
Clackamas Community College
Foundation received a grant for
$25,000 to fund the school’s resto-
ration of the headwaters of Newell
Creek project located at the John
Inskeep Environmental Learning
Center. Newell Creek eventually
flows into the Willamette River.
“In the late 1950s, Smuckers Cor-
poration occupied a piece of proper-
ty that has now become a part of the
college and was traditionally the
headwaters of Newell Creek,” said
Clackamas Community College
Foundation’s Executive Director
Greg Fitzgerald. “At that time, the
corporation dug a channel so that
they could drain their property
and we are restoring it back into a
flowing stream bed.”
Fitzgerald said the area is home
to two listed fish species – Coho
and steelhead – and that it is a
traditional spawning area.
Fitzgerald said that with the
resources of the college, its consor-
tium of partners and the funding
from Spirit Mountain Community
Fund, the area will be transformed.
“We are going to be able to make
sure that the storm water runoff
that now flows on to our campus
through this particular area will be
cleaner going out than it is coming
in so that we can protect the salmon
and steelhead habitat,” said Fitz-
gerald. “This grant has helped us
produce a fantastic design that also
provides this five-acre place with an
outdoor classroom and educational
facilities not just for the community
college students, but for all K-12
children in the area.”
George said the project stood
out because it is a “melding” of the
college’s educational mission with
its ability to be good land stewards.
“We have been looking for more
and more opportunities to invest
in habitat restoration for our riv-
ers and our watersheds, so this
seemed like a great opportunity,”
said George. “We just thought this
was a really exciting project.”
The Newell Creek restoration
project is scheduled to be completed
in 2017.
Jonathan Jelen of Oregon Wild
attended and received the $25,000
grant award for his organization.
Jelen, who is Oregon Wild’s devel-
opment coordinator, said the grant
award is a “game changer.”
Jelen said the organization’s
mission is to protect and restore
Oregon’s wild lands, wildlife and
waters “as an enduring legacy for
future generations.”
Oregon Wild was founded in
1974 and focuses on protecting old
growth forests and working to get
wilderness areas designated for
protection and then seeing to it that
they are actually protected. Oregon
Wild works to protect gray wolf and
salmon populations and sea otters
as well.
Jelen said his organization is
working to strengthen Oregon’s
laws regarding aerial pesticide
spraying. He said the laws regulat-
ing spraying chemicals are “weak”
and Oregon Wild wants to work
with the state to do something
about it. He said the grant from
Spirit Mountain Community Fund
will allow Oregon Wild to bring on
new staff to work specifically on
strengthening regulations around
aerial pesticide spraying.
“I think they (Oregon Wild) have
picked an issue that I think needs
some work and they are going to
do it in partnership with the state
so that was one of the things that
we were happy to support,” said
George.
Maybe the most important grant
for the third quarter was the
$25,000 awarded to Store to Door
of Multnomah County.
Store to Door is a volunteer-based,
grassroots shopping and delivery
service for shut-in Elders.
“It’s a population that goes pretty
much unseen,” said Executive Di-
rector Kiersten Ware. “The home-
bound are people that have worked
their whole lives, raised families
and contributed to their society.”
Ware, whose organization was
established in 1989, said the av-
erage age of clients is 76 and that
84 percent are women. She said 80
percent of their clients live alone
and that most have outlived their
spouses and many times have out-
lived their children.
Ware said most of their clients
want to remain in their homes and
not be placed in care facilities.
“They want to remain living in
their own setting – it’s a tie to
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