NE Villagers celebrated spring with a May Day surprise. A plant for the garden was delivered for May Day to all Village members and volunteers. A special message for each was placed in the pot:

 "Spring Greetings, Villagers! Here’s a tiny gift for you from the whole Village to say 'Hi' and 'Thank you' for your gracious presence in this community. We wish you a safe and happy new season of regeneration and hopefulness."

The celebration deliveries were made by volunteers excited to make connections throughout Northeast Village. Happy Spring to all!

We haven’t been able to meet in person, prepare food, or eat a meal together but COVID-19 has not

stopped the Men's Cooking Group.

Since April 13, 2020, we have gathered on Zoom, thanks to Bob Granger. We discuss many things, since we enjoy each other’s ompany, but our focus unsurprisingly is food. We talk about dishes we have made since our last gathering, get cooking

tips, and share recipes. Our shared laughter and the delicious cooking ideas that we can share with our spouses and families lifts the isolation imposed by the pandemic.

This recipe will give you the “flavor” of the group. Thanks to Mike Kohler for sharing this

soup with us.

RED LENTIL CURRY SOUP (from delishknowledge.com)

Ingredients

●     2 Tablespoons olive oil

●     1 cup diced white onion

●     2 cloves garlic, minced

●     1 Tablespoon minced fresh ginger

●     1 Tablespoon curry powder

●     2 medium sweet potatoes, diced (~ 3 cups)

●     1 cup red lentils

●     1 15-ounce can diced tomatoes with juice

●     1 teaspoon salt

●     4 cups Pacific Foods Organic Vegetable Broth low-sodium

●     1 14-ounce can light coconut milk

●     1 Tablespoon fresh lime juice

●     1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro, plus more for garnish

Instructions

1.    Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat.

2.    Add the onion, garlic, ginger and curry powder and cook, stirring often until the onion is soft, about 3 minutes.

3.    Add sweet potatoes and cook for 4-5 minutes to cook. Add in the lentils, red tomatoes, salt and broth.

4.    Cover and bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, covered, stirring occasionally, until the sweet potatoes are tender and lentils are mostly broken down, about 25 minutes.

5.    Stir in the coconut milk and simmer until heated through, about 1-2 minutes.

6.    Stir in the lime juice and cilantro and serve. Garnish with cilantro

The Membership Committee announced Anne Foley and Nan Artman are the new co-chairs. Both have been active on membership since Northeast Village opened. They assumed responsibilities previously held by Vonnie Condon.

Other team members will also have new ways to assist. There is room for more volunteers to help new members of the Village get started.

If interested, please phone the Northeast Village office at 503-895-2750.

We had been in lockdown for only a few weeks when I decided to read Albert Camus’ The Plague. I was fearful where the book might take me, but I knew I’d learn something valuable from this French cartographer of the human condition.

The story begins when the people of the town of Oran, Algeria, wake up to discover the streets full of dead rats. The city cleans up. Soon townspeople are dying of a mysterious fever. Our protagonist, Dr Bernard Rieux, determines that a plague is sweeping the town.

Other characters include a journalist, a priest, a city clerk, a man of “private means,” a criminal, and several minor characters. Each character represents a different human tendency for dealing with the unthinkable.

Those in power in Oran disagree about whether residents can handle the full truth about the plague. People cannot agree on the appropriate course of action. Should there be a quarantine? Should the town be closed completely? Who should get the limited amount of the curative serum?

Camus then brings up bigger questions about our responsibilities as humans. What is the correct balance between individual rights and people’s obligations to their community? Do we have a duty to help others? Camus shows us that a plague may be as much a social problem as a medical one.

And in typical Camus fashion, he uses the plague to pose unknowable existential questions. Do bad things happen for a reason? Do hope or fear fulfill any worthwhile roles in human experience? Do we help others because of internal or external reasons?

Camus doesn’t provide any answers in The Plague but he gives us something more valuable. He forces us to step back in a way that allows some of the great existential questions to surface for our consideration. And it’s not until we finish the book that we suddenly realize we have learned something valuable in the process. The Plague didn’t make me more anxious about COVID as I feared. I felt no more optimistic or pessimistic about COVID, but I had a better understanding of how we humans react to the unthinkable.

As you may have read in April 20th’s e-mail from NEV’s Chair, we have been joined by a new Office Manager, Connor Magee.

Connor has extensive experience working with non-profit organizations, volunteers, customer service and technical support, and grant-writing. He began here as a part-time employee of NEV, in the third week of April; the role’s transition from Lindsey Oldani to Connor should be complete by May 20. You can reach Connor at e-mail address officemanager@nevillagepdx.org or at our office phone 503-895-2750.

Connor and Lindsey had a recent meeting outdoors caught in the photo below.

