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WEDNESDAY EDITION
SAILORS
BATTLE BRAVES
U.S. Coast Guard Station
Siuslaw River Celebrates
100 Years
INSIDE — A10
SPORTS — B
127TH YEAR ❘ ISSUE NO. 101
❘ DECEMBER 20, 2017 ❘ $1.00
SERVING WESTERN LANE COUNTY SINCE 1890
FLORENCE, OREGON
Sustaining the spirit of the season
Soroptimist food and toy distribution Saturday serves hundreds
WEATHER WARNING
Emergency
shelter plans to
open tonight
Cold Weather Shelter could
be open through Christmas,
depending on weather
B Y J ARED A NDERSON
Siuslaw News
PHOTOS BY JARED ANDERSON/SIUSLAW NEWS
T
he 2017 community Christmas Basket Distribution was in
full force on Saturday as Soroptimist International of
Florence, with help from numerous local organizations
and volunteers, helped bring food and toys to hundreds of fam-
ilies throughout the Siuslaw region. The food portion of the
event, held at Siuslaw Middle School and coordinated by
Soroptimist member Carol Bennett, gave food boxes to approxi-
mately 380 families. The boxes, valued at $50, included a host of
items including a whole turkey or chicken, stuffing, fresh pota-
toes, dinner rolls and various holiday staples and snacks. All of
the food was newly purchased, with $20,000 donated from mul-
tiple organizations and individuals in the community. “I want to
thank the volunteers that came to help distribute the food, and
the suppliers that gave us great prices on the food,” Bennett
said. Both St. Vincent de Paul and Heceta Self Storage provided
trucks to bring in the food and boxes. On the toy end of the
event, 201 families were served, giving holiday toys to 526 chil-
dren in the community. “The day went terrifically,” said Michelle
Fraley, Soroptimist member and co-chair for the toy program.
She shares the responsibility with Shasta McMullen. Hundreds
of toys filled the Florence Church of the Nazarene, such as
games, puzzles, action figures and dolls. “We could not do this
without the generous support of the community and the local
businesses and all the volunteers,” Fraley said.
The Florence
Emergency Cold
Weather Shelter will
be opening
Wednesday evening,
Dec. 20, with the pos-
COURTESY IMAGE
sibility of additional
The flag for the cold
nights being added
weather shelter will
throughout the week,
be displayed today,
including Christmas
and can be seen
day.
throughout Florence
“Right now, we’re
whenever the shelter
just making the com-
is open.
mitment for
Wednesday night,” said Pastor Greg Wood, pres-
ident of the program. “My guess is we’ll proba-
bly be open through Christmas day.”
Because the shelter is only opened when the
temperature reaches 32 degrees or less, predict-
ing a full schedule can be difficult.
The forecast has fluctuated from day to day
recently. On Monday, Christmas Day was pre-
dicted to be less than 32 degrees, but at the time
of this writing the prediction jumped to 37
degrees.
However, the shelter could open at a warmer
temperature if rain is predicted, as it is more dif-
ficult for clients of the program to dry off in
colder temperatures.
See
SHELTER 7A
SVFR firefighters
demobilize, return
home from
California fires
I MPLEMENTING THE V ISION
B Y C HANTELLE M EYER
Siuslaw News
wo weeks ago, Siuslaw
Vision 2025 held a public
meeting at the Siuslaw Public
Library to update community
members on current projects and
progress of the Vision Keepers.
Library Director and Vision Co-
Chair Meg Spencer opened the
Dec. 7 meeting with news that the
Vision received a $280,000 grant
from The Ford Family Foundation
for the next three years.
“We’ve started and done this
work, and now we’ve got money
to help us in that work to continue
to implement the Vision,” Spencer
said.
The grant will fund a full-time
coordinator position, currently
filled part-time by Susy Lacer, to
organize and work with a multi-
tude of community initiatives
under the Vision’s umbrella.
Besides the coordinator posi-
tion, the Vision will also now have
funds for two other contracted
positions, in information technolo-
gy and administration.
