When Emmy Thomson and daughters Taylor, 16, Timber, 12, and Treasur, 4, moved to Cascade Locks from North Carolina three years ago, they brought with them cherished family traditions.
“I was the one in North Carolina that would have the parties, the Thanksgiving,” Thomson said. “This is my way of doing it without my family. I’m just extending it into my community.”
Thomson and friend Tiffany Pruit, a homeschool mom, are the driving forces behind Gorge Family Fun, whose mission, as the name implies, is bringing families together for fun activities. The group is a couple of years old now, having started in the winter of 2012, but Thomson said not everyone is aware of the group yet.
“Our point is — we’re not interested in being babysitters. We want family fun, we want families to participate in the things we do,” Thomson explained.
The catalyst for Gorge Family Fun was the closing of the city’s Parks and Rec department.
“I always had a bunch of kids at my house and knew everyone with children,” Thomson said. So, with the community in mind, she and Pruit put on their first family activity, a 1980s band night held at the Port of Cascade Locks.
“It was pretty fun. Everyone came dressed like ‘80s, and we had bubbles and food and music,” she said. They also gave a gift certificate to the family with the best costumes.
The concert was a success, and “it snowballed from there,” Thomson said. “Our next event was a pumpkin carving party.”
Because Pruit does not celebrate Halloween, Thomson got help from another friend, Eva Zerfing, a Hood River dispatcher.
Thomson supplied the pumpkin carving tools, decorations, and even a dinner of chili and cornbread, with additional Halloween-themed food. The only things she didn’t supply were the pumpkins — families brought their own — and the prizes given for best costume and best pumpkin, which were donated by local businesses.
This October, Gorge Family Fun hosted its second pumpkin carving party, doubling the number of participants from the previous year — 60 showed up to carve a total of 30 pumpkins, so many, in fact, that more tables had to be put out to accommodate the crowd.
Again, prizes were given for the best pumpkin and best costume, with gift certificates donated by Ale House, Cascade Inn Restaurant and Columbia Market. Hood River County Sheriff deputy John Harvey, and former Parks and Recreation employees Pam and Karen Peck served as judges.
But Thomson also passed out “just random different things I pick up when I’m shopping,” she said. “We gave away a lot of prizes this year because I had extra things that I bought.”
Gorge Family Fun’s next community event, its first-ever gingerbread house contest, will take place with the already established Festival of Lights, held Dec. 7. Families are invited to construct a gingerbread house at home and bring it to the Cascade Locks City Hall gym by 4 p.m. Ribbons will be awarded, with the winning family having a toy donated in their name to a local giving tree project. Kids will also serenade the crowd with Christmas carols.
“We just want to join forces with the city for this event,” Thomson said. “Until we’re big enough to do our own sponsored Christmas thing, we’ll sponsor the prizes.”
Other Gorge Family Fun events: A springtime Easter Egg hunt, complete with 800 eggs and prizes — and Thomson’s daughter Timber dressed as the Easter Bunny; S’mores in the Park, where, on the second Saturday of each month in the summer, families come together to listen to stories, have water fights, eat s’mores and hang out; and weekly nature hikes through Eagle Creek in the spring and summer. Pruit’s daughter Tauney, 18, and Thomson’s daughter Taylor have also started a teen group.
The program does not receive much outside funding. In fact, most of the events Gorge Family Fun offers are paid for out of own Thomson’s pocket, aided by Pruit and other friends. She does this because “I just love it. I love the kids in my community, I love my kids, I just love being involved,” she said. “Working with Tiffany is my favorite thing.
“Eventually, we’d like more support, not even money, just donating stuff,” she said. She would like more parents to volunteer to help with events, whether that be chaperoning, bringing food to share, or supplying prizes or decorations.
“We’re promoting family fun,” she explained. “It’s one of these things where we’re not out getting money, it’s not about that. It’s about getting us all together and pitching in together.”
The group does have one great supporter — the Port of Cascade Locks. The Port “supports everything we do,” Thomson said, adding that they allow the events on the property free of charge. And with the pavilion costing $250 a day to use, Thomson appreciates that support a lot.
Thomson moved to Cascade Locks for her daughter, Taylor, who is heading for a kidney transplant within the next six months to a year, she said.
“I did a lot of research before I moved here, and you guys have one of the best hospitals in the nation,” Thomson said of OHSU. Doctors have been able to extend Taylor’s kidney’s life for three years, for which Thomson is grateful.
Right now, family is being tested for possible matches, and if that doesn’t happen, Taylor will be put on a donor list.
“Our glass is half full, that’s the way we look at it,” she said.
As far as the Cascade Locks community goes, “We absolutely fell in love with it here,” Thomson said. She’s happy to be able to help bring families together through fun activities, and has found, perhaps, a future calling.
“I have found myself wanting to go into this as a career — I’m thinking event planning is something I’d really love to do, since I’ve been doing it and I really enjoy it.
“If I can do this with nothing, imagine if I had a budget!” she said.
“I would love (Gorge Family Fun) to grow, to become an entity in itself, that even if I were to leave, that it would keep going,” Thomson. “That would be my ultimate goal.”
For more information on Gorge Family Fun, see their Facebook page (keyword Gorge Family Fun).
Commented