RESTORING DIGNITY

The paint job, signage, and other exterior elements at PACS have surpassed their lifespan. While the high level of need over the past few years has kept us focused elsewhere, we are now at a place where we can no longer ignore the blight our facilities are rapidly becoming on the neighborhood. That's why we have launched the Beacon Project, aimed at making PACS a visual beacon, rather than a blight, in our neighborhood. The goal is to complete all elements of the Beacon Project this summer. The Beacon Project includes the following fixes and improvements: Improve/replace exterior lettering and signage Raise/replace main building facade Replace current windows with energy-efficient, double-paned windows Re-paint both buildings (colors not yet chosen) In this post, I want to share a couple concept plans we have put together for the signage/lettering part of this project. The purpose of this specific improvement is to 1) take better advantage of the marketing advantag...

PLEASE BE WARNED! This is a super-duper-early-inside-peek at what we're eying for next year----some of these things are still ideas, not official plans yet. Not all of them are likely to come true. Oh, and this is also dependent on the Mayan Apocalypse failing to come true ;) OK, seriously, here are the possibilities for 2013: Ramp up use of the PACS COW Mobile Food Pantry This is probably the closest thing to a sure-thing plan of the ones mentioned here, as it's already underway. The PACS COW was launched in 2011. It is a walk-through food pantry on wheels that brings the client-choice food system to neighborhoods that don't have adequate resources. Despite last year's launch, the COW has not been as active as we had hoped, due to the struggle to find partner host sites and volunteers during a very busy year with our other services. Dianne Glovatsky, our clinic manager, has taken the PACS COW on as a side-project, and is actively forming partnershi...

(special thanks to Teresa MacIsaac for donating her photography talent to document this event) Approximately 330 people attended the 2012 Awards Dinner & Auction As the end of the 2012 Awards Dinner and Auction neared, there was a mad scramble behind the scenes.  A small team of trusted helpers tried frantically to add up all the donations that had just come in. The goal was to announce a rough total of funds raised toward helping needy families before the event ended.  It was a lot to ask, and the team did a tremendous job, as always. Yet when a total of $70,000 was finally announced, we were surprised to be $10,000 short of our goal.  This initial rough count is never 100% perfect. It can't be when it has to be done in about 30 minutes. But it's usually gives us a pretty good ballpark figure to announce at the end of the event. However, this year, a typical small mistake made a MUCH BIGGER DIFFERENCE than usual. There was a sizable 12-month recurring...

PortlandOnline.com In the search for a speaker this year, we hoped to find a name people might know. A name people would be interested in hearing. We decided to approach Portland City Commissioner Amanda Fritz . Mrs. Fritz, who is also a nurse and a mother, was the first person to qualify for the city's public financing program (which allows an individuals without wealthy private funding sources to get a certain amount of public funding to campaign for office). Not only did she qualify, but she proceeded to win election in 2008. Since that time, Fritz has been a vocal advocate on the council for under-served neighborhoods in Portland. Amanda toured PACS in 2008, before she was elected to the city council. She was fascinated by the shopping model our food pantry uses, providing more choice and personal empowerment to people receiving food. She even blogged about it, writing, "The best idea there ever was? You have to admit, it's good. Send me your suggestion for one th...

A new page has been added to our website ( portlandacs.org ). It provides an overview of the PACS COW mobile food pantry and includes a schedule of appearances, which will be updated as new events for the program are scheduled. Access the page by going to portlandacs.org/pacscow . You can also access the PACS COW page through our main page  or any other page on our website by  clicking the "programs" tab, clicking "food program" and following the link for the mobile pantry at the top of the page.

"I got a call, and I'm supposed to tell you that 72 kids are 15 minutes away," said office assistant, Iris Stanley. "What?! Are you kidding?" I exclaimed. She wasn't. The estimated group of 36 earliteens from the Adventist campmeeting at Gladstone had doubled. We were not sure if we could handle that many kids. Our director, Paul L. Cole, pulled together a huddle of our supervisors. Donna Keeler, Assistant Thrift Manager, willingly agreed to split her group into two work areas, so we could keep the group size at a manageable 18 kids (we had planned for groups of 12). Bob Wilkening and Paul prepared to handle groups of 18 as well. When all was said and done, they rearranged, sorted and moved a lot of thrift merchandise; scrubed under the food pantry shelves; and listened carefully while we told them about the need, and how PACS is trying to help. And what a difference they made! God surprised us with a large group that we thought would be too many t...

Monday night was the first food run for the recently finished PACS COW Mobile Pantry (COW stand for “commodities on wheels”). Food was provided to 21 families (a total of 91 people) from 6 – 8 p.m. The pantry is the brainchild of PACS’ Executive Director, Paul L. Cole, who developed the “client choice” mobile pantry concept after a volunteer asked how we could help people in her neighborhood, where there were many needy families, but no food pantries. The concept is designed to reduce the time and financial stress for these families, caused by the need for long drives or bus rides to the nearest emergency food center. The PACS COW was built from a snowmobile trailer, converted on the inside to include shelves and lighting in a walkthrough, grocery store-style setup that works like PACS’ on-site food pantry in NE Portland . Here are some pictures of the first PACS COW opening, hosted in Troutdale , Oregon by Frontier Missions : The exit ramp at the back of the trailer can also...