SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 2021
BAKER CITY HERALD — A3
LOCAL & STATE
Grocery stores in small towns
stocked for Thanksgiving
By ALEX WITTWER
EO Media Group
Supply chain issues grip-
ping the nation have led to
shortages in everything from
semiconductors to paper
trays at school cafeterias, but
Thanksgiving looks to be run-
ning smoothly and on time,
according to grocery stores in
rural Oregon cities.
At the Halfway Mercan-
tile in east Baker County,
owner Joshua Sevier said
that although some items
have been diffi cult to obtain,
or late arriving, the makings
for a traditional Thanksgiving
feast are on hand, including
turkeys, potatoes and rolls.
“We have all that stuff in
stock,” Sevier said on Thurs-
day morning, Nov. 18, from
the market in downtown Half-
way, population 350.
Sevier said it can be more
diffi cult for small, indepen-
dent grocery stores to get the
supplies they need right now,
as larger chains have more
buying power.
In Prairie City, population
840, “turkeys on the table,
we’ve got turkey already in our
freezer,” said Blaine Huffman,
owner of Huffman’s Market.
“I’m sure there’s going to be
items we’re going to be short on
but on the whole we’re fi ne.”
Grocery stores have had
to adapt to a changing supply
landscape that has seen short-
ages crop up in unexpected
places.
“We don’t know one load
from the next what we’re going
to get — it changes every time,”
Huffman said. “The food supply
chain is vulnerable, a lot of stuff
is still sitting out in the ocean.”
Huffman said he had some
issues ordering pre-made pies
for Thanksgiving, and the
store was out of stock of those
items. Supplies for homemade
pies, however, were available.
Considering that smaller
markets lack the same buying
power as larger chains such
as Safeway or Walmart, there
was a cause for concern that
residents in John Day, popula-
tion 1,700, or Prairie City might
have to travel farther to fi ll
their shopping cart for the up-
coming holiday. Grocery stores
report that while ordering has
been a challenge, the staples for
a Thanksgiving feast have yet
to cause any concerns.
“Before, I was able to buy
pallets of certain things like
Jayson Jacoby of the Baker
City Herald contributed to
this story.
Free Thanksgiving
dinner at Calvary
Baptist
Continued from A1
Samantha O’Conner/Baker City Herald
Chuck Carey performed
his customary role as
the chain saw operator
cutting down this year’s
community Christmas
tree on Nov. 19.
Christmas parade. The
parade starts at 5 p.m.
• Public Arts
• Public Works Advi-
sory
• Tree Board
Everyone is invited to a
• Planning Commission
free Thanksgiving dinner
To apply, go to www.
on Thanksgiving Day from
3 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Cal- bakercity.com/FormCenter/
vary Baptist Church, Third Boards-Commissions-2/
Volunteer-Form-33, com-
and Broadway streets in
plete the form and click on
Baker City.
“submit.”
The city is also eligible
Baker City has
for a free website redesign,
openings on
and it has set up an online
several boards,
survey to get comments
commissions
from residents about the
Baker City is seeking
volunteers to fi ll vacancies website. To complete the
survey, go to www.survey-
on the following boards
monkey.com/r/6KQ7PBB.
and commissions:
RESCUE
Continued from A1
This is where Best Friends
can keep cats — dry, warm
and fed — awaiting adop-
tion if no foster families are
available.
Currently the group has
10 foster homes for dogs, and
10 for cats.
“We desperately need
more,” said Carmen Ott, a
long-time volunteer with Best
Friends.
Ott said few people realize
the work of Best Friends
— especially when it comes
to rescuing animals from
euthanization.
In the past, an impounded
animal was euthanized after
fi ve days if not claimed, per
city ordinance.
Best Friends helped get
that ordinance changed.
“Best Friends takes out ev-
ery adoptable dog,” Ott said.
reorder it, that’s where you
may run into an issue because
everybody else is reordering,
especially for the season.”
Supply chain issues have
cropped up from a myriad of
pandemic-related minutiae,
such as labor and raw mate-
rial shortages — including
dock workers and truck driv-
ers — to low production yields
and increased costs of goods
as shipping costs skyrocket
due to increases in fuel and
container prices.
That means when orders
fi nally arrive at grocery stores,
the contents might be less
than what was ordered, or the
order itself would be delayed.
“It’s hard to plan around,
I’ll put it to you that way,”
Shaffer said.
Those issues exacerbated
an already vulnerable system.
