A variety of Sisters agencies help local residents in need

Sisters continually demonstrates that it is a community with a heart. Right now when economic times are tough, area agencies are more important than ever to help folks in need.

According to Steve Murray, food bank coordinator at NeighborImpact, unemployment rates have gone up significantly in Deschutes County over the last two months. They have also increased "...compared to before the holidays," he said. Fuel, food, housing and health care costs have also risen, he added.

As a result more people are seeking help from area agencies.

"It's a combination of people either not having enough income or not having any income at all," said Murray. "We at NeighborImpact in the food bank, in the weatherization program, in the rental assistance program and the utility assistance program are all seeing more people looking for help."

The number of locals seeking emergency food boxes from the Sisters Kiwanis Food Bank is on the rise. (See "Food bank faces increasing need," The Nugget, April 2, 2008, page 1.) NeighborImpact's Community Brown Bag program that provides perishable food once-a-month also has more clients.

In Sisters, the brown bag program services between 30 and 50 families each month.

"It seems like more people have been accessing the program over last six months," said Murray.

Food is distributed the second Friday of each month at Sisters Christian Church. The church, says Murray, provides the distribution site and volunteers to unload the truck, organize the food for distribution, oversee the distribution process itself and then clean up.

Unlike the Kiwanis Food Bank program where people must be income qualified, no screening process is required to access the brown bag program.

"It's more on the honor system. We kind of think if people are going to go there, they probably are in need," said Murray.

Different from the food bank which provides breakfast, lunch and dinner for three or four days, the brown bag program distributes dairy products, bakery goods, produce, deli items and the like.

"It's not going to provide everything that someone needs to meet all their needs like the food bank, but it's certainly going to help," said Murray.

Sisters Family Access Network (FAN) is also finding more clients coming through its doors. According to FAN advocate Theresa Slavkovsky, not only is FAN seeing more distressed situations, the organization is simply helping more people as Sisters is growing.

"The hardship of the economy is rough right now," she said (see related story, page 3).

More people need rental and electric bill assistance. More children need medical and dental care assistance, she said, adding that many adults have no health insurance. FAN is helping these people place their names in the state lottery drawing that will provide health care to recipients who qualify.

Area churches, the Kiwanis, Rotary, and Lions clubs, local medical facilities and their doctors and dentists and local businesses and individuals, all regularly step up to help FAN.

"They are just incredible," said Slavkovsky.

FAN's local firewood program happens because of the efforts of local resident Roger Fairfield, and Luann and Wayne Danforth and their crew of helpers make it possible for FAN to distribute Columbia coats, boots and snowpants to all in need.

"I think we have distributed 400 coats this year," said Slavkovsky.

The call for help is even answered by Sisters Habitat for Humanity ReStore that donates furniture whenever FAN asks.