INSIDE
T
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Community . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Kid Scoop . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Library Tidings . . . . . . . . . . .
B6
A3
B5
A5
“This funding helps meet one of
the Vision’s biggest goals: creating
living wage work opportunities in
the Siuslaw region,” Lacer said.
The Vision works in six cate-
gories: Working People — jobs;
Happy People — health; Educated
People — learning; Connected
People — services; Creative Peo-
Siuslaw Vision Keepers detail current
initiatives to support region’s people
called Vision Keepers, to work on
projects they are interested in
starting or supporting.
Mary Shaw joined the Vision to
share her knowledge in local and
sustainable foods.
“The mission of the Vision
Keepers was to provide services
and experiences for the entire
“You are really the people who make a difference. ...
You’re doing it today, you’re going to do it tomorrow and,
truly, you are making the Siuslaw region a community.”
— Jo Beaudreau, Siuslaw Vision 2025 Co-Chair
ple — arts; and Active People —
recreation. It brings together input
from a variety of community
meetings and surveys conducted in
2015. All this works together to
make up the 2025 Vision.
“One of the things we’ve been
trying to do all along is make sure
we keep getting new people
involved, keep moving forward
and keep making sure that nobody
gets burned out,” Spencer said.
The way the Vision does this is
by inviting community members,
Opinion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A4
Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A2
Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . B
Weather Data . . . . . . . . . . . A2
Siuslaw region,” she said. “That
felt so much bigger to me than just
Florence.”
Shaw gave a cooking demon-
stration during the meeting and
talked about ways the Vision can
bring cooking classes to food
shares and school groups. The
Local Foods Initiative is also
working to network Siuslaw farm-
ers in and outside the region and
bring a farmer’s market to Bay
Street by spring 2018.
Lacer said, “The vision is here
THIS WEEK ’ S
to support all of these different
efforts, all of these government
agencies, nonprofit organizations,
and people like Mary who have an
idea. The vision is here to support,
to have connections and to help
you achieve all the really cool
projects you’re working on in this
area.”
Other groups gave updates on
programs in the works, including
Siuslaw Broadband/Hyak and its
plans to “light up” Florence’s new
fiber network by mid-January;
City of Florence, Florence Urban
Renewal
Agency,
Oregon
Department of Transportation and
Lane County’s ReVision Florence
Streetscaping
Project
on
Highways 101 and 126; Siuslaw
Youth Soccer Association and its
efforts to bring club soccer to
nearly 200 youth in Florence,
Mapleton and Reedsport; and
community health projects, career
technical training and even a plan
to bring state-funded preschool to
Mapleton.
See
VISION 9A
TODAY
THURSDAY
FRIDAY
SATURDAY
48 31
47 34
47 30
44 30
WEATHER
Full Forecast, A3
The Oregon State Fire Marshal’s office has
reported that all 15 Oregon strike teams, includ-
ing firefighters from
B Y M ARK B RENNAN
Siuslaw Valley Fire and
Siuslaw News
Rescue (SVFR), are
demobilizing and will
soon be returning to their home stations.
“We are extremely pleased with the perform-
ance of our strike teams,” said State Fire Marshal
Jim Walker. “Our teams have played an important
role helping our neighbors to the south and all of
Oregon can be proud of the professionalism and
effectiveness of our resources while dealing with
these difficult fires.”
SVFR sent a crew of seven — three full-time
firefighters and four volunteer firefighters — to
See
FIREFIGHTERS 7A
NOTICE
EARLY DEADLINES
FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Siuslaw News is joining other area business-
es by being closed Christmas Day, Monday,
Dec. 25, and New Year’s Day, Monday, Jan. 1.
Advertisements, news items and display
advertising, as well as line classifieds and legal
notices, should all be submitted by 10 a.m.
Friday the week before each holiday to accom-
modate deadlines.
S IUSLAW N EWS
2 S ECTIONS ❘ 22 P AGES
C OPYRIGHT 2017