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Village Orientation Sessions
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The next Village 101 orientation is scheduled for
Saturday, Oct 14th at 1:00 p.m. at Gregory Heights Library, 7921 NE Sandy.
Anyone interested in learning about the Village movement in general, and the Northeast Village PDX in particular is urged to attend. No reservations are necessary.
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NE Village Membership Anniversaries Approaching
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On November 1, we will celebrate our first year of membership in Northeast Village PDX. Members who joined by November 1, 2016 will receive notice of renewal in October. Each month, members whose first year has passed will be notified for renewing for the next year!
It has been a very successful year for the village. Over 118 members have joined NE Village PDX in the past 12 months and we have made tremendous steps forward:
- Recruited and trained over 65 volunteers for Member Service and Office support
- Provided over 600 services to Full Service Members
- Transported Members over 2000 miles
- Sponsored 7 educational programs, 51 social events and have 6 interest groups that meet regularly
- Hosted a fundraising event at McMenamins's last April, raising over $3000 by gathering for dinner!
- Opened a busy and responsive office at 42nd and Alberta in the Cully neighborhood and hired a part-time office manager in May.
We hope you are planning to stay with us as your membership anniversary arrives! Congrats to those who joined by November 1, 2016. You started a great village.
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Did you know you can make regular donations to NE Village and it won't cost you a dime?
If you shop regularly at
Fred Meyer or
Amazon.com, you can use their
community rewards programs to make a small donation to NE Village each time you buy something. It's automatic and won't affect your rewards under the program.
To link your Fred Meyer rewards card to NE Village, you have to designate it as your beneficiary.
To do this, go to:
www.fredmeyer.com/communityrewards, scroll down and click "Re-enroll or link your Rewards Card now." Enter your email address, password and Zip code, then click "Create an Account." Enter the number on the back of your Fred Meyer rewards card, which will take you to the Community Rewards page. Enter the number for NE Village, which is 81884
, then click "search" and "enroll." NE Village will receive a check from Fred Meyer every quarter.
You can do the same thing with Amazon so the village gets a small benefit every time you shop online. Amazon Smile supports local nonprofits in much the same way Fred Meyer does, at no cost to you. Shop
smile.amazon.com which has exactly the same offerings, low prices and convenience as
amazon.com, and Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to NE Village as your designated beneficiary.
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Two New Villages Open in Portland
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Two neighboring villages are launching this October: River West Village in Southwest Portland, and North Star Village in North Portland.
NE Village has shared documents and ideas with both villages, as Eastside did with us. Now there will be six villages open in the Portland metropolitan area, and two more are in the planning stages. Villages create an inter-generational community of neighbors with support for people who want to age in their own homes and communities. It's an idea for here and now.
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Open to All
NEIGHBORHOOD WALK: South Waterfront Loop, the sequel
A continuation of the September walk, this one covers fountains and a beautiful stroll along the South Waterfront, one of the city's newest parks.
As usual, for those who can stay, we'll find a place to have lunch after the walk.
Led by: Kehrnan Shaw
Date and time:
Monday
October 9, 10:00 am - 1:00 pm (approx.)
Place: Meet at the corner of SW Kelly Avenue and SW Curry Street
Reservation required
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Members Only
PRESENTATION:
From Proper Portland to Portlandia
How did a very ordinary American city turn into its coolest city (or so they say)? What was Portland like in the 19th century and early 20th century? What changed ... when and why?
Members of Eastside and North Star Villages will join us for this presentation, followed by Q&A, given by Dr. Carl Abbott, Professor Emeritus of Urban Studies and Planning at Portland State University.
Dr. Abbott is a specialist on the history of American cities and city planning, on the history of the American West and Sunbelt, and on the later twentieth century United States more generally. He is the author of "How Cities Won the West: Four Centuries of Urban Change in Western North America" (University of New Mexico Press, 2008).
Date and Time:
Thursday October 19, 2017, 2:00 - 4:00 pm
Place: Encorepreneur Café, 1548 NE 15th Avenue, Portland
Reservation required:
NOTE: Space is limited for this event.
Members Only
BOOK GROUP:
Organizational meeting
Readers of NEV unite! Join us over snacks and libations for our organizational meeting to decide what kinds of books we should read, how often and where to meet, and how we will run the book group. Bring good reading ideas!
Coordinated by: Pat Vivian and Ann Anderson
Date and time: Monday October 30, 4:00 - 6:00 pm
Location: Le Petit Provence, 1824 NE Alberta.
Reservation required:
Reservation deadline is October 23.
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Village Elects New Governing Council Members
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On September 13, the Village held its first Annual Meeting and pot luck. Over plates piled with food, members received a state of the Village report that covered member growth, financial stability, services provided, and Village activities in the first year of operation.
The
Governing Council presented Village members with a slate of seven prospective Councilors who were unanimously voted into office for two-year terms.
Susan Bach, Margaret Baldwin, Anne Lindsay, and Neil Malling are already serving on the Council and will continue to do so. Nancy Donehower, Dianne Fode, and Helen Richardson were newly elected. Jane Braunger, Vonnie Condon, Todd Coward, and Ron Laster already sit on the Council and will continue to serve.
The next day, September 14, the Governing Council met and elected new officers. Susan Bach is the new Village chair and Margaret Baldwin the co-chair. Neil Malling will continue serving as treasurer and Jane Braunger as secretary.
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Medicaid Issue Has Implications for All Seniors - Regardless of Income
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A recent series of articles in the New York Times by Ron Lieber points out how the Medicaid program, designed to help the poor and those with disabilities, can be a lifesaver for people of
any
income bracket who end up confined to a nursing home for end-of-life care.