The Office Manager supervises the services to members and volunteers, especially the volunteers who take in and fulfill your phone requests for services. He supervises our communications. He keeps (secure) our Village records of members and volunteers, and our office at the RCPUMC building. He ensures member & volunteer access to information and functions available on our website (such as directories and calendar).

So next we profile Connor, and we profile Lindsey as she transitions to her new role as the programming coordinator (events and activities and new opportunities for social engagement in the Village) that we’ve been missing for awhile now. She will be employed in this role about 5 hours a week, fewer than office management, and starting June 1. You can reach her at e-mail address programs@nevillagepdx.org or leave a message at our office phone 503-895-2750.

Calling all NE Village members and volunteers, Connor Magee can hardly wait to meet you.

As office manager starting April 20, he’s eager to get to know us as individuals and become an integral part of Village life. “Even in the midst of COVID, the connections in this big family of folks remain strong,” he says. “NE Village is a really vibrant community.”

When he and I talked, it was only his third day on the job, but he already has definite plans and hopes for how his role will expand. “I’ll be looking for opportunities to create space for folks to come together.” He’s eager to connect volunteer skills with service requests. “Seeing somebody get the support they need is so exciting.”

He’s looking forward to resuming in-home services starting May 1 as more and more people are vaccinated. “We have a community of folks who are educated and smart, so I’m thrilled to defer to their judgement.” Members and volunteers will personally work out the details of how each in-home service will be provided.

Connor has strong experience with non-profits, volunteers, customer service, technical support, and grant writing. After earning a college degree in digital communication, he worked on a state legislative campaign that profoundly altered the course of his life.

With his new-found passion for community-building and non-profit work, Connor left a full-time job at Squarespace to serve NE Village. In addition to working as office manager 23 hours a week, he’ll continue his other part-time job as administrative coordinator for Rahab’s Sisters, an organization that does outreach to houseless women.

“I love the fact that I get to hold two roles in which I’ll be serving a community of folks. I can’t overstate how thrilled I am to make this transition,” he says.

Connor will use his technical expertise to manage the Village website. He also wants to expand technical support services for members and to recruit more young volunteers.

The Village mission matches his values and interest in preserving intergenerational spaces. “Our culture has fewer and fewer places where we gather as folks of different ages.” The key to successful volunteer recruitment and retention, he says, is building relationships -- something at which he obviously excels.

He comes highly recommended by Lindsey Oldani, who has transitioned from her role as office manager to programming coordinator (see the article before and after this one). Connor and Lindsey are friends and neighbors; their families often take walks together. The job interview team easily identified him as the top candidate for Lindsey’s vacated position. There will be an opportunity to meet him via Zoom in the near future.

Lindsey Oldani has been working as Northeast Village’s office manager for about 3 years. As we transition to a new person staffing that office manager role, Connor Magee, let’s talk about Lindsey as she transitions to a new role too.

Besides managing our office’s volunteers and our service delivery, Lindsey has also helped with supporting the leadership of the Volunteer Committee and helped with team-based project work, such as working on website development projects in 2019. She is often the one to edit and maintain the information and resources on NEV’s website and in Club Express software, and to write and send e-mails to our Village.

In the 2020-2021 pandemic, she has organized and managed the operations of NEV services in a very different way, with remote contact, though members have made their requests and volunteers have taken them on by their accustomed methods. Of course, our services delivered have been different for the required personal distancing, but she and the office volunteers have adapted all it takes to provide services (including some new ones such as accessing vaccinations even as we’ve had to suspend some in-home services), to maintain our body of members, to maintain our health, and to use new methods to keep us participating in Village activities.

NEV has been so full and vibrant a community as ever, that we can say that we never really “shut down”, we are continuing to succeed in our mission of community!

She originally learned about our Village through her older in-laws who have been involved with the Village for years. Lindsey’s long-time mission has been community development, especially community farming for children and others needing shelter. In her world, everybody participates, and we Villagers have benefitted from that vision. She passionately finds ways to promote social justice in all of her work, and she serves on the board of the Portland Modern Quilting Guild.

As she and her partner adapt to parenting a baby in the remote work environment of a pandemic, she’s ready to take a new role in NEV working fewer hours (after a needed vacation).

Lindsey has a skill of accomplishing complex tasks with great efficiency of effort. She can now adapt all her experience in so many technical and organizational aspects of our Village operation, to use a few hours a week to reconstitute the work of our previous Program Committee, since our social and community activities have proved so central to NEV’s vitality. She will be:

“Programming Coordinator to support the development and delivery of activities and events that will engage and connect the members of our Village. A major focus will be on development of infrastructure (procedures, tools, documentation) to support a long-term vision of member-led programming supported by the coordinator.”

Submit news, reviews, articles, and photos by June 15.

To: jeanne.bear@gmail.com