Busy, busy, busy

There are a lot of events and projects coming up this month, so please take a few minutes to look at everything that is going on. We will get right to it!

1) The Portland Upside debuts this Friday, May 8th. The creators of the newspaper, Rob and Sara, are looking for some help distributing the 10,000 printed copies all around town. If you can take a few copies to your local neighborhood hangout, or you are willing to drive around town and drop off a lot of copies to different places, that would be great. Just email Michelle and I or contact the Portland Upside directly at portland.upside@gmail.com

2) There is an East Portland Neighborhood Association Annual Clean-up event this Saturday, May 9th, going from 9am-1pm. The event is happening in the Albertson's parking lot on NE 122nd and Halsey. They need some volunteers to help with the event and it's also a great way to get rid of anything just lying around your house. They are accepting: Yard Debris; Wood; Metal; Bicycles. It is $10 per car load and $20 per truck load. Proceeds will be put right back into the local neighborhoods. Let us know if you can make it!

3) Another May 9th project is being put together by F.I.D.O. (Friends Involved in Dog Outreach). They are a wonderful organization who help not only Clackamas County residents, but anyone in the Portland Metro area. They are looking for volunteers to join them at the new shelter for a "Landscape Beautification Party"! Rain or shine, from 10 am until ??
Diana Hallmark is offering sneak preview tours of the new facility as well as hot dogs, hamburgers (and veggie burgers), soda and water. They will be planting and digging and generally playing in the mud, so bring gloves, shovels and other tools as appropriate (knee pads?). Please dress for the weather and plan to have a fun day working and getting to know more about FIDO & meeting other volunteers.

They have several other projects they would like to complete, if they can get enough volunteers.
Also, if you have a wheel barrow that you can bring, that would be great. They hope to be moving gravel and creating a pathway or two. Just let us know if you can make it. It really is a terrific cause!

4) Also on Saturday, May 9th there is a benefit auction for Rose Haven, a women's and children's shelter. They need 2-3 volunteers to help with the event on Saturday night, between 4pm - 10:00pm. There will be food for the volunteers as well as raffle prizes, and everyone will get to enjoy the entertainment as well. Please contact Ellen at 503 784-6192 if you can help!

5) One of our volunteers is the lead singer in a band called The Augmentors. She and her band are having their first Portland show on Sunday, May 10th starting at 9pm. The venue is the Mississippi Pizza Pub at 3552 N. Mississippi. We would love to get a big group of us down there to see her show and to support her. It should be a lot of fun! Think you can make it?

6) On Wednesday, May 20th, we will be hosting our next Meet and Greet here at our home. We would love for everyone to be able to attend. The meet and greet will be from 11am-3pm. Just let us know if you can make it! Let's make this the best meet and greet yet!

7) We have had a few professionals donate some services to our volunteers. First is Ario with Unbound Bodywork and Massage. He has offered to give 2 or 3 free massages, per week, to We've Got Time to Help volunteers that go out on any projects! How cool is that? You can contact him directly and let him know that you would like to set up an appointment. His contact info is: Phone: 503 841 2556 and email: ariolynch@gmail.com

Also, Peter Chee of Peter Chee Photography, has offered to take photos/head shots of any of our volunteers who need them for job hunting or attaching to resumes (again, for free). You can email Peter at peter@petercheephotography.com to set up a time to have your photo(s) taken. Anything to help in these slow economic times!

We also have a licenced counselor who is willing to speak with people that need someone to talk to. Please email Jennifer at jenniferblakecounseling@gmail.com and let her know what you need. What a tremendous and generous offer from Jennifer.

8) We have added a few new projects and we could sure use quite a few volunteers for a whole host of Projects coming up. You can take a look at the Project Page to see if there is something that you can help with. There is everything from gardening to construction to driving. Please see if you have a few extra hours in your week to help out some of these wonderful people!

We've had a few Projects sitting on the table for a while and Michelle and I have been trying to get to them all, but we need some help. Just email us at wevegottimetohelp@q.com to let us know what you can help with.

And last, but certainly not anywhere near least, we are going to start a Monthly Volunteer Day where will be going to one of our volunteers homes and giving them a hand with anything they need help with. We have our first nominee for May (we are keeping it a secret, though) and we will be sending out information as the day draws closer. So neighbors, start thinking about what you would like or need to get done around your home and let us know. This will be a small way to give back to all of you that have donated your time, energy and ideas to those in need!

Thank you to all!

Contact us for any reason at wevegottimetohelp@q.com

OPB and Community Involvement

We were contacted last week by Sarah Rothenfluch from Oregon Public Broadcasting's show, Think Out Loud. This is such a great opportunity for us to get the word out about what we do and how we can help people. The show will run from 9am-10am on Monday. Please, spread the word and let anyone in your community know that we are here to help them in any way we can. Sarah's approach to this story is fitting the pieces of our community into a larger social puzzle.

She will also be interviewing a prior customer of Modern Color (the small business that we helped close their doors) and how he had to reduce his advertising budget which directly affected Modern Color; how Desi Miller and crew turned Modern Color into Moso Graphics; how Michelle and I (Seth) turned unemployment into a positive experience and how a laid-off heavy equipment operator used F.I.D.O. (Friends Involved in Dog Outreach) to help him provide food for his animal allowing him to keep his pets instead of having to turn them over to a shelter. If you have time please listen to this informative community driven program.

FIDO - People helping Pets

We have had some donations of dog food, cat food, pet toys and miscellaneous pet supplies. We checked all of our regular contacts and no one had a need for these things so we went searching for someone new to help. We know we can donate them to any of the local shelters but we were more looking to donate them to people so they didn't have to take their pets to a shelter due to financial difficulties. We searched Craigslist this morning and hit the jackpot!!

We found ad for a Dog Food Bank. The program is called FIDO-Friends Involved in Dog Outreach. They work in association with Clackamas County Dog Services and offer a wide array of programs and services. On the 3rd Saturday of each month they have a Dog Food Bank. As they put it on their website, it is one way to help dog owners keep their dogs at home. The program is open to pet owners in need and is not restricted just to people who live in Clackamas county. Their main focus is dogs but they do help people with cats as well. Check out FIDO and see what a great service they offer. They also have a program called AniMeals. This program partners with Clackamas County Meals on Wheels and, once notified of pets in need, will deliver cat or dog food to the seniors receiving meals through the Meals on Wheels program. These are just the kind of causes we believe in! People helping People and Pets!!

The Clackamas County Shelter is also on-site and welcomes donations of food, toys etc.



Seth and I packed up the all the supplies we had gathered and headed out to Oregon City to make a delivery. It just happened to be the 3rd Saturday of the month so we got to see the dog food bank in action. It was a wonderful sight seeing people doing what they could to not have to turn their animals over to a shelter and other volunteers working for the same goal.

The look on the woman's face at the shelter when she saw the huge bag of toys we had collected almost brought tears to our eyes. Her face just lit up with the biggest grin we have seen in a long time. No dog should go without toys especially if they don't even have a home. She was also appreciative of the dog food, cat food and other supplies. We told her who we were and what we do. If we get any other donations of pet related items we will definitely be taking them out to this wonderful place. They have so many good programs out of this one location.



Please keep these people in mind if you have any items that you no longer need or toys your pet no longer plays with.


Also, if you hear of anyone who is thinking about turning their pet into a shelter because they can't afford to keep them any longer, in these hard economic times, please share FIDO with them. Since they only have the dog food bank once a month they can get a month's supply of dog food for up to four dogs. Please check out their site!!