Still, the grocery stores
remain optimistic about the
upcoming holiday.
“It’s not like it was last
year,” Huffman said. “I think
it will be good, I think every-
thing will be good.”
LOCAL BRIEFING
TREE
Allies, who donated the
tree, said he hopes everyone
enjoys its presence downtown
during the holiday season.
“The reason I’m getting
rid of this is it’s too close to
the house and the roots are
most likely going to start
growing into the basement,”
Allies said.
The tree will be adorned
as usual with lights, which
will be illuminated on Satur-
day evening, Dec. 4, following
the Chamber of Commerce’s
“Miracle on Main Street”
condensed milk — when
it comes to those really big
staples, a lot of it is on an al-
location that you can’t buy big
amounts because they wouldn’t
be able to service everybody,”
said Mike Shaffer, operations
manager for Chester’s Market
in John Day. “As far as staples
go, we’re sitting pretty good.”
Shaffer said he has had to
order months in advance for
key items, especially during
Thanksgiving and similar holi-
days where supplies go fast as
the holiday approaches and the
deadline for putting the turkey
in the oven looms.
For now, the store is well
stocked for the upcoming
feast, according to Shaffer.
“It was really easy to get
what you needed before all
this stuff happened and before
— I call it a logistical night-
mare, but you know all the
logistic issues that everyone
is experiencing — before that
we’d have pretty big item
counts, big ads so people could
come in and get a good deal on
whatever they need for dinner
and stuff like that, so it has
changed,” Shaffer said. “If you
commit to something like we
did this year — if you have to
Lisa Britton/Baker City Herald
The Best Friends van was loaded with nearly 1,000
pounds of donated pet food and cat litter.
and kittens, as well as kitty
litter — all free of charge
from the Idaho Humane
Society.
“Maybe close to a thou-
sand pounds,” Ott said.
Those bags now fi ll
shelves in the storage space
Help with food
On a recent trip to Boise, of the store, and will be
distributed to animal foster
Ott and Barrett loaded the
Best Friends van with bags families, those who care for
of food for dogs, cats, puppies feral cats, and people who
The organization also
pays to have the animals
spayed or neutered and vac-
cinated — an average cost of
$300 for dogs and $150 for
cats.
New At The Baker County Library
Patrons can reserve materials in advance
online or by calling 541-523-6419. In the past
two weeks, Baker County Library has added 40
new bestsellers, 11 audiobooks, 47 children’s
books, and 73 other books, including 21 that
are available online. See everything new to
Baker County Library District at wowbrary.org.
Materials featured, and in library collection,
does not indicate endorsement or approval of
contents by the library. Selections are based
on factors such as demand, public interest,
diversity of viewpoint, community relevance,
and others.
FICTION
• “The Christmas Promise,” Richard Paul
Evans
• “The Dark Hours (Renée Ballard and Harry
Bosch, Book 4),” Michael Connelly
• “Mercy (Atlee Pine Thriller, Book 4),” David
Baldacci
• “Never,” Ken Follett
• “The Sentence,” Louise Erdrich
NONFICTION
• “Best Wishes, Warmest Regards: The Story
of Schitt’s Creek,” Daniel Levy and Eugene Levy
• “Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious
System That Keeps You Alive,” Philipp Dettmer
• “The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present (2 vol-
umes),” Paul McCartney
• “The President and the Freedom Fighter:
Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and
Their Battle to Save America’s Soul,” Brian
Kilmeade
• “Will,” Will Smith
CHILDREN’S
• “Channel Kindness: Stories of Kindness
and Community,” Born This Way Foundation
Reporters and Lady Gaga
• “Dive Into the Waters of the World (Aristotle
and Dante, Book 2),” Benjamin Alire Sáenz
• “Everything You Need to Ace Pre-Algebra
and Algebra I in One Big Fat Notebook,” Work-
man Publishing and Jason Wang
• “The Hawthorne Legacy (Inheritance
Games, Book 2),” Jennifer Barnes
• “Kingdom of the Wicked,” Kerri Maniscalco
need a little extra help feed-
ing their pets.
“People who need pet food
but have a limited income,”
Barrett said.
This back room is also
fi lled with kennels and cat
houses created from thick
plastic foam boxes that can
be loaned to local residents.
A stack of transport
crates tell the other story of
Best Friends, which is the
many miles these volun-
teers log to take animals to
specifi c breed rescues, or join
a relay to move an animal
across the country.
