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About The Siuslaw news. (Florence, Lane County, Or.) 1960-current | View Entire Issue (May 27, 2020)
SIUSLAW NEWS | WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2020 | 3A Community News Siuslaw Elementary to host student item pick-up When school was sud- denly dismissed in March in response to the governor’s executive order, many Siu- slaw students left personal belongings in classrooms. About half of all Siuslaw Elementary students have already picked-up their materials. For those who haven’t, SES has set aside Wednesday, May 27, for students and families to Library Tidings pick up any items left at the school. SES staff will be on hand from 3 to 7 p.m. to return these items to families. All items will be gathered in the Siuslaw Elementary School breezeway, the bus pick-up area, at 2221 Oak St. Families can drive-up and school staff will locate the bag with students’ belong- ings. News about the Siuslaw Public Library Florence Habitat continues local bottle and can drive Is your storage bring overtaken by empty bottles and cans? Help the environment while supporting the local Florence Habitat for Hu- manity. Florence Habitat will be hosting a bottle and can drive Friday, June 5, and Saturday, June 6, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. People can bring return- able bottles and cans to the front of Florence Habitat ReStore, 2016 Highway 101, in the Florence Grocery Outlet parking lot. Volunteers will be on hand to unload donations from each vehicle. This is a social distancing drive-thru event. For more info, visit www. florencehabitat.org. Library Tidings, a regular feature of the Siuslaw News, features news about upcoming Siuslaw Public Library programs for adults and children, new books and videos, and other library news of interest to the community. SOS to help with energy assistance The Siuslaw Outreach Services Low-Income Housing Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is tak- ing sign-ups for those who have not received energy assistance already this year. Funds will be dispersed as long as they are available. LIHEAP is an energy as- sistance program designed to help low-income indi- viduals and families during the colder months. Sign-ups may be done in person at Siuslaw Outreach Services, 1576 W 12th St., or via phone at 541-997-2816. For more information, visit florencesos.org. Library Tidings by Kevin Mittge M ONDAY--S ATURDAY Y 10-- 5 15500 6thh St.. & Hwyy 101 5 41--9 97--9 4244 FREE E IN N TOWN N DELIVERY Y Readers Choice Voted #1 Realtor During these uncertain times, we are accessible by phone, email and by appointment only. We are conducting business as safely as possible for our clients as well as our staff. 541-997-7653 Jim_hoberg@hotmail.com WEDNESDAY THURSDAY MAY 27 MAY 28 New phase of funding will address longer-term recovery efforts 69°F 51°F 69°F 53°F Two months after launch- ing its COVID-19 Com- munity Response Fund, United Way of Lane County has now granted a total of $309,040 to Lane Coun- ty-area nonprofits work- ing on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, United Way announced the recipients of its fourth and final round of “response” funding: 34 pro- grams will receive a total of $77,195 this week. Among those is Boy & Girls Club of Western Lane County, DevNW and St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County, who each will receive $2,500 in response funds. Similar to previous rounds of funding, United Way grant dollars will help meet the immediate, short- term needs of nonprofits Oregon is facing unprec- edented unemployment and hundreds of thousands of Oregon families are counting on unemploy- ment benefits to pay for SATURDAY SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY MAY 29 MAY 30 MAY 31 JUNE 1 JUNE 2 Rain AM Showers Few Showers Showers 58°F 49°F 61°F 50°F 61°F 50°F 61°F 50°F 67°F 52°F Health is our #1 Priority! At Shervin’s we are taking extra precaution in order to ensure that our customers and staff are kept safe and healthy during this quickly changing situation. 1 Car Sanitation – All cars are wiped down with a sanitizer before and aft er the service. We wipe down any areas in the interior where employees have touched, such as door handles, the steering wheel, keys, shift ers and power window panels. 2 Hand Sanitation- Our staff will continue to wash their hands throughout the day and change gloves aft er each car they service. 3 Give Customers Options- We will pick up and deliver your vehicle to your home. You may also drop your key in our secure mailbox for drop-off s to avoid or minimize contact. 4 Employee Illness is Serious- We are encouraging employees not to shake hands. We are practicing “personal distancing” and encouraging employees to stay home if they feel under the weather. 5 Wipe Down High Touch Points- We wipe/spray counters, credit card machines, door handles, phone handles, kitchen areas, and chair arms and tables in waiting area multiple times a day. We continue to be focused and committed to working with each of you to ensure we continue to meet and exceed your expecta- tions. We are here for you. We thank you for your business and more importantly, your friendship. Please be safe and exercise extra precaution during this challenging time. Book Returns and More! This week, on Tuesday and Friday, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., the library has begun accepting the return of mate- rials checked out before the library closure in March. Next week, the library will begin accepting returns Monday through Friday. Also next week the library hopes to begin providing curbside service, notifying patrons of holds waiting for the past two months, as well as beginning to pull request- ed books for patrons. At this time, we are asking Mapleton patrons to drop off any ma- terials they might have at the Florence library. Patrons are asked to please be patient while we transition to this limited public service in the coming weeks. Creativebug The library is pleased to present access to Creative- bug, a site offering arts and crafts instructional videos. After logging in with your library card number and then registering for free, you will enjoy unlimited access to thousands of online art and craft classes. Watch the class- es anytime, anywhere. Since the classes never expire, you can start and stop projects at your own pace. These classes are for all skill levels. Videos are pro- duced by renowned artists and creative experts. Check it out! and those whom they serve, providing food boxes, rental assistance, family supports, and more. However, the short-term needs are not diminish- ing, and the need for lon- ger-term solutions and sys- temic change is clear. “While many in Lane County may be experi- encing some relief in our community beginning to open back up, there is a vast portion of our community, often unseen, who are still in precarious situations — fearful for their health, their housing and their overall ability to weather the many struggles that have been ex- acerbated by this pandem- ic,” said Noreen J. Dunnells, United Way