A8 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2015
LOCAL NEWS
Area food banks prepare for holiday rush
By JADE McDOWELL
Staff Writer
Things are about to get
very busy at food banks
across the country.
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come as no surprise to sea-
soned employees and volun-
teers. It happens every year as
the holidays roll around and
suddenly it seems like every
school, church and business is
sponsoring a food drive.
“Around the holidays I’d
say we get about 80 percent
more donations,” CAPECO
Food Programs Manager Di-
ana Quezada said.
Quezada was preparing for
the boost in donations with
a growing checklist pinned
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the CAPECO warehouse in
Pendleton.
Some food pantries like
the Agape House in Hermis-
ton stockpile nonperishable
food to get them through the
lean donation times in Janu-
ary and February, but Queza-
da said CAPECO tries to
move everything that comes
into its warehouse within a
month. As a member of the
Oregon Food Bank network,
CAPECO can count on ship-
ments from the state food
bank during months that see
fewer local donations.
“Just because we don’t
have food drives doesn’t
mean people don’t get food,”
she said.
CAPECO
distributes
about 1.2 million pounds of
food each year, some directly
to families in need and some
through allocations to emer-
gency food assistance pro-
grams like the one run by the
Agape House.
The Agape House serves
about 900 families a month
in the Hermiston area. Stan-
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serves about 120 to 150.
Bev Sherman, one of the
volunteers who runs Stan-
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get some donations direct-
ly from the community and
some from CAPECO. The
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CAPECO warehouse in Pendleton.
extra donations around the
holidays allow the food bank
to be open every Monday
(except the one after Thanks-
giving), instead of twice a
month, during November and
December.
Sherman said volunteers
try to offer items that can be
cooked together into a nutri-
tional meal.
“We print up a menu of
what we’re offering for that
day,” she said. “We don’t
have a big enough area to let
(clients) get it themselves but
we let them pick off the menu
and we go get it for them.”
Letting clients pick out
their own food instead of
handing them a pre-packaged
box is something Quezada
said CAPECO and the Ore-
gon Food Bank encourage. It
gives clients a sense of own-
ership and normalcy, she said,
and cuts down on waste.
The type of food that
comes into the CAPECO
warehouse varies, Quezada
said.
Last Wednesday, for ex-
ample, volunteers from the
job training program Trend-
sitions, Inc. were sorting and
bagging a one-time donation
of 8,000 pounds of pinto
beans.
Quezada said the 1.2 mil-
lion pounds of food distrib-
uted by CAPECO each year
doesn’t count what CAPECO
is able to give to the Oregon
Food Bank on months that a
local food processor or pro-
ducer comes through with a
large donation.
“We’re their local contact,
so they’ll call us and say ‘Do
you want this?’ and then if
there is more than we can use
we’ll send it on to the Oregon
Food Bank,” Quezada said.
Girl Scout troop leader
Michelle Kane said the Girl
Scouts always contact area
food banks about a good
drop-off day before doing
their annual regional food
drive.
“We try to have someone
near each food bank coordi-
nate collection in their area,”
she said.
The girls collect food in
the spring, knowing dona-
tions drop off after the winter,
and divide up their cities into
sections so that no one gets
asked for food by more than
OSP seeks stolen vehicle
after two high-speed pursuits
The Oregon State Police
are asking for help locating
a stolen vehicle after troop-
ers from Hermiston were
involved in two unrelated
high-speed pursuits in 24
hours.
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pened on Nov. 3 at about
8:30 p.m., when a troop-
er attempted to pull over
a 1993 Chevrolet Camaro
for a lighting violation on
Highway 730 east of Uma-
tilla.
According to a news re-
lease, the driver of the Ca-
maro led the trooper on a
chase east on Highway 37,
also known as the Pend-
leton Cold Springs High-
way, and Highway 334
before going off the road
and “down a steep embank-
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the intersection of Highway
334 and 335 south of Helix.
“The Camaro continued
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out of sight of pursuing
troopers,” according to the
OSP statement.
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Department and Umatil-
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which was abandoned a
short distance away.
Early the next morning
on nearby Reeder Road a
1982 GMC pickup truck
was reported stolen. Po-
lice believe the two inci-
dents are connected and
are asking for help locating
the GMC, which is white,
has no tailgate and has an
Oregon license plate of
BRS869.
The
second
high-
speed pursuit occurred
on Wednesday, Nov. 4, at
about 4:30 p.m. after troop-
ers from the Hermiston of-
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of a 2008 Dodge Avenger,
possibly involved in an ear-
lier domestic disturbance,
parked in the emergency
vehicle turnaround at mile-
post 174 on Interstate 84
east of Boardman.
An OSP trooper made
contact with the lone occu-
pant of the vehicle who, ac-
cording to the news release,
“became belligerent and
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of speed.”
The trooper pursued the
vehicle eastbound on In-
terstate 84 at speeds up to
100 miles per hour until
the suspect slammed on his
brakes.
“The trooper managed
to slow considerably and
make an evasive maneu-
ver, but the vehicles still
collided,” according to the
statement, and the Dodge
Avenger came to rest in the
median, where Clint D. Cu-
reton, 22, of Grande Ronde,
Oregon, was arrested with-
out further incident.
No one was injured in
the collision.
Cureton was lodged in
the Umatilla County Jail on
PHOTO COURTESY OREGON STATE POLICE
A 2008 Dodge Avenger and an Oregon State Police patrol car
sit in the median along Interstate 84 after colliding during a
high-speed pursuit of the Avenger.
charges of reckless driving
and felony attempt to elude
in a vehicle, exceeding the
speed limit 100+ and driv-
ing uninsured, with further
charges pending.
Morrow County Sher-
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pursuit.
one troop. They end the day
by bringing in their collected
donations to the Agape House
or another food bank for a
weigh-in.
“The girls really get into
this,” Kane said. “They
feel like they’re competing
against themselves in the year
before.”
The CAPECO warehouse
gives a glimpse of where the
food that goes through the or-
ganization ends up.
One portion is dedicated to
a USDA program where in-
come-qualifying tribal mem-
bers and people who live on
reservations can come pick
out a month’s worth of food.
STAFF PHOTO BY E.J. HARRIS
Food Program Coordinator Tori Bowman prepares a shipment
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warehouse.
Another is dedicated to
putting together boxes for
senior citizens, who can pick
up a few days’ worth of food
to supplement what they
get through their local food
bank.
A large walk-in freezer
holds meat and other “rescue
food” donated by Safeway
and Wal-Mart when it is still
good but past the corpora-
tion’s sell-by policy.
What CAPECO could use
now, Quezada said, is more
volunteers to come and help
sort and package the holiday
rush of food.
20th Annual
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November 12th • 6pm-8pm
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Gifts, Home Decor, Simply Noelle,
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& All Christmas
541-567-0272
2150 N. First St., Hermiston