Current Pacific County Immigrant Support President Mario Rodriguez stands with founding leader Ann Reeves at a recent celebration of Ann’s leadership and dedication.

Sister Starla arrived with a frozen batch of last year’s Montmorency cherries with aspirations for pie making this visit. But I needed her assistance on two carpenter projects: fixing a table; and building a ramp for Jackson once he gets out of crate prison. So our pie intentions are postponed, at least for now. But we did get to enjoy fresh Yakima corn every single evening she was here.

Corn season is the best! Fresh, sweet rows of yummy white and yellow kernels that pop open against your teeth with mouth-watering flavor — there is nothing better in July. But we’ll be crossing over to fruit now that sweet cherries are ripe, and luscious pinky peaches, plums, and pluots are in the wings. Then we’ll see crops of the best eating apples.

Nothing soothes a troubled heart better than biting into summer fruit with sweet juices running down your chin, cheeks, and hands…unless it’s crispy apples for tarte tatin, or the last of the raspberry freezer jam. Ah, summer!

‘Still waiting, but still here’

My soul was also soothed by the Pacific County Immigrant Support (PCIS) celebration to honor the organization’s founding leader Ann Reeves. You may not remember the bad old days from 2017-2021, but let me remind you that our last president mandated that ICE round up Hispanic immigrants and make their lives hellish. This took an unwarranted weighty toll on our Peninsula families.

We have vibrant and hard-working immigrant neighbors who were picked up while meeting their children at school, arriving for work, at the post office or grocery store. Many were deported, leaving families in disarray. To add to this misery, the pandemic struck. Ann Reeves, a long-time member of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Pacific County, stepped up to the task and convened a series of meetings of concerned citizens asking, “What can we do?”

The answer was PCIS which was spun-off from ACLU and became its own non-profit so it could receive donations and apply for grants. PCIS was able to secure special program monies from the Department of Commerce — and others — for legal aid, health relief, and rental assistance. Ann took the lead in this new organization and has been responsible, in one way or another, for delivering over $2 million dollars in aid and support to our Hispanic community members. She worked quietly, diligently, and steadily behind the scenes doing good — with the support of many local donors.

This meeting in the Adrift community room — featuring tacos from chef Indus — was a chance for people to thank Ann, and to hear from the many families PCIS has helped since its founding in 2017. Heart-rending then heart-warming stories spilled out about deportations and reunions made possible by PCIS-assisted legal and financial help to get folks back from Mexico to continue fighting their deportation cases while at home with their families. (If you’d like to donate or get involved, contact Bill Weismann at admin@pcisupport.org or www.pcisupport.org/donate.)

‘From the Heart’

The “From the Heart” stories published as a series in the Chinook Observer that Erin Glenn and Sydney Stevens cooked up, sparked a long article about our immigrant troubles in the New York Times Magazine (tinyurl.com/munc2wb4). This brought PCIS and its work to a broader audience, which led to one of the NYT reporters calling about a way to get four of our citizens back home.

Please stop for a moment here and ponder how your life would be different if you had to look over your shoulder continually, if your family could be broken in two, your finances disrupted suddenly, your husband or wife snatched away to another country — a country where they could be kidnapped by gangs and their bones broken like toothpicks. These were some of the stories we heard.

The lives of many of our Hispanic neighbors were shredded and torched. Tears for happy endings filled the room with gratitude, and the certain and clear knowledge of what’s right and what’s really wrong about our country. As if to emphasize this, one woman, returned to her family, spoke about a recent incident in which someone refused to let her do her work as a grocery store cashier: this rude misguided citizen demanded to go to another checker. We are better than this. This kind of suspicion and hatred has no place on the Peninsula.

So many of the folks at the meeting talked about how Ann’s guidance inspired them to be better, to do more. Erika Hersey, a current PCIS board member, said, “I was fighting with the television. I was angry for three years. I felt left-out. Then I was asked to deliver diapers [one of the PCIS-sponsored programs] and I met Ann and she inspired me to do something!” Erika became an American citizen Aug. 12, 2022 — she is the first of six Hispanic community members who’ve been helped by PCIS to become a proud part of our country. There are more in the wings.

Ann was the catalyst and guiding light for this organization, now being led by Mario Rodriguez who himself says, “I’m still waiting, but I’m still here.” (Mario’s story was featured in the New York Times. Teacher and community leader, he is still working to gain asylum and has recently gotten some positive news about his case.) Ann led by example, and now many of the people she helped are leading the organization she created.

Garden tour postmortem

Music in the Gardens, now in its 15th year, was another raving success. Chair person and Grand Garden Guru Nancy Allen says, “This was our top ticket sales to date — even higher than the year we featured the Leadbetter Lighthouse garden. Rita Nicely took down zip codes all day in one of the gardens and we discovered that almost 50% of our ticket holders are from out of the area.”

“Also, our raffle this year brought in $1,165 — another high — and there were some one-of-a-kind treasures. Board member Steve Kovach made a beautiful bird house. Now I have to tell you when Steve said he’d make a bird house, I pictured a little white plywood bird house. Well, this was a boat bird house and it was a work of art! And Jacob Moore made a stunning wrought iron garden gate with vertical slats.”

“Carea Quhn donated six heritage rose starts — she’s still tending them as they get stronger. Pat Wiyle won the roses and she’s thrilled.” These proceeds go directly to our schools’ art and music programs. Gardeners provide their gardens and snacks, all raffle items are donated, musicians give away their time — the whole affair is a delight and a positive community giving loop.

Hospital bond: Mark your ballots!

Ballots have arrived and now is the time to come to the aid of our Ocean Beach Hospital (OBH). For a modest assessment increase our community will be getting better access to care and updated facilities. I spoke to a few of our hard working medical personnel to get their view on the measure.

Cori Tucker, lead medical assistant, says, “We’re really squeezed in the clinic. This bond would help us expand. We need more space so we can bring in more specialists. I’m a patron of the hospital and I know how hard it is to have to travel someplace else to see a specialist, for dermatology or urology, for instance. We have a cardiologist that comes once a week, but that makes scheduling hard. Sometimes patients struggle to get a provider.”

“It breaks my heart when I have to walk into a room and tell a patient they have to go to Longview or Portland to see a specialist. Sometimes that means they have to find a family member or a neighbor to take them. And they might need to take another day off work.”

Stacey Brown, OBH human resources manager, echoes this, “I live across the river in Hammond. I was born and raised in Astoria. I do know that it is very beneficial for the community not having to drive across the river when they need specialty care. Two days ago was my two years here — it’s the best place I’ve ever worked and it’s just getting better and better.” So let’s continue to support these and other dedicated Ocean Beach Hospital staff. They need our help to do their jobs better; they need our help in order to take better care of us.

In the meantime, these slices of summer make me optimistic about who we are and where we live. PS: we’re making pie today.