Previous Reports from 2008

Everyone Has Time to Give a Helping Hand!

This coming summer a region-wide effort to help fight homelessness, hunger and blight will be launched in the Portland area. Beaverton-based global evangelist Luis Palau hopes to mobilize at least 15,000 or more volunteers over the summer to help – calling it the Season of Service. In Beaverton, I hope this effort can be embraced by all faiths and peoples to outreach to those in need.

Luis Palau’s ministry hatched this idea last year and approached a number of elected officials to see if we thought it was a good idea. I said “yes” immediately. It is a big undertaking, but the results should be nothing short of fantastic. In addition to helping the homeless, the effort is slated to clean up public school grounds, mentor students, fill needy kids’ backpacks with school supplies, serve free meals to children during the summer break, and clean up neighborhoods. Also, in a series of one-day clinics, they’ll organize doctors, dentists and nurses who will provide free medical and dental services to uninsured people. I am proud to support this effort and hope you will, too!

This past November I attended a meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. I took a 3-hour bus tour of the areas damaged by Hurricane Katrina. About 80% of the City was flooded as a direct or indirect result of the storm. Prior to Hurricane Katrina New Orleans had 500,000+ residents, which is the current population of Portland. Two years later, they now have less than half the number of residents they did just prior to the storm. We drove mile after mile in the bus observing badly damaged homes and completely abandoned neighborhoods. My feelings and emotions overcame me as I observed the devastation. The message was very sobering and I realized the amount of work remaining is significant. They need a great deal of outside help to overcome the impacts of the damage. New Orleans is years away, if ever, from being repaired and rebuilt to its grandeur prior to the hurricane.

A smaller, but very significant storm and flood badly damaged Vernonia, Oregon this past December. It is situated in the Coast Range Mountains north of Highway 26 just inside Columbia County. While on vacation this past December holiday season, my family and I did volunteer work in Vernonia. It was motivated by what I saw in New Orleans. We helped a family clean-up their flood damaged home, which included ripping-out wet sheetrock and insulation from the walls of the house. The water surrounded the house and flooded up to four feet in the interior of the home and their barn. It was hard and messy work. The damage is very similar to what happened in New Orleans. I know our contribution of time and interest really helped the family we came to assist. As a family, we benefitted and were enriched by helping total strangers.

In Beaverton and Washington County there is no shortage of people in need. Among our challenges, homelessness is a significant issue and the City is participating in a major countywide study that will be completed this summer. Preliminary information from the study has concluded that the problem is larger than first anticipated. The study is defining the extent of the problem and also recommending an action plan. I’ll report back to you later in the year after the results of the study are released.

Opportunities to volunteer abound. Please step up and extend a hand to others in need!

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