Capital fund update
The Hood River Valley Adult Center would like to thank all those who have donated to the ongoing Capital Funds Campaign. The total raised through local donations since this campaign began on Nov. 12 is now $165,000. Once the goal of $250,000 is reached, The Center will be able to apply for matching grants, and a remodeled kitchen will become a reality.
The outdated kitchen at The Center is where more than 200 meals are prepared each weekday for the Hood River County Meals on Wheels program. Due to COVID-19, the demand continues to increase for both home delivery and drive through pick up of a hot meal. The need for a remodeled kitchen at The Center has never been greater.
Please help the Hood River County Meals on Wheels program meet the growing need of year round hot meals for local senior citizens, many of whom are homebound. Your tax-deductible gift will allow The Center to reach the goal of a remodeled kitchen and the Meals on Wheels program to nourish local senior citizens. For more information, and to donate to the Capital Funds Campaign, visit www.hrvac.org, or mail your check to HRVAC, 2010 Sterling Drive, Hood River, OR 97031.
Please consider a year end or New Year tax deductible donation to the Hood River Valley Adult Center Capital Funds Campaign. Your gift will serve senior citizens in our community for many years to come!
Amy Mallett, executive director
Hood River Valley Adult Center
Great content
This holiday season is the right time to express my deep gratitude for the quick turn around of our formerly three Gorge newspapers into one that’s published consistently every week, with great content and sense of community.
Cheers for an excellent job!
Lora Helmer
Dallesport
The Bright Side of 2020
It’s been a difficult year in many ways but most of us can find plenty of reasons to be grateful. Here are my top ten, not in any particular order:
1. While forest fires have taken a heavy toll in many areas of the Western U.S., they have been repeatedly brought under control by skilled and strong professionals.
2. Dedicated teachers have been able to creatively adapt and manage new ways for educating most of our children.
3. Healthcare workers have soldiered on during an era of extreme uncertainty and personal danger.
4. Local businesses and individuals responded to the shortage of personal protective equipment by quickly beginning to make these products for the community and beyond.
5. The unprecedented drive-by graduation at HRVHS saw graduates cheered by many during their journey to the outdoor stage at the high school.
6. The employees of essential services establishments bravely kept everything from groceries to medicine available to us.
7. The restaurants and their employees adjusted to the changing rules for service including takeout, outdoor dining, socially distanced dining, and then starting over.
8. Zoom and similar technology allowed connections that would otherwise not have occurred.
9. Local candidates, willing to serve, braved the November gauntlet run for office, absorbed the campaign body punches, and won or lost.
10. A free press withstood assaults from the White House and continued to deliver information and opinion, sometimes skewed Left, sometimes Right, but persistently available to the public.
Doug Roof
Hood River
Disheartening
I found it so very disheartening to see the picture of the Klickitat GOP volunteers standing next to each other as they received their awards without masks on. Not only that, but they held their meeting in person! All the while, other articles declaring spikes in COVID-19 in our communities after the Thanksgiving holiday.
You would think volunteers for the community would have more common sense and love of their community members to not put others in harm’s way.
Mary McBride
White Salmon
Cougars and sharing
Most days, while enjoying my trail camera hobby, I’m out where the cougars roam. I’m fortunate in that I can walk to/from these places. My biggest fear would be if I had to drive. This would have me sharing the roads with the drunks, those distracted on their cell phones or those high on their legal/illegal drugs. Bottom line: I’m more afraid of sharing the roads than I am of sharing the great outdoors.
Larry Larson
Mount Hood
MCCFL thanks
This is a letter of thank you to Dr. Miriam McDonell, Acting Director Shellie Campbell, and all the staff of the NCPHD for the work they are doing to keep the community safe and informed throughout the pandemic.
Thanks to their active collaboration, they helped keep MCCFL open to serve the Wasco County community. Through them we have been able to keep others safe by getting some of our more vulnerable and compromised individuals tested for infection and sometimes even temporary housing to mitigate community exposure. With their support, we were able to start testing our most vulnerable homeless clients back in April. This not only allowed us to care for them, but also help protect the community by screening for possible carriers.
They stepped up when we had our employees had concerns about COVID exposure and the spread, providing us with the means to offer all employees more accurate information, testing and reassurance. And with their guidance, we avoided any infections until late October.
