A Day In the Life

Good Deeds By The Truckload

By Tomi Owens, 10-04-06

	The boys of Saturday: Eoin Costello, Thomas Costello and Garrett Kelly, all of Hood River, clown around while helping clean up a Gorge camping area.

The Columbia Gorge’s fall charity events began to blip on the radar screen about a month ago for me. Little did I know how they'd all come together.

First, Sharla Weber, a board member of Helping Hands Against Violence, reminded me about their annual Auction Gala benefit on Saturday, Sept. 30.

Not long after, I received an email from do-gooder extraordinaire, Susan Hess, about the Forest Service’s annual “Pick up the Pinchot” scheduled for the morning of Sept. 30.

Also in my mail box was an evite to the Columbia Gorge CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) “Art With A Heart” art sale and benefit. The date was, of course, September 30.

So many worthy causes, so little time!

Happily, the timing worked. At 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, I packed three boys (two mine and one borrowed — see photo) in the car and headed across the river to Panther Creek Campground in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, not far from Carson, Wash. The volunteers — more than 20 of us — were greeted by Forest Service employees Jon Nake, Nancy Ryke and Byron Carlisle and sent out with bags to scour the area for any trash left behind by campers. This event was held as part of National Public Lands Day.

Living in the Gorge, not a day goes by that I don’t appreciate the natural beauty here. In the summer months we (sometimes grudgingly) share the forests with visitors from all over the country. How nice it was to have Panther Creek all to ourselves. The children ran around the empty campground delighted by every spider’s web, fuzzy caterpillar, and unusually colored stone. We climbed a quarter mile up the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs through the camp, and the boys argued, as children do, about which way would be better to travel, south to Mexico or north to Canada. They transformed a day of picking up trash into an adventure akin to a pirate treasure hunt. At noon the forest service provided a barbeque lunch.

Back in Hood River by 2 p.m., we dusted ourselves off, I changed from Carhartts to pedal-pushers, and we skipped down the long, long stairs to Westwind Frame & Gallery at Second and State. The gallery was bedecked in bright red balloons and pastel pictures frames; a one-man-band merrily strummed folksy tunes to a small crowd of delighted little people and their parents. Next to donation bowls brimming with cash, goodie bags stuffed with peanuts, raisins and M&Ms were tied to balloons for children to take. My boys snatched a couple and immediately began to mine for the candy, then shoved the remaining GORP into their pockets for future use. Then off they went to peruse the artwork donated by local children and framed by Westwind.

Drawings and paintings — some simple scribbles, others elaborate creations in oil — were colorfully framed and hung elegantly on the vast new gallery’s walls and display partitions. Many pieces already bore the red dot signifying it had been sold. Proceeds from the CASA event are used to train volunteers to serve as advocates for abuse and neglected children in the court systems of Hood River, Sherman and Wasco Counties.

The finale of that beneficent day was the Helping Hands Auction. This is an event that requires proper evening wear and the ability to schmooze. At 7 p.m., Dog River Coffee dimmed the lights and the trendy, scruffy cafe was transformed into a sleek auction house. Hood River glitterati floated from one white clothed table to another placing silent bids on goods and services donated from vendors around Oregon. The South Bank Kitchen provided a sumptuous spread of appetizers, and the wine flowed like a Gorge waterfall in April. By the end of the evening, it was estimated that the Gala, sponsored by the Windemere Foundation, had raised something like $11,000 for the Helping Hands women's shelter and other services provided by the anti-violence non-profit.

I am an extremely fortunate individual, blessed with a healthy family, good friends and the privilege of living in a area of such exquisite beauty. And for all these things I am truly grateful. One day of charity is only a small contribution, I know, but on the night of Sept. 30, I fell asleep with a clear conscience, good karma, and a bit of a buzz.

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