‘Warm Hearts’ help HR Warming Shelter

Presenting the check and bags of donated items to Rev. Anna Carmichael, Shelter committee chair, were bank assistant manager Jean Sheppard and teller Donna Driggs, the employee at the Hood River bank to log the most donations from customers.

The shelter runs from early November to early March, providing shelter, food and outreach services to the homeless. This year it leased part of the former Fruit Tree building on Westcliff Drive.

“We will probably use (the donation) for our general fund, and since we’re looking at a permanent location and it will help with that,” Carmichael said.

Driggs said, “People were very moved by this, and said it was very good we were doing this for the Warming Shelter.”

The bank put up displays of socks and blankets and asked for basic donations of $15, though any amount was gladly accepted, Driggs said.

“A lot of people donated more than that,” Driggs said. Each donor’s name was written on a paper sock that was displayed in the lobby.

“I’d explain what it was, main thing is I told them you can donate whatever you want. And there were some people who actually had tears in their eyes, and that really got to me,” Driggs said.

“It’s a great community. I love a small town, because I’m from Nashville. People are good,” Driggs said.

Sheppard said the system-wide “Warm Hearts” goal at Columbia Bank was is $100,000 — and by the end of January, they had raised $158,000.

Hood River had a $500 goal, which it more than doubled by raising $1,200.

Columbia Bank is based in Tacoma and has branches in Washington, Oregon and Idaho, and last year the bank officials saw the needs of the homeless in the Puget Sound area and created Warm Hearts. Each branch makes the choice of who to give donations to locally, and Hood River chose the Warming Shelter.

Sheppard noted that clients of the shelter sometimes walk past the bank, on West Cascade, and the bank has provided them a place to sit and a cup of coffee or water.