of Lane Coun- ty’s President and CEO. Given this, United Way of Lane County is expanding its current fund to become the COVID-19 Response and Recovery Fund. Dol- lars raised moving forward will be invested in the com- munity’s most urgent and immediate needs, as well as efforts to address health, educational, and econom- ic inequities. These grants will be larger in scope than the original response fund grants and will still be di- rected toward nonprofits serving the needs of those most impacted by the pan- demic. This new phase of fund- ing is possible thanks to a partnership with the newly formed Lane Community Health Council — which not only contributed to the original response fund but is also making a significant investment in the expand- ed response and recovery fund. “We know that when it comes to health, access to care is only one factor in determining outcomes for our community,” said Rhonda Busek, Lane Com- munity Health Council’s Executive Director. “Lane Community Health Coun- cil is committed to invest- ing in the many other vital supports necessary for the health of our community — affordable housing, ac- cess to food, and more — all of which have become increasingly urgent amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. United Way of Lane Coun- ty is a trusted leader in this work, and we are thrilled to partner with them in this way.” More details about this new fund and how non- profits can apply will be released on June 16, when United Way kicks off LIVE UNITED Week, an online event featuring series of videos and stores about the strength and passion of our community. Those interest- ed in contributing to United Way’s COVID-19 Response and Recover Fund can do so at www.unitedwaylane.org/ covid-19-fund. Oregon Employment Department reports on processing claims in Oregon FRIDAY Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy old father stayed to battle it; the firefighter who drove into the heart of the inferno in his bulldozer; the police officer who switched on his body camera to record what he thought would be his final moments as the flames closed in; and the mother who, less than 12 hours after giving birth in the local hospital, thought she would die in the chaotic evacuation with her baby in her lap. This is the story of a town at the forefront of a devas- tating global shift—of a re- markable landscape sucked ever drier of moisture and becoming inhospitable even to trees, now dying in their tens of millions and turning to kindling. It is also a story of a new kind of fire behavior that firefighters have never witnessed before and barely know how to handle. What happened in Para- dise was unprecedented in America. Yet according to climate scientists and fire experts, it will surely happen again. United Way invests over $300,000 in short-term COVID-19 response O LD D SCHOOL I s itt timee forr a neww mattress? Book Review “Fire in Paradise” by Alistair Gee and Dani Anguiano There is no precedent in postwar American history for the destruction of the town of Paradise, Calif. On Nov. 8, 2018, the community of 27,000 people was swal- lowed by the ferocious Camp Fire, which razed virtually every home and killed at least 85 people. It displaced tens of thousands of people, yielding a refugee crisis that continues to unfold. “Fire in Paradise” is a dra- matic and moving narrative of the disaster based on hun- dreds of in-depth interviews with residents, firefighters and police and scientific ex- perts. Alastair Gee and Dani An- guiano are California-based journalists who have report- ed on Paradise since the day the fire began. Together, they reveal the heroics of the first responders, the miraculous escapes of those who got out of Paradise, and the horrors experienced by those who were trapped. Their accounts are inti- mate and unforgettable, in- cluding the local who left her home on foot as fire ap- proached while her 82-year- their basic needs. While the Oregon Em- ployment Department (OED) has paid a record number of Oregonians within two to three weeks, for too many Oregonians, their claims are in a back- log. Department staff knows how frustrating it has been for those who are trying to reach them about the sta- tus of their claims and have been unable to get through. That is why the OED is launching Project Focus 100. The goal is straightfor- ward: to process 100 percent of the 38,000-claim backlog as quickly as possible and get Oregonians the relief they need. The department will use four successful strategies: 1. Continue surge hiring. The department has made good progress getting the staff it needs to process claims quickly, increasing by six times the number of people processing claims than were in place before COVID-19 closures began. “We continue hiring and training new employees to ensure every Oregonian gets the benefits they’re owed in a timely fashion,” said OED Director Kay Erickson. 2. Further focus its expe- rienced professionals on the oldest and most complex claims. For two weeks, from May 29 to June 12, OED will increase its outbound calls to resolve claims for those that have been waiting the longest. To do this, the most experienced employees will take time away from an- swering the phones. OED will also temporarily reassign job center employ- ees to take incoming calls to help resolve questions, in all languages, relating to: • Address/Phone number changes • Looking up customer ID (CID) numbers • Re-setting PIN numbers • Issues with claiming a week of benefits online, in- cluding taking weekly certi- fications • Filing a new claim or processing an internet ini- tial claim (except those with military, federal, or out-of- state wages) • Re-starting a claim • Checking the status of a claim (if unable to use the online claim system) 3. Increase proactive con- tact and communication. OED us piloting new ways of contacting Oregonians to let them know where their claims are in the system and to solve problems. It now has pre-recorded phone messages and emails that confirm that OED has re- ceived a PUA claim. The de- partment is also working to add a customer service chat bot to the website. 4. Use technology to close gaps and improve service. “We have identified strat- egies that move claims out of processing traps that can hang them up,” Erick- son said. “That has already moved thousands of claims through processing. We will continue using these strate- gies to speed up processing and get Oregonians whose claims have been stuck the benefits they’re owed.” People with questions about their unemployment benefits should go to www. oregon.gov/employ/unem ployment/. There, OED continues to add new metrics to the online dashboard so that Oregonians can watch its progress. “We’ll continue to be transparent about where we are and our progress to- ward our goals,” Erickson said. “Navigating this crisis is a collective effort, and Oregonians know how to work together to overcome hard challenges. We’ll get through this together.” Auxiliary aids and ser- vices available upon request to individuals with disabili- ties. Contact 503-947-1794 or call 711 Telecommunica- tions Relay Services.