“It’s nothing for us to use
weekends to drive dogs and
cats,” Ott said.
All the work of Best
Friends is done by volunteers,
and Ott said they are always
in need of more.
“Last but not least, we
need helpers. We’re not
spring chickens,” she said
with a smile.
Samantha O’Conner/Baker City Herald
Vehicles lined up Friday morning, Nov. 19 for a drive-
thru COVID-19 and fl u vaccination clinic at the Baker
County Events Center on East Street.
COVID
Continued from A1
It was the county’s fi rst
COVID-related death since
Oct. 28.
“Receiving the news of
another COVID-19 re-
lated death in our tight-knit
community is particularly
diffi cult,” Baker County Com-
missioner Mark Bennett said.
“We are saddened by this loss
and will keep his family and
friends in our thoughts and
prayers.”
Staten said she hopes
the increase in cases this
week will remind residents
that it’s benefi cial to be vac-
cinated and to wear masks
in situations, such as inside
businesses, where the risk of
transmission is higher.
She said she has noticed
that mask wearing is far from
universal in many places.
Staten urges residents to
remember that people who
are vaccinated and wear
masks can protect not only
themselves but also, poten-
tially, others.
“This is one of the best
defenses we have against
this virus, being vaccinated,”
Staten said. “It’s not 100
percent, we know that.”
Breakthrough cases —
infections in fully vaccinated
people — will continue, she
said.
But Staten pointed out
that statewide statistics show
that unvaccinated people who
are infected with COVID-19
are much more likely to
become seriously ill.
According to the OHA,
breakthrough infections
accounted for 24.4% of the
COVID-19-related deaths
in Oregon during October,
20.3% in September, 22.4% in
August and 17.8% in July.
About 80% of the deaths in
breakthrough infections were
in people 70 and older. That’s
similar to the overall death
toll in Oregon during the pan-
demic, with almost 67% of the
approximately 4,900 deaths
in residents 70 or older.
In Baker County, the
percentage of breakthrough
cases over the past six weeks
has ranged from 10% to 25%.
Staten said recent trends
in the age of people infected
with COVID-19, with a larger
percentage of cases in county
residents 70 and older, who
have the highest vaccination
rates, suggest that protection
from vaccines is waning.
She urged people to get a
booster shot.
The Health Department
had a drive-thru vaccination
clinic, with COVID-19 and fl u
vaccines, on Friday. Staten
said that as of 1:30 p.m., the
clinic, which was scheduled
from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., had
administered about 200
inoculations, more than half of
those COVID-19 vaccines.
Federal offi cials on Friday
approved booster shots for all
adults, expanding the eligibil-
ity from older residents and
those with certain risk factors.
During October, there
were no cases in the county in
residents 70 and older during
the fi rst half of the month.
But during the second half
of October, 21.3% of the coun-
ty’s cases were in residents 70
and older.
For the fi rst half of Novem-
ber, that age group accounted
for almost 24% of the county’s
cases.
About 64.5% of county
residents 65 and older are
fully vaccinated, according to
the OHA, but just 22.6% have
received a booster dose.
At the other end of the age
spectrum, the number of cases
in children ages 5 to 9 has also
increased during November.
For the second half of Octo-
ber, that age group accounted
for just 1.3% of the county’s
cases.
For the fi rst half of Novem-
ber, 15.9% of cases were in
ages 5 to 9.
Children from age 5 to 11
became eligible for the Pfi zer
vaccine in the fi rst week of
November, and the Health
Department started inoculat-
ing kids in that range starting
Nov. 5.
As of Friday, Nov. 19, a
total of 57 children in the
county in that age range
had received the fi rst of two
doses — a rate of 4.7%, based
on the population of about
1,200 in that age group in the
county.
Baker County’s overall
vaccination rate — 53.6%
of residents 18 and older —
ranks fi fth-lowest among
Oregon’s 36 counties.
Driven by booster shots,
the county has been admin-
istering more doses over the
past month or so that it did
during August and September.
The running seven-day
daily average has rose from
20 on Oct. 24 to a peak of 81
on Nov. 1, dipping to 36 on
Nov. 17.
Since Oct. 25, at least 99
doses have been given in the
county on seven different
days, including 138 doses on
Oct. 26.
st
Adopted
or
Rescue
Pet
e
t
u
C photo contest
Submit your photos and be entered for your chance
to win a $30 gift certificate to a local
restaurant of your choice
View Rules and Prize information at
bakercityherald.com/pet_contest