Oregon Humane Society

Saturday, April 25th, ten of us visited the Oregon Humane Society. With group volunteering, they like us to "socialize" the animals. It's something they can train us to do quickly, lets us have face time with the dogs and cats right away, and gives the animals some attention getting them more ready for adoption!

Our group had an orientation and tour then went to the dog runs. We got into pairs and our staff person Sasha would bring us a dog, introduce us and then leave us to do tricks, fetch, brush and pet our dog. After about half an hour some of us headed to the cat colony rooms and some of us (those of us with cat allergies or who have cats with FIV at home and are worried about passing a cold) stayed with the dogs. We arranged it with Sasha that this exact group can come back and skip the orientation so we can have more time with the animals. It would be great to start a new group though if others are interested, and then we could have two Return Serve teams rotating through OHS!

We didn't have any adoptions in our group Saturday, but we all have a token to pass to a friend or family member worth $55 toward the adoption of a "lifelong, loving companion from the Oregon Humane Society"! If you or someone you know is thinking about adopting, please let us know and
we'll get you this great deal!

Also, the OHS website is pretty great. There's a pet cam in the cat room where Wendy was on Saturday (she was almost famous) and then here is the page for the animals we met: dogs and cats. We hope these guys are all adopted by the time you read this, but if you're browsing, here are a few of the dog friends we met: Angel, Ginger, Roxy and Zuko (both pictured here on our blog). We were told average adoption time is 10 days so really the animals rotate through pretty quickly. OHS will keep an animal as long as it takes to be adopted as long as it remains healthy at the shelter. In 2006, OHS found homes for 8,671 pets, 99% of dogs and 86% of cats. For more on their policies, here is a link to the OHS FAQ page.

Our first animal project definitely a success - more to come!

Obama picks Oregon Nike executive to lead volunteer programs

Cool props are given in this article about how volunteering in Portland (and elsewhere) has seen a surge since Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We're part of the surge!!! (The good kind of surge.)
Good luck to Ms. Eitel and thanks so much to the members of our group for the work so far.

Coming up on Saturday: we cross the 100 hours of service mark!

Time Flies When You're Scraping Trails!

Today we did some trail maintenance at Powell Butte. Hard work, that trail maintenance! There was no rain this morning and it was a pleasant, cool temperature, the difficulty came when we had to stop hiking (fun) and start working (hard). Still we did well I think, scraping organic material off the trails to keep them from getting mucky with future rains. The idea is that as trails become mucky, trail users walk around the wet spots, making the trails larger and damaging the areas around the trail. If we do our work, the trail stays well drained and nicely packed and hikers have no reason to venture off the path. The most fun task was gathering logs and sticks and brush and laying them in the curve of switch-backs to shrink the size of the curves - no shortcuts! It was nice to explore Powell Butte and to think a bit about the science and art of trail making.

Oregon Food Bank - Just say "no" to peanuts!

Our first adventure with the Oregon Food Bank was Thursday, March 26.

First impressions:

• Really impressive facility! They have a very nice lobby with classrooms where they teach cooking and food budgeting and then more rooms we didn't even see, in addition to their warehouse and sorting rooms.
• Utter chaos! We were told before we came that these re-packing nights can accommodate as many as 80 people. I don't think there were that many there with us on Thursday, but there were many, many and they were everywhere!
• Food recalls are no good. Normally on these nights we would be taking food from very large totes and repackaging it into manageable sized parcels for regional food banks and food pantries. Thursday we were instead sorting through food gathered from food drives and scanning it for peanut products marked "Danger" due to the recall this year. We were also on the look-out for broken food containers, food out of its packaging or not marked for commercial sale, and soap products that could leak and contaminate the other food.
• Fun people! There were high school kids who were racing each other to finish pallets, fun strangers who would whisk boxes out of your way before you even knew you needed them to be gone, box cutters, tape rippers and pallet movers keeping the whole thing going. The chaos really came into play here, but you just had to go with it.
  
• Aerobic workout! No matter what your job, the pace of these evenings seems to be very, very fast. I think of it as a charitable alternative for going to the gym.

We have more events planned coming up with the Oregon Food Bank this spring. Stay tuned!

Peace Garden: Ready for gardeners!

A few of us who had worked on the Peace Garden went back on Saturday, March 21 to finish up a few tasks. Lots more rain, but the work was good. The expert Raised Bed Construction Team put together their second bed in record time. It's amazing what a drill with a little more umph can do! And the rest of us caulked the new shed, spread more wood chips and filled both beds with dirt - ready for planting. The Peace Garden will have had its grand opening yesterday - we wish all the gardeners who will have plots there the best of luck - grow a few carrots for us!

There's something about working in the rain....

Saturday we had a great time working again in the garden located at the Human Solutions Daybreak Shelter. There was rain and there was cold, but we were in really good spirits. Several other volunteers from two different groups worked along with us which made the work go much faster. We built one of two raised beds that will be wheelchair accessible, spread woodchips on the paths and spread composted elephant manure on the beds. Yes! Real elephant droppings from the honest-to-goodness elephants at the Portland Zoo!

We found out this garden will be called the "Peace Garden", which we thought was a lovely choice for a name. All the City of Portland community gardens have lengthy waiting lists so the Peace Garden will be the only one with open plots - for a limited time! The garden will have its grand opening Saturday, March 28, so feel free to attend: 10am-noon, SE 127th and Market.

As you can see, the picnic table we built last month is still standing and looking very much like a fully functioning picnic table. And still no injuries reported!

Teaming up with Human Solutions and the City of Portland Community Garden Program has been such a good experience - we hope it continues! Happy growing to all those vegetables yet to come!

Painting the World Brown....

In a project that came up pretty quickly, Alixe needed some workers to help her paint a fence near her house in Gresham. It gets tagged regularly, so a few of us helped to paint it with brown Metro paint. It was cold, and the fence was thirsty, but we made it! A few neighbors came out to say thank you, and with luck the fence will be much easier to maintain in the future.

If you'd like more information about how to help remove graffiti, here are a few links:

Graffiti Removal in Gresham (pdf)
Graffiti Removal in Portland