News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon
Hattie Tehan and Chrissy Pullig-Gomez served soup to patrons at Empty Bowls on Wednesday.
As Jody Henderson's jazz trio played in the background, more than 100 Sisters Country residents selected a hand-thrown ceramic bowl and lined up in the Sisters High School cafeteria to get it filled with soup.
The price of the meal ticket for the Empty Bowls fundraiser held on Wednesday, April 29, goes to Sisters Family Access Network (FAN) to support that agency's efforts to help families in need in the Sisters area.
The meal, served by Sisters High School students, consisted of chicken noodle or vegetable soup, garlic bread and lemonade. The bowls in which the soup was served were crafted by Sisters students or donated by local professional potters including Ken Merrill and Mitch Deaderick.
FAN advocate Dawn Cooper told the diners that support was vital as the need for FAN's services continues to grow as the economy contracts.
According to Cooper, FAN provided clothing for 107 kids and fitted out 100 with school supplies. FAN has distributed 295 donated Columbia Sportswear coats.
The agency has helped 552 families prevent their utilities being shut off and has helped avert eviction for 223 people.
FAN has helped 160 people enroll in the Oregon Health Plan to provide medical coverage for low-income people, and connected many with medical, dental and vision services.
"These numbers are up 28 percent from last school year," Cooper said.
Cooper noted that the economic downturn has forced many people in the Sisters Country to seek assistance for the first time.
"The navigation of social services is very confusing," she said.
FAN's role is to connect those in need with the services that can help them. Cooper described helping a pregnant single mother secure insurance just before she went into labor. There were complications and the woman ended up with a five-day hospital stay. She would have been financially wiped out without the insurance coverage she secured with help from FAN.
Sisters High School student Leanna Hendricks told the diners that FAN made a significant difference in her family's life.
"When we first moved here, we were shaky," she said.
Her stepfather left the family and her mom was having a hard time making it. The family fell $1,000 behind on rent.
It wasn't easy for her mom to seek help.
"She never needed help and she had a hard time asking for it," Leanna said.
FAN provided rent assistance and connected the family with medical services.
"They helped me get braces, which I really needed," Hendricks said.
The family eventually moved into Tamarack Village and they are now awaiting a Habitat for Humanity home.
Hendricks said that the attitude of advocates Cooper and Theresa Slavkovsky, is important to FAN's clients.
"FAN always made it feel like a hand up, not a handout," Hendricks said.
The Empty Bowls diners left the school with a new ceramic bowl and the sense that they'd lent a hand to people who need it. A hand up, not a handout.
Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.
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