BULLDOGS OPEN CONFERENCE PLAY WITH A WIN » PAGE A10
Wednesday, december 12, 2018
HermistonHerald.com
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INSIDE
PEDRO LEAVES
Hermiston Chamber of
Commerce president
Debbie Pedro is stepping
down after more than 18
years on the job.
PAGE A2
SANTA CLAUS
Santa was one of the main
attractions at Hermiston’s
tree-lighting ceremony
Thursday.
PAGE S A8, A15
SWEET SOUND
Les McMasters makes
hand-crafted guitars in his
Hermiston shop.
PAGE A9
BY THE WAY
Rules changed for
lost property
Hermiston
residents
who find lost property
might get to keep it under
new rules passed by the
Hermiston city council on
Monday.
Previously, if someone
found lost property and
turned it into the Herm-
iston Police Department
they forfeited all stake in
it. Under the ordinance
amendment passed Mon-
day, city code would fol-
low state law, which dic-
tates that if a person finds
lost money or goods and
reports it to the city or
police, the property is
theirs to keep legally if the
owner is not found within
three months. For goods
or money over $250, the
finder must publish a
notice in the local news-
paper once a week for two
consecutive weeks if they
want to be allowed to keep
the lost property.
• • •
The deadline is fast
approaching to enroll in
health insurance through
the federal exchange.
People who don’t get
insurance through an
employer, the Oregon
Health Plan or Medi-
care have until Satur-
day to enroll in a plan or
staff photo by e.J. Harris/east Oregonian
Mail carrier Diane Barton delivers mail to a cluster of mailboxes Thursday on Southeast Cassens Court in Hermiston.
By JADE MCDOWELL
Staff Writer
hey may not have elves or
flying reindeer to help them
out, but the nation’s mail
carriers still manage to deliver
Christmas presents to millions of
homes each year.
The U.S. Postal Service expects
to deliver a total of 15 billion let-
ters and 900 million packages
during the holiday season, defined
as Thanksgiving to New Year’s
Day.
Diane Barton, who delivers
mail in Hermiston, is doing her
part. Thursday afternoon she was
winding through a set of cul-de-
sacs on the east side of town, dis-
persing a truckload of boxes and
envelopes. Mail carriers through-
out the nation were delivering two
days worth of mail Thursday after
postal services were suspended for
a day to honor former president
George H.W. Bush.
Barton said the holiday sea-
son means longer hours and more
challenging deliveries, but it’s also
fun to see how excited people are
to see her this time of year, espe-
cially children.
“The volume of packages, of
course, changes tremendously,”
she said.
T
see bTW, Page a16
staff photos by e.J. Harris/east Oregonian
USPS carrier Diane Barton grabs a bin of parcels while delivering the mail on her route Thursday in
Hermiston.
Packages take longer to deliver
than letters. They must be scanned
with a hand-held device so that
patrons who are tracking the pack-
age know it has arrived. Some
small packages will fit in a mail-
box, but in other cases the car-
rier must get out of their truck and
walk up to the front door. Some-
times a signature is required, or
the home’s resident prefers the
package is put someplace less con-
spicuous than the porch.
Barton said she often can’t fit
all of the packages for her route
into her truck this time of year so
see Helpers, Page a16
Nonprofits put donated items to work
By JAYATI RAMAKRISHNAN
Staff Writer
8
08805 93294
2
As Christmas draws near, shoppers
may turn to thrift stores to purchase
gifts with a low price tag.
For many local organizations,
the money earned from those sales
is going directly back into the ser-
vices those groups provide. For oth-
ers, the flow of money is slightly more
complicated.
The size of the organization dic-
tates how the money is used, as does
the nature of the group itself.
For Hermiston-based organiza-
tions like Agape House, the Eastern
Oregon Humane Society and Divine
Blessings Thrift Shop, all the money
stays local. For a national organiza-
tion like Goodwill, some of the funds
go into hyper-local endeavors, but
money from local sales also supple-
ments regional services.
Goodwill operates by territory —
Hermiston’s is part of the Goodwill
Industries of the Columbia, which
includes 13 counties in Oregon and
Washington.
About one percent of money from
local sales goes to the national orga-
nization, said Ken Gosney, executive
director of Goodwill of the Colum-
bia. He said this year the Hermiston
store earned about $1.5 million from
donation sales. The Hermiston store
gets about 28,000 donations per year,
counted by the number of people that
staff photo by Jayati ramakrishnan/east Oregonian
see donate, Page a16
Jose Mendoza has worked at Goodwill in Hermiston for 10 years as
a driver.