RESTORING DIGNITY

While there is still a lot of money to raise, PACS has been able to complete portions of the The Beacon Project with money already received. Signage Signage and lettering upgrades are complete. The improvements integrate the new logo which was designed by a major marketing firm called  Fiction . The firm donated that design to PACS at no charge. Signage upgrades were funded through an Urban Renewal Grant from the Portland Development Commission, PACS individual donors, PACS individual donors, and PACS internal funds. Here are some pictures of the improvements: Paint You can also see the new paint in the above picture. The main color on the building is complete, and portions of the blue trim are done. While it has been too cold to finish the job for several months, we except to finish up the trim in the spring as soon as weather permits. We want to thank Powell Paint Company for securing a 50% discount for us, as a non-profit cause, on the Benj...

Updated 2/4/14: here is the brand presentation video created by Fiction: Scott and Chrissy Petersen were not sure what to expect when they arrived at the 2009 PACS Awards Dinner & Auction. They entered the room and found their seats. It looked like many of the other charity events they had seen. But Scott & Chrissy soon realized that PACS wasn't just another organization. They heard the stories of people who were served. They learned about the food pantry model that helps people choose their own food. They learned about the clinic and the doctors that volunteer their time to help uninsured patients maintain their health. They learned about the thrift store where low-income families could purchase food and household goods for as low as $0.25. Scott, grew up in a community that had a large portion of its population struggling with economic hardship. His family often helped families who were going through difficult times. They would assist with charity events, delive...

Giovanni was tired of struggling to make ends meet when he decided to go back to school to further his career. Unfortunately, going to school is not so easy when you have a young family. When an accident left Giovanni with a severe head injury it was too much. The family was going to need help. Giovanni is still in school. He had to change his major after the accident, but he's determined to continue and get a degree. In the meantime, he is thankful for some of the programs that are sustaining basic needs for Jacqueline, Alex, and himself. Among these is the PACS COW (commodities on wheels) Mobile Food Pantry. In the crowded downtown area, Giovanni and Jacqueline have many resources close by, but sometimes the great need in that area exceeds the resources, or makes them difficult to access. CitySanctuary  partners with the PACS COW, providing volunteers and the leverage of their relationship with the Portland Housing Authority, to help solve that problem. The organizations ...

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...