Helping the needy
takes care, planning
Editor:
I read with interest about the ministry of Love Thy Neighbor.
I realize it says it is not faith-based, nor can it be by taking grants. But the title comes from the Bible. Some of the points I agree with. Helping teens and children, I am all for.
I have been involved in ministries of help for 25 years. We have so much free food in Sweet Home and, of course, some take advantage. I worked at Manna for four years and have volunteered for SHEM. There is a very fine line between helping and enabling. People need to learn to help themselves.
Why would anyone move to Sweet Home if they needed to work? Our storefronts are empty and we have many drug addicts and homeless.
I truly hope in the next few years you will have to do community work for welfare. We need parenting classes and also classes for people to learn to cook.
At SHEM I once offered a young woman apples and she asked what to do with them. I told her, ‘Peel them, core, boil and add sugar and cinnamon.” Yes, applesauce!
She said, “I had no idea it was so easy!”
I see the poor and obese people shopping at Safeway. I can’t help but see their food choices. They have not been taught.
Also, we are going to give free items to people who are covered in tattoos, smoking, and ladies who have their nails done.
I was taught if you didn’t work for things, you didn’t appreciate them and I believe it to be true.
What is a Healing Garden?
Also, drugs are a choice whether a doctor started you on the path or not.
Helping the mentally ill I agree with. Laundry and showers would have to be so carefully monitored. Without faith, how can anything or anyone succeed? I was down and out and when I learned the truth I haven’t looked back.
I engage people in conversation, i.e., “What’s your story?” and they will tell you. Take an interest in loving them, not just giving them something.
I admire the people starting this program, but so much has to be studied. Last summer we found a homeless woman and her 8-year-old daughter a small comfy apartment and a job. She never showed up for the job and was scared to sleep in the apartment. She would rather sleep in a car. This mindset, most of us don’t get.
Each one of us has a personal responsibility to help with these problems.
Thanks to all of the people with big hearts who are involved in this.
Sharon Toth
Foster
Bridges represent
hard work by many
Editor:
It has been more than 11 years since Debbie and I sold The New Era and I have refrained from writing letters to the editor, but I must comment on the story in the Dec. 7 issue of The New Era that talks about damage to the Dahlenburg Bridge in Sankey Park.
Shame on whoever is desecrating this bridge or the Weddle Covered Bridge with graffiti.
These bridges represent the hard work of many persons in the community who had the vision to create beautiful places during an ugly time period.
But, just as importantly, they represent an effort to salvage the community’s spirit that had been severely damaged by the loss of timber jobs after the Northern spotted owl was added to the federal threatened and endangered list.
It was a tough time to live in such a wonderful community. Proud families were forced to accept hand-outs from food banks. There were divorces. Families left town looking for work.
Sweet Home lost hundreds of timber and related jobs in the early 1990s and has never fully recovered from such a devastating economic blow. At one time, there were 30 empty storefronts in the Sweet Home business district.
Volunteers at many levels, SHEDG and the City Council have worked diligently over the last 25 years trying to revitalize the community, with appreciated, but limited success. It’s extremely difficult to replace high-paying, family-wage timber and mill jobs with service jobs.
I support the city’s efforts to do whatever is necessary to save the bridges from the sheer stupidity of those who have probably never done one positive thing for the community, but I am saddened and angered that it has come to this.
To whoever is responsible, I hope you get a lump of coal for Christmas.
Alex Paul
Sweet Home
Thanks to helpers
for museum decor
Editor:
The East Linn Museum has been participating in the Christmas holiday celebration with decorations in the museum, carriage rides and a live Nativity, which will continue this Saturday, Dec. 17, from 5 to 7 p.m. Everyone is invited.
I especially want to thank those generous individuals and businesses who have contributed to this effort – the great poinsettia, setting up the Christmas lights and cards, arranging the live Nativity and the carriage rides.
Merry Christmas!
Gail Gregory
East Linn Museum