The Daily Barometer OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY • CORVALLIS, OREGON 97331
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2013 • VOLUME CXVI, NUMBER 48
DAILYBAROMETER.COM • 541-737-2231
Grant could provide up to $2K for students n
DAILYBAROMETER
Thanksgiving meals for everyone n
OSU students encouraged to apply for Oregon Opportunity Grant for 2014 school year
THE DAILY BAROMETER
THE DAILY BAROMETER
See GRANT | page 4
Volunteers, Friends of the Linn Benton Food Share preparing for Community Holiday Food Drive By Emma-Kate Schaake
By Sean Bassinger Students who meet certain criteria could qualify for an extra $1,950 to assist with financial costs needed to attend college next year. According to information from the Oregon Student Access Commission, the need-based grant helps students needing additional funds pay for college. Those who qualify could receive the grant in addition to financial aid. The Board of Higher Education approved recent adjustments to keep yearly tuition costs for resident Oregon State undergraduate students taking 15 or more credits at $6,828. The Oregon Opportunity Grant would alleviate nearly 29 percent of this burden, leaving around $4,878 remaining in tuition costs alone. According to estimates from Oregon State’s Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships, students this year may pay around $1,965 for books and supplies, $10,578 for room and board and $2,577 for miscellaneous and personal expenses. When added to the revised tuition cost above, undergraduate students could expect to pay around $21,948 in total expenses this school year. The
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Emma-Kate Schaake
| THE DAILY BAROMETER
Sydney Hoffman, 9, and Rachael Orsinsi, an OSU senior, inspect an apple while bagging produce Tuesday at the Benton County Fairgrounds.
Thanksgiving marks the quintessential beginning of a joyous holiday season, but for families struggling to make ends meet, this time of year can be more stressful than cheerful. The 33rd annual Community Holiday Food Drive, sponsored by the Friends of the Linn Benton Food Share, hopes to alleviate that stress and provide Thanksgiving meals for an estimated 1,400 families across Benton County. “It’s very rewarding to do this and to really help people,” said Holiday Food Drive coordinator Judy Gibson. “When you are already struggling to get by, it’s hard to provide a nice Thanksgiving meal where everyone can sit down together.” Gibson has been in charge of the program for 20 of its total 33 years, and she has seen the hard work it takes to make it a success. “It’s a huge community effort,” Gibson said. “We have volunteers from all over, and it’s all 100 percent donations.” Local Boy Scout troops kicked off the weeklong packaging and distribution event with an initial food drive that commenced Saturday. The troops collected and delivered canned goods and other non-perishable foods to the Benton County Fairgrounds workspace, where it was all sorted for box assembly this week.
“The box is designed to provide a Thanksgiving meal, with a few extra goodies,” said long-time food drive volunteer John Tietjen. Most of the donations come in the form of packaged food, but the drive also requires monetary donations to sustain and supplement the boxes. “We buy the turkeys and chickens, and we are always short on things like peanut butter and canned milk,” Tietjen said. “So we still always need cash donations.” All in all, the estimated costs of providing those 1,400 food boxes are around $30,000. The need for these food boxes has increased steadily since the 2007 recession, in correlation with the number of families that require regular food deliveries from the Linn Benton Food Share. Gibson said 3,500 people in Benton County eat from food boxes each month. “That’s up about 29 percent since the recession,” Gibson said. Any extra food from the drive will be delivered to the Linn Benton Food Share warehouse in Tangent, where it will be stored for use in other programs throughout the year. On Tuesday evening, the building at the fairgrounds was full of food, but with 1,400 families to feed, the coordinators know it will be empty by the end of the week. Box assembly was in full swing as volunteers bagged fresh produce and packed food boxes for large families. One of the groups, tasked with bagSee FOOD | page 4
The heart of the issue: a shift Homelessness panel: a voice to voiceless in cholesterol management n
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New cholesterol guidelines could increase the number of people taking cholesterol-lowering drugs
By Kaitlyn Kohlenberg THE DAILY BAROMETER
By Dacotah-Victoria Splichalova THE DAILY BAROMETER
The American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology released new cholesterol guidelines Nov. 12. The guidelines may significantly shift how family physicians treat patients. The updated cholesterol guidelines pertain to statins, which are commonly used medications that inhibit the rate-limiting step for cholesterol biosynthesis. Statins reduce the amount of cholesterol the body produces, reduce the amount of cholesterol within the patient’s bloodstream and also reduce the amount of cholesterol that can get into a patient’s arteries, clogging See CHOLESTEROL | page 4
Panel of students, community members share experiences, discuss cyclical nature of homelessness, abuse, housing security
Dacotah-victoria splichalova
| THE DAILY BAROMETER
Lipitor is a commercially marketed and prescribed to reduce high levels of cholesterol.
The Memorial Union journey room became a safe space for speakers to share their stories of homelessness during Wednesday night’s panel. Event co-coordinator Corin Bauman shared her goals for the evening. “I think the objective is really just to put a face to an issue that is often faceless and voiceless,” Bauman said. “So it was really important for us to allow for the personal narrative to be told and to make sure … people are challenged to think about homelessness in another light and to really bring a level of humanity to an issue that sometimes lacks humanity.” The event was initiated with a short video, called “Faces of Hunger,” from the Oregon Food Bank. The video offered additional perspectives on hunger and homelessness in a local, tangible context, informing viewers that as recently as 2011, 17.5 percent of Oregonians were living in poverty and 13.6 percent of the Oregon population was
experiencing food insecurity. The panelists’ stories painted a picture of the cyclical nature of homelessness, describing cycles of abuse and the difficulties of achieving food and housing security. Some of the panelists shared stories about growing up in families that struggled with homelessness and food insecurity. “It’s a lot of things you just can’t control,” said Shanti Kriens, a natural resources major at OSU. “It just happens. I had to stay with people, there were no choices I could’ve made to change that. I couldn’t leave my brothers and sisters.” Kriens and Lexie Merrill, a political science major, both spoke of the childhood abuse cycles that made it difficult to get help. “When you turn into a parent at four or five, which is kind of ridiculous, I lost a lot of respect for my parents … and that led to a lot of behavioral issues, especially around authority,” Merrill said. “That’s something I think happens a lot with youth. We just don’t know how to act around adults because we were around adults who don’t act like adults a lot of the time, or who can’t live lives like adults.” Another reoccurring factor that several panelSee HOMELESSNESS | page 4