The average cost of a nursing home is $82,000 a year. If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's or a similar dementia disease, it could be devastating to your financial well-being. Medicaid is required to pay for nursing home care, and in many states including Oregon, for home and community care. But at some point, many people will run out of money and be at the mercy of whatever current Medicaid and state regulations allow.
State Medicaid programs must recover certain Medicaid benefits paid on behalf of a Medicaid enrollee. For individuals age 55 or older, states are required to seek recovery of payments from the individual's estate for nursing facility services, home and community-based services, and related hospital and prescription drug services.
Medicaid also has spousal impoverishment provisions: a certain amount of the couple's combined resources is protected for the spouse living in the community. If you have long-term care insurance, that will help, but it may not be enough, especially if you (or your loved ones) decide to stay on the planet for several more years. Call the Multnomah County Aging & Disability Resource Connection (ADRC) Helpline for more information at 503-988-3646.
This is an alert call to all seniors to watch carefully, and weigh in when you can, on how the government deals with health care legislation, especially with regard to Medicaid. Even if you're not dependent on Medicaid now, further cuts could directly affect your long-term financial viability, and indeed, your quality of life in your final years.
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Queenie Samuel, a longtime Northeast Portland resident, joined the village in April 2017. She is a veteran neighborhood and education activist and a Beaumont-Wilshire icon. She has served on the steering committee of Our 42
nd
Avenue and was instrumental in forging a new direction for the school across the street from her home.
In her own words:
It is said, "It takes a village to raise a child." It takes that same village to nurture its elders.
Queenie was born in Louisiana, and her family moved to Vancouver, Washington after the Vanport flood. She has fond memories of growing up in Vancouver and being a member of then-new Hudson's Bay High School's first graduating class.
Shortly after she graduated, her family moved to Portland, where she completed courses in cosmetology and practical nursing. Queenie finished her educational career path at University of Portland with a science degree in nursing. She worked for the Multnomah County Health Department for 33 years until retiring in 2000.
Queenie has lived in her current home for over 40 years, and her whole life has been dedicated to serving the youth and seniors in communities where she lived. Seeing the community change greatly, she is proud to say she approves of the many aspects that make our community a great place to live and raise children, and now, in the twilight of her years, to be able to enjoy the benefits of aging in place with the help of her many friends, neighbors, and NE Village PDX.
Whether she's helping her family by hemming a pair of too-long pants, visiting with her neighbors, or taking care of her little dog, Queenie's deep faith and shiny upbeat attitude are the constants she steers by.
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Village Circles - Building Our Sense of Belonging
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In our second year as a Village, there will be a new opportunity to build connections. Small groups (5-7) of neighboring members will gather in "Village Circles" to
- Share a meal
- Attend a show or presentation
- Read and discuss a book or article, or discuss a topic or question
- Work on a project together
- Go on a neighborhood walk or drive
- Visit a garden or a museum
- Play a board/word/parlor game
- Do whatever the Circle decides!
The first gathering will be convened by a designated member of the Circle. From there the group will decide what they would like to do next. Circles are encouraged to meet 3 or 4 times over the course of a few months. After that time, members will decide whether they would like to continue to meet. They may also invite new members or join up with those from another Circle. Ideally, members of a Village Circle will be from nearby neighborhoods.
If this sounds like something you would like to try in the New Year, contact the Village office at 503-895-2750 or
info@nevillagepdx.org. Please leave your name, phone number and/or email address and someone from the Program Committee will get in touch with you.
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On the Nightstand: "White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America," by Nancy Isenberg, Viking Press
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In this book, Nancy Isenberg, a historian at Louisiana State University, relates the stories of white Americans who rarely rise from the bottom rung of the class ladder. From Jamestown to Plymouth, in the South, and later, on inadequate Western land grants, these whites were treated as "waste" people. During slavery, slaveholders valued poor whites less than black slaves, who were considered an investment; hence, poor whites were sent to work in the dangerous coal mines. After slavery was abolished, poor whites gained little value. Class-based coalitions between them and freed blacks could be broken up easily by assuring the whites of their superiority, and therefore, the need to distance themselves from a common cause with blacks.
Why do these whites live in poverty generation after generation? In the 19
th century, this was sometimes explained by referring to our country's early settlers. To rid its own land of undesirables, Britain shipped ex-convicts, vagrants, and other nonconformists here. During the eugenics craze of the early 20
th century, cyclical white poverty was explained by supposedly scientific theory: the genetic inheritance of moral flaws - laziness, sexual promiscuity, and slatternly ways.
However, to Isenberg, intergenerational poverty is built on a combination of neglect and the conditions under which "white trash" live - including poor schooling, low wages, derelict neighborhoods, and lack of access to health care. (Maybe anti-union drives and so-called "right to work" laws, too.) Today, poor whites live in enclaves in urban cities such as St. Louis, still struggling as city governments fail to provide them with basic amenities such as decent schools and safe neighborhoods. Remember the disparagement of poor whites in "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Deliverance," and "The Beverly Hillbillies"? Add to that endless name shaming - cracker, Okie, white trash, hillbilly, and from the 1950s or so, "trailer trash." Only a few, such as Elvis Presley and perhaps Bill Clinton, could play on the "white trash" connection successfully.
--Nona Glazer
CALL FOR BOOK REVIEWS:
Have you read a book you'd like to share with fellow villagers? Write up your thoughts (it needn't be long; 200-450 words is plenty) and send them to
info@nevillagepdx.org
. Reviews of all types of books and topics - fiction, nonfiction, poetry - are encouraged.
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