Scott Swanson
Of The New Era
The Sweet Home Community Foundation handed out $15,000 in grants to 11 local agencies and programs that serve the Sweet Home community on Thursday, March 30.
The presentations of the awards took place during the Breakfast Club, held by Sweet Home Economic Development Group at the Jim Riggs Community Center.
Foundation member John Wittwer preceded the awards with a reminder of what the organization’s purpose is: to create a self-perpetuating fund to help make Sweet Home a self-sufficient, economically and socially prosperous community.
Wittwer said the foundation has distributed just under $60,000 to projects in the Sweet Home area over the past four years, thanks to a $24,500 contribution from SHEDG’s 2005 Oregon Jamboree profits and from private donations.
“The ideal is that they that have can help those that have not,” he said. “I’m grateful today to say that the foundation is almost a six-figure organization.”
Wittwer said that, by the end of the year, the foundation’s endowment should reach $40,000.
Former City Manager Max
Thompson, also a foundation board member, distributed the awards.
Thompson said the organization received 18 applications this year for a total of $38,000.
“We don’t always give them what they asked for, but we try to do the best we can” he said.
This year’s award recipients are:
– $1,500 to the Senior Companion Program, operated by Samaritan Pacific Health Services. The grant will augment an existing program in Sweet Home, which provides tax-free financial support to seniors who help more frail elderly or disabled people in their homes.
“We’re grateful for the Community Foundation’s contributions every year for three years in a row,” said Program Director Suzette Boydston. “We serve more prosperous communities that don’t give us a dime.”
– $1,500 to the Senior Meals Program operated by the Cascades West Senior Services Foundation. The program serves 20,000 meals a year in Sweet Home, three days a week out of the Senior Center, 16,000 of them delivered by volunteer drivers to seniors’ homes, said Coordinator Kristi Murphy.
“We not only provide food, but, more importantly, we provide companionship,” she said. Murphy said a survey of meals recipients revealed that the food was less important to them than the companionship and regular visits by drivers.
“Sometimes we’re the only people they see,” Murphy said.
– $500 to the Sweet Home Senior Center for a 22-by7-foot storage unit to house freezers and other items that currently add clutter to the dining room. The unit, which is funded also by a grant from last year, is being built adjacent to the kitchen, Manager Roseanne Lupoli said.
– $1,700 to the Sweet Home Pregnancy Center, which served more than 400 clients last year, who visited for pregnancy or parenting assistance, The grant will be used to purchase baby furniture, car seats and prenatal vitamins for clients, Director Karen Bostrom said.
– $500 to the Sweet Home Garden Club, which plans to use the money to continue its improvements in Clover Park. A sprinkler system for the flower gardens was installed last year, with other grant money from the foundation, and club President Joyce Cagle said the club plans to put in a table with benches and, possibly, some pathways.
– $1,600 to Sweet Home Community Pool for an automatic external defibrillator. Aquatic Director Faith DeMarr said the defibrillator would be available to all who attend events or programs at the high school and swimming pool.
– $2,500 to Sunshine Industries for two high-capacity, cross-cut shredders. Executive Director John Strickler said Sunshine Industries, which provides jobs to disabled people, has the only contract shredding business in Sweet Home and has found that people who are too disabled to do janitorial or yard work, or to work in the organization’s woodshop, are able to operate the shredders, which, he said, is preferable to “having them sit for five hours and do nothing.” The problem, he said, is that there is too much demand on the current shredder.
“We had a line of people waiting to use the shredder,” he said, noting that demand for such a service is on the rise as a result of identity theft problems and new privacy laws.
– $700 to Foster Elementary School for a playground kit called “Peaceful Playground,” which will be used to transform the playground into a variety of game activities, maximizing the number of students able to engage in physical activity during recess times.
– $2,500 to the Singing Christmas Tree, which will be used to replace the program’s 24-year-old scaffolding and purchase LED lights, which are safer and do not produce heat,.
“This is enormous,” said Singing Christmas Tree chair Susan Olson. “We’ve wanted these lights for three years. This is so wonderful for us.”
– $1,000 to Sweet Home Emergency Ministries (SHEM) for a new computer that will enable work to be done at the SHEM office and allow agency staffers to be able to go on-line at their office.
“United Way and Oregon Food Bank are thrilled,” said Executive Director Rebecca McClaskey of the coming Internet capabilities.
– $1,000 to the Sweet Home Genealogical Society for a microfiche and microfilm reader/printer. Society President Mary Jean Crawford said that the purchase of the machine will “fulfill requirements for us to be a full-service research library.”