Dr. McDonell and the people who make up NCPHD keep us informed of the ongoing changes in how the pandemic is being managed. Have been and still are instrumental in helping us develop our pandemic response policy. Because of their support, MCCFL has been able to keep its doors open to serve the community during the entire pandemic.
Dr. June Gower, executive director, and Glen R. Patrizio, MD, Integrative Care Physician
MCCFL
Congress needs to help restaurants
I’m disappointed to see local businesses planning to sue about COVID restrictions. I just checked and Oregon has the fifth-lowest COVID mortality rate of all the states. If we had even the rate of just the middle (like Tennessee), not even the worst, I calculated that would be about 2,500 more Oregon deaths. And if we had a rate like New York or North Dakota, it would be many more. As tough as they are, these restrictions are why we have such a low rate. Isn’t that worth 2,500 Oregonian lives? And when I hear businesses say that there has been no spread from their business, how can they know that?
The solution to the economic challenges for these restaurants is for Congress to pass the Restaurants Act. Both of our senators and three of our House representatives are sponsors. Some other members of Congress apparently think that the economy is on the rebound, and little help is needed. Since I’m still working, if I get a stimulus check, I pledge to spend it on local business. But we really need better COVID relief from Congress.
Dean Myerson
The Dalles
Health of others
I was recently shopping in downtown Hood River at a shop that is (wisely) limiting the number of people who can be in the store.
While waiting in line to get in, there was a gentleman who got in line behind me, who did not have a mask on. After a few moments he jumped the line to ask a quick question, saying as he passed, maskless and within a foot of me, that he’d “already had COVID,” implying that there was no need for him to follow the mask and distancing guidelines.
I politely told him that there was still a possibility he could carry and pass on the virus to others, to which he said, “Not after eight weeks.” I just want to remind others that this is not necessarily true, and that it is still necessary while out and about to wear a mask, distance, and sanitize hands. Not only do we not know yet how long each recovered person’s immunity might last (there are rare but known cases of secondary infections) as well as the fact that there are more than a few variants of the virus out there, but a recovered person can pick up and transmit the virus even as their antibodies are fighting it off. The website medical.mit.edu has a great explanation of this. Until we are all vaccinated or achieve herd immunity, we need to be mindful of the health of others as well as ourselves. Hopefully that time will be soon!
Anne Lerch
Hood River
Most presidents...
They are rich in respect, caring and non-judgment.
To be a good, caring president, you need to look at all the people as equals and not look down on them. Believe me (as a Vietnam veteran), I’ve been on the receiving end of hate and judgment.
We need a leader and not a dictator!
I’m a proud husband, father, grand father and veteran. Caring and respectful.
I feel Trump is the opposite of this.
Steve Cochenour
The Dalles
Truth
“The truth” of life will never be discovered by listening to the political commentator.
“The truth?”
Is that which answers all the who, what, when, where and why questions of life. There is only one true source of truth in the world. The Scriptures (Hebrew and Greek portions) commonly referred to as the bible.
Politician and pastor pay no heed to the truth. Just because a pastor flings one about on stage does not mean they recognize or practice the one truth. Pastor has abandoned truth for they are slaves to cash. In order to make the monthly payment to the front office pastor must retain paying customers. This is done by catering not to truth but to mind numbing superstitions, current social trends and political agendas which the flock prefers.
The scriptures are the guide …nothing else. All the books, chapters and verses must be read, understood and accepted before one proclaims, “I have the truth.” Pastor ignores most scripture like these passages defining gender roles for those of the truth but is devastatingly impossible to obey in churches that prefer the current fashionable world view:
“Let the women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves … If they desire to learn let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is improper for a women to speak in the church … if anyone thinks he is a prophet or spiritual, let him recognize that what I write are the commandments of the Lord. Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire permissiveness … I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man but to sit and remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created then Eve. It was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite deceived fell into transgression.”
Difficult to “interpret?” No. Hated and ignored by churches, though.
Discovering truth demands complete scripture knowledge, courage, sacrifice and humility. Not easy for the person who loves the world first, themselves second, the Lord last.
“If ye love Me, keep My commandments.”
Gary Fischer
The Dalles
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