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Wednesday, December 13, 2023
Yankton Community Fellowship hosting shoe drive Originally published in The Chronicle Vol. 141 December 6, 2023 WILL LOHRE Country Media, Inc.
Yankton Community Fellowship is hosting a shoe drive to help community families in need this holiday season. Jamie Griffin is the Family Ministry Director for Yankton Community Fellowship, and she discussed what sparked the December shoe drive. Griffin said the liaison from the Family Resource Center for the school district reached out to her about the needs of the community. “She said that there’s a very high need for families in our community for shoes in general this winter season,” Griffin said. “So we threw it out to the congregation and see what we could collect. We are doing an open drive for the month of December, trying to collect gently used, or new shoes for all ages.” The resource center serves all ages, not just students. While Griffin said there’s probably a need for more than just shoes, they focused on that component so they can “knock that one thing off their list.” While they initially opened the drive up to
their congregation, having members of the public get involved will only bolster the yield that the drive provides. Griffin is a member of Connect St. Helens, which is a grassroots effort to recreate the culture and community of St. Helens. “I am part of Connect St. Helens. Ultimately, our goal is to not necessarily have churches working on their own, schools working on their own, or businesses in the community working on their own, but everyone working together to support eachother,” Griffin said. “The main idea behind that is simply that we can all spin our wheels in a thousand directions, but if we all spend them together, we’re going to make a lot more progress.” Griffin said that giving back in the holiday season is not just a priority for the school district or churches but that issues facing the community affect everyone in the town. Another giving back initiative Griffin said they are involved with is gathering gift cards for unaccompanied youth in Columbia County through the Daybreakers Kiwanis Teen Support Program. Whether supporting through donations of clothes, food, or other resources, Griffin said it’s important to
Courtesy photo from Jamie Griffin
A photo of some of the compiled shoe donations.
support these initiatives if people can. “I would encourage people to, if they can’t give on this drive, to give somewhere else because there’s
a lot of areas that they can donate in town,” Griffin said. “Some of us can give our time, and some of us can give different items. Anyway that people can get involved,
I feel like, supports not only that organization but your own mental health.” To donate, people can drop off donations at the
Yankton Community Fellowship at 33579 Pittsburg Road in St. Helens. They can also donate directly at the Family Resource Center, located at 474 North 16th Street.
Clatskanie Bluegrass Festival returning Originally published in The Chief Vol. 132 December 8, 2023 WILL LOHRE Country Media, Inc.
The Clatskanie Bluegrass Festival is set to return in September of 2024, and the catalyst behind its revitalization is the Clatskanie Arts Commission (CAC) Board’s youngest member, Nate Hendricks. The festival date is to be Sept. 13-15, 2024, and according to CAC Secretary and Treasurer Elsa Wooley, it will be the first time the event will return after an 11-year absence. Henricks is 18-yearsold and joined the Arts Commission before the pandemic. He has a love of bluegrass music that was sparked by playing a student-model banjo that his grandmother gave him. “I just kind of picked it up. It was about the only thing I had to do besides schoolwork. So I started playing the banjo and then started playing guitar, and that led into pretty much all the bluegrass instruments,” Hendricks said. Hendricks can be seen performing his music at Colvin’s Pub and Grill about twice a month. Hendricks started as a dishwasher in Colvin’s kitchen but approached owner Kim Rogers to see if he could play his music at the restaurant. “Upon hearing him play, I was just kind of blown away. He’s very, very talented. His style of music and his singing is just a very old soul kind of songs,” Rogers said. “Then we started talking about the bluegrass festival and his passion to bring that back.” Rogers recently made a $1,000 donation to the CAC to support Hendricks’
Courtesy photo from Elsa Wooley
Kim Rogers presents a check to Nate Hendricks to support the Clatskanie Bluegrass Festival.
efforts to bring the Clatskanie Bluegrass Festival back to the community. Rogers said he wanted to make a contribution to support Hendricks’ musical aspirations. Rogers said that Hendricks’ ability seems like something you’d see on America’s Got Talent. “Anybody that needs my help that has that kind of ambition and that kind of drive, these days, being 18, 19-years-old? You gotta be kidding me. I would give the guy my right leg if I could. He’s just one
of those kids who’s going to do something with his life,” Rogers said. “I’m so blessed that when I see him in another 10 to 15 years, and I go to one of his shows, I’m going to be like, ‘I knew that kid when he was scrubbing eggs off a plate!” Creating community Hendricks said that beyond the music, what made him fall in love with bluegrass was the people. About a year ago, Hen-
dricks and his grandmother went across the country for a bluegrass festival in Maryland. “At a music festival, in any other genre, strangers are strangers; you don’t know anyone. You go there to enjoy the music, and you head on home. With bluegrass, the people you meet are more like family,” Hendricks said. “I met people [in Maryland] once, I’ve only met them once, and we’re still in contact with each other. I could go and stay at their home if I
needed to go to that part of the country.” Those types of connections are part of the motivation for Hendricks to bring the bluegrass festival back to Clatskanie City Park next September. Planning the festival has been going without any significant hitches. “I haven’t really encountered any large problems. Most everything is going pretty smoothly,” Hendricks said. “Progress has been great. Contacting bands has been amazing. I’ve already
known a lot of the bands in the Pacific Northwest, so getting ahold of them hasn’t really been a problem.” Hendricks said that right now, he has five bands lined up to play at the festival. This being the first year of the festival, Hendricks said he isn’t planning on performing himself because he’ll be running around handling the organizational components. One of the focuses for Hendricks for the festival is to engage more young people with the genre. One way Hendricks hopes to engage kids is through the Chick Rose School of Bluegrass. “They have a wide array of instruments that they bring to festivals. And they have a two-hour training program where you sign your kid up, and we teach them how to play that instrument,” Hendricks said. “They then perform that same day.” Hendricks isn’t part of the Chick Rose School of Bluegrass, but he’s helped teach kids in the program because he “enjoys it.” Ahead of the festival, Hendricks said any donations to help fund the project would be appreciated. Addressing the community, Hendricks said he wants people to attend and engage with the event. “I just want the community to show up and see what bluegrass is all about,” Hendricks said. “Don’t be afraid to talk to any of the musicians at the festival. The community needs to grow, and the only way for it to gorw is by you getting interested.”
Tax-deductible donations in support of this event may be sent to the Clatskanie Arts Commission, PO Box 1110, Clatskanie, OR 97016.
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