Scott Swanson
Sweet Home Emergency Ministries continues to be actively involved in assisting the community’s needy residents despite complications from the pandemic, representatives of the organization told Rotary Club members Tuesday, Dec. 7.
Pantry Manager Cindy Rice, who has been with the organization for 35 years, and volunteer Bethanie Young, pastor at the Sweet Home Nazarene Church, reported on SHEM’s activities at the Rotary’s weekly meeting. They also received a $587 donation from the club, as well as a small mountain of paper goods collected by club members.
Rice noted that SHEM has operated in the Sweet Home community for 41 years and said the organization needs some new blood.
“We are an aging group,” she said. “We have staff members that are experiencing chronic illness. I’m worried for the future if we are unable to bring up and mentor the next generation of volunteers in our community to step in and step up.”
Young said SHEM is in the process of distributing special Christmas food boxes, sponsored by local organizations, which help deliver the boxes to recipients.
“If you know kids or families or people in want, if you could encourage them to call in or get the (application) form that would be fantastic,” she said.
In addition to the holiday food boxes, SHEM also provides aid for people who lack the finances to afford “power, water, natural gas, propane and laundry – for the homeless especially, or for the low-income areas.
“We have those vouchers to help people get through the winter and keep warm, that kind of stuff,” Young said.
Her volunteer role, she said, is “basically to field those calls and to see how they qualify, to make sure that grant monies are used efficiently throughout the community.”
Both she and Rice said requests for help have been “a little bit slower” in the past year.
“It’s amazing how many people don’t know about the services (SHEM provides),” Young said. “And families are seeming to be really overwhelmed with the idea of even seeking assistance and guidance,” which, she added, “is new this year.”
“Families are getting affected and maybe never reached out for assistance.”
She added that “there’s no shame” in hard times. “It happens to all of us, where we have months that are tough and we can help get you over the hurdle.”
Rice said that there is a “pride issue” as well.
“Nobody wants to come (to SHEM), but if you have a neighbor or someone that you know that could use a little bit of help, we would graciously provide them with assistance, the best we can.”
SHEM, located at 1115 Long St., has a website, a Facebook page and distributes information through local schools, she added. The organization can also be contacted at (541) 367-6504.
Rice noted that the pandemic has affected SHEM in a variety of ways, including limited access to the building, health threats to volunteers and an unpredictable supply stream.
“Supplies for food have been intermittent,” she said. “Sometimes we can’t get flour for a month. Sometimes we don’t get cereal for two months. Sometimes we are overloaded with peanut butter.
“So it’s like a cyclical, unexplainable, up-and-down thing going on. And it’s really hard to determine what we’re going to need, what we’re going to get, even to the day the shipments arrive.
Although client volume has been down, “we’re seeing a lot more homeless, itinerants, coming through,” Rice said.
She said that, as of December, SHEM has served out more than 1,500 emergency food boxes, which have fed more than 5,000, and she noted that Manna meals program at the United Methodist Church has served more than 5,000 meals.
SHEM is open three days a week, offering food, clothing and financial assistance.
COVID has forced changes in how it does business, she said, noting that the facility is actually closed to the public, with aid being distributed outside.
“It is a challenge,” she said. “We’re constantly trying to refine the way we provide services. We’ve got to be ever-changing, and that’s really difficult. Or, at least, I find it difficult.”
Rice articulated some of the areas in which SHEM could use volunteers: in the pantry, when shipments arrive, picking up donations at Safeway three days a week, writing grants, doing construction, painting, helping at the Manna Meals site, etc.
“Basically, we need to be able to pass on our knowledge base to the next people,” she said.
Responding to questions from the audience, she said that volunteers of all ages could be put to work, noting that high-schoolers were helping out the previous Saturday and that Hawthorne students had donated a truckload of food from their Civil War food drive.
“We had three generations of one family that were there. The youngest, she was 9, and then we had the daughter, who was in her 40s and then we had the grandparents, who were in their early 70s. I’ve had people bring their children as young as 6.”
One volunteer, she said, is 84.
“We still can’t have (clients) inside the building,” she said. “We have to be really, really careful. Most of our volunteers have chronic illnesses and COVID morbidity is quite high. We have several different things going on.
“A lot of our time is actually spent on santizing and cleaning. SHEM is actually a lot cleaner than my house, I would say.”
“When we’re done at SHEM and we go home, we’re beat.”