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About Cottage Grove sentinel. (Cottage Grove, Or.) 1909-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 12, 2019)
THURSDAY EDITION | DECEMBER 12, 2019 | $1.00 CGSENTINEL.COM 3 Est. 1889 S entinel C ottage G rove VOL. 131, NO. 48 S ERVING THE COMMUNITIES OF C OTTAGE G ROVE , C RESWELL , D ORENA , D RAIN , E LKTON , L ORANE AND Y ONCALLA Your Local News Delivered Your Way: In Print. Online. On the Go! PERSONAL | BUSINESS BENEFIT PLANNING | SURETY Season’s greetings in The Grove (541) 942-0555 PayneWest.com /Cottage-Grove WEATHER Climate, housing addressed by City Council By Damien Sherwood dsherwood@cgsentinel. com Clouds and rain with a high of 52 and a low tonight of 44. Full forecast on A5 COMMUNITY DAMIEN SHERWOOD/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL Mr. and Mrs. Claus posed with children (top) during this year’s Christmas in Cottage Grove event on Dec. 7. A day of activities cul- minated in the lighting of a 25-foot-tall Christmas Tree (right) in All-America Square, donated by Stuart Stevenson. A block party provided food, hayrides and caroling (left) through the evening while Village Green and the Cottage Grove Museum dis- played holiday decorations. Art in the Grove to debut Saturday. A5 SPORTS — B DAMIEN SHERWOOD/COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL GREG LEE/FOR THE SENTINEL Grief support group comes to Cottage Grove By Damien Sherwood dsherwood@cgsentinel. com Skyline basketball tips off in Elkton. B1 • RECORDS Obituaries Official releases A2 • LORANE NEWS A grief support group is offering an opportu- nity for those who have lost loved ones to connect and receive coping advice on Dec. 17 at the Cottage Grove Community Center from 1:30 to 3 p.m. By Damien Sherwood • CLASSIFIEDS dsherwood@cgsentinel. com FOLLOW US FOR THE LATEST NEWS : We don’t want people to have people go places they don’t want to go. So, if they just want to sit back and listen to the group, they’re welcome to do that.” Bedford facilitates drop- in groups and a six-week grief support group series in Eugene. “The drop-ins are cre- ated for people who can’t commit to a series,” he said. “I want to be ac- commodating to people’s schedules.” The upcoming drop-in support group will focus on how to cope with the loss of a loved one around See SUPPORT A8 McKinney-Vento program stabilizes unhoused youth A5 Listings and public notices B8-B9 The drop-in session is free, anonymous and pro- vided by Signature Hos- pice. “It’s our goal as an orga- nization to support people as much as we can,” said Joshwa Bedford, a bereave- ment coordinator with Signature Hospice. “We don’t force people to talk. While Cottage Grove struggles to find solutions for its homeless and those dealing with housing in- security, youth represent an often overlooked sub- set of that population. The McKinney-Vento program is working to ad- dress this oversight in the South Lane School Dis- trict (SLSD). “It’s a great program,” said Chad Hamilton, di- rector of special services with the district. Hamil- ton oversees and advises on programs to make sure policies are implemented. “It’s a person-driven pro- gram … and the majority is based on relationships.” The McKinney-Ven- to Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 is a federal law which aims to im- prove the lives and safety of the nation’s homeless. Among its services, the act protects the educa- tional rights of students in transition, ensuring that homeless children and children of homeless indi- viduals have equal access to public education. The South Lane School District complies with the act using Title I dollars See YOUTH A10 /CGS ENTINEL @CGS ENTINEL CGS ENTINEL . COM Event shares ‘Gratitude’ with local community By Damien Sherwood 541- 942-3325 ph • 541-942-3328 fax P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424 dsherwood@cgsentinel. com Live music, poetry and spoken word performanc- es filled the Opal Center for Arts and Education on Dec. 6 for the fifth community gathering of The Nature of Gratitude, an annual exploration of the concept of gratitude through the arts. “Our mission is to in- crease the awareness and practice of gratitude in our lives,” said Tom Titus, co-creator of the event. “Our core belief is that gratitude is a foundation- al practice for living, not just an emotional response Free Appraisals I’ll Come to You! BUY & SELL Gold, Silver, Scrap, Men’s Jewelry, Costume Jewelry, Pieces & Parts. Even Junk! The Jewelry Girl, LLC L ISA R USSELL • (541)556-9598 25+ Years Experience 2001 Franklin #3 Eugene, Oregon when things go well in our lives.” The all-volunteer event explored the concept of “returning” through vari- ous artistic media. Titus and co-creator Eric Alan conceived of the project more than five years ago when a discus- sion about nature litera- ture and gratitude revealed a strong relationship with the sentiment and the arts. “Just as we were ready to roll out the first program at Tsunami Books in 2015, I had a fortuitous encoun- ter with an essay by writer David Whyte in which he See SHARE A7 Advocates for climate change awareness again appealed to the City of Cottage Grove to take ac- tion during a City Coun- cil meeting on Dec. 9. Speakers took turns discussing the topic from different perspectives. Area resident Rosemary Foraker expressed her displeasure with what she felt was the city’s lack of commitment to addressing the issue. “It’s become clear that the City of Cot- tage Grove will not take meaningful action on the climate crisis,” she said. Foraker used her time to expound upon the sci- entifi c evidence of cli- mate change. She also encouraged the city to join other efforts across the globe and invited those present to a show- ing of “Ice on Fire” at the Rural Organizing Project building on Dec. 13 at 7 p.m. Resident Beverley Jones stressed the press- ing nature of climate change and the breadth of its impact. “It’s not that we’re freaking out about one single degree of climate change,” she said. “It’s that we care about water. We care about food and food supplies. We care about commerce. We care about the economy. And we care about our children and our grand- children.” Local Tim Wilson dis- cussed ways in which Cottage Grove could be part of a response to cli- mate change. “There are numerous things we could do with- in our community that are relatively inexpen- sive,” he said. “We can partner with our local es- tablished businesses here … and promote better business sustainability within our community and give our children a better place.” Resident Katie Owens pointed to a need to ad- dress climate change for humanity’s preservation. “Whether there’s a fu- ture that’s including the human race is what’s at stake here,” she said. In previous appeals to the council, climate change awareness advo- cates had also requested the city to declare a See COUNCIL A9