WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2020
HermistonHerald.com
EasternOregonMarketplace.com
UPDATE
Helps is available for those
who have lost their jobs or
are otherwise struggling
with the eff ects of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Below
are some resources for
Umatilla County residents:
DEPARTMENT OF
HUMAN SERVICES
Oregonians can apply for food,
cash, child care assistance
and other benefi ts from their
own home using the online
application at govstatus.
egov.com/or-dhs-benefi ts.
According to DHS, heavy
traffi c to the website between
11 a.m. and 3 p.m. sometimes
causes technical issues, so
people are encouraged to log
in outside of those times.
If people have trouble
navigating the online
application or don’t have
reliable internet access, they
can call their local DHS offi ce
to apply by phone or other
methods. They can fi nd the
information for the nearest
offi ce, or resources such as
food banks, by calling 211
from any phone, texting
their zipcode to 898211 or
emailing help@211info.org.
AGAPE HOUSE
Eastern Oregon Mission
runs Agape House and
Martha’s House in Hermiston.
Martha’s House provides
transitional shelter for families
temporarily experiencing
homelessness, while Agape
House off ers services that
include emergency food
boxes and showers.
To contact Agape House,
call 541-567-8774 or visit
agapehousehermiston.org.
CAPECO
Community Action Program of
East Central Oregon provides
assistance to those in need
in several Eastern Oregon
counties, including Umatilla
and Morrow counties.
Programs include assistance
with food, utility bills,
transportation, housing,
wellness, respite care, senior
independence and more.
To contact CAPECO call
541-276-1926 or visit
capeco-works.org.
Staff photo by Jade McDowell
Deigo Arriola, left, picks up an order from La Palma in Hermiston on Friday before taking it to a customer of 541 To Go.
Perfect timing
New Hermiston business helps people
stay home during the pandemic
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
S
tarting a new business takes hard
work and skill, but a little bit of
luck doesn’t hurt too.
For 541 To Go, it turns out
March 2020 was the perfect time to
launch a business that involves helping
people stay home.
“Obviously, we opened up in kind of
an interesting time,” owner Arley Atkins
said.
541 To Go allows people to order
food from Hermiston-area restaurants
online and have it delivered to their
door. The business includes about 20
different offerings, from fast food chains
like Taco Bell to sit-down diners like
The Pheasant. It also includes grocery
pickup from Walmart.
Food delivery services had already
caught on in other cities before the pan-
demic, but many people still preferred
sitting down with their family, friends or
co-workers for a restaurant meal. Now
that Oregon restaurants are all take-
out-only, however, delivery might seem
like a more attractive option.
“It’s hard to tell if people are using
“OBVIOUSLY,
WE OPENED UP
IN KIND OF AN
INTERESTING
TIME.”
— Arley Atkins, Owner of 541 To Go
it more because it’s one of their only
options, or if it’s something people
would use anyway,” Atkins said.
He said there are downsides to open-
ing a new business in a pandemic, too.
The layoffs and overall economic down-
turn caused by COVID-19 has caused
a lot of people to tighten their budgets,
including fewer splurges on food items.
Atkins had hoped to have more
restaurants on the 541 To Go website
when it launched in March, but some
of those restaurants have closed com-
pletely for the duration of the shutdown.
And some would-be customers don’t
feel comfortable eating food handled by
anyone else right now, even though the
World Health Organization has stated
that the virus doesn’t appear to be passed
through food.
Other people are grateful for the ser-
vice, however, that allows for contact-
less delivery as they prepay online, and
then drivers use a company credit card
to pay for the food at the restaurant.
“People have been awesome, and the
drivers have been giving me good feed-
back from customers,” Atkins said.
One of those drivers, Diego Arriola,
See Timing, Page A11
Hermiston Herald switches to free distribution
“I THINK A LOT OF FOLKS PROBABLY
ASSUME THAT WE MAKE OUR MONEY BY
SELLING INDIVIDUAL NEWSPAPERS AND
THAT’S NEVER BEEN TRUE”
By ANDREW CUTLER
HERMISTON HERALD
Almost 12 years to the day the
EO Media Group took ownership
of the Hermiston Herald, the ven-
erable paper is now undergoing
another signifi cant milestone.
Starting this week, the Herald
will transform from a small-circu-
lation paid newspaper of approx-
imately 1,000 to a mass distribu-
tion free product mailed to more
than 14,500 households in west-
ern Umatilla and eastern Morrow
counties, and distributed for free at
rack locations throughout the area
each week.
“We are going to put it in the
hands of as many people as pos-
sible in the greater Hermiston,
Umatilla and Boardman areas,”
said Chris Rush, the regional
publisher of the Herald. “We’re
going to overnight, basically, take
it from a 1,000-plus paid circula-
tion to 14,000-plus free distribu-
INSIDE
— Chris Rush, regional publisher of the Herald
Staff photo by Ben Lonergan
The fi nal subscription-based Hermiston Herald runs on the press at the East
Oregonian print facility in Pendleton on April 28. Starting this week, the
paper will be a free product mailed to households around western Umatilla
County and northern Morrow County.
tion. That’s a huge audience and it
deserves to be seen.”
Rush said taking the Herald,
A3 Updates on COVID-19 in
Umatilla County
which published its fi rst paper
under EO Media Group control on
May 2, 2008, to a free publication
A7 New housing coming to
Hermiston
has been a topic that’s been around
in some form for at least a year.
“It was an issue we needed to
look at and fi gure out going for-
ward,” he said. “We looked at
some alternatives and I think we
gave it a good effort to try to pro-
mote it with standard marketing
and do those things that typically
you do from a circulation market-
ing standpoint.”
But Rush said it’s import-
ant to remember that a newspa-
per lives and dies fi nancially by
the amount of revenue it generates
through advertising. The move to
a free publication should make the
product more attractive to local,
A8 HAREC research will bene-
fi t blueberry growers
regional and national advertisers.
“I think a lot of folks probably
assume that we make our money
by selling individual newspapers
and that’s never been true. Circula-
tion, subscriptions, what we charge
in a rack — that basically subsi-
dizes delivery of the product,” he
said. “Any revenue that we would
lose by forgoing paid circulation,
we are betting is going be more
than made up for on the revenue
side by having a vastly larger read-
ing audience, and that it also dou-
bles as a very excellent advertising
vehicle for local businesses.”
See Herald, Page AA11
A9 Businesses fi nd ways to
support grads
