Faces of MAC

As businesses go, Plants By People is still a sapling, but the member-owned company has been experiencing a serious growth spurt recently. In mid-April, founder Jing DiPiero appeared on KOIN TV’s Thirsty Thursday segment to promote her line of organic, vegan, nonallergenic beverage blends. Plants By People also was nominated for BevNET’s Best of 2021 Awards, just made its debut at Market of Choice locations around Oregon, not to mention MAC’s own Mporium, and is set to be available for tasting at World Foods Portland in the Pearl from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursday, May 5. “COVID changed our lives in every single way. With more time on my hands, and reflecting how I could use my medical education experience to help more people, I founded Plants By People,” DiPiero says. The company was formed in September 2020, and she says that it took 10 months just to finalize the products, supply chain, production methods, and brand identity, with online sales starting less than a year ago, in 2021. Now, with May being Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the time is ripe for expanding awareness of her beverage blends, which are grounded in the principles of traditional herbal remedies and the quest to increase “Qi” or vital energies. DiPiero grew up in Beijing, China, which she describes as “the capital of holistic medicine and culinary art.” “My heritage has taught me to respect nature, live in harmony with myself and my environment, and be patient and humble. I certainly have a long journey ahead of me to continue to learn and improve,” she says, laughing. Plants By People’s five flavors — Bloom, Glow, Harmony, Shine, and Thrive, each formulated to affect the mood and energy in their own ways — were created by company food scientists in conjunction with the National University of Natural Medicine to be socially responsible, convenient, and versatile. DiPiero says she regularly carries packets in her purse when traversing the labyrinth of MAC, a club that has quickly grown to feel like home since she joined late in 2020. “I feel positive energy when I am at MAC, and I love being a member of the community. We all desire to stay healthy, strong, and active. Depending on my mood, the flavor I crave, and the health benefit I am seeking at the moment, I make different choices. Before Zumba class with Andrea [Sexton], I know it will be a total body workout to keep up with her, so I usually mix a cup of Shine cleansing blend. Before Pilates, I like to drink Harmony to relax.”

Poetry can be delightful to read, but the same can’t always be said for composing it. “While I get much joy from sharing the tools of poetry writing, the actual process of creating a poem is not always a joy. Often, it’s a lot of work. Hard labor. But I love the work,” says Mary Gray. After 10 years of teaching her craft at the Portland Art Museum, the author and lifetime MAC member — her husband even proposed to her here! — has brought her expertise to the club community in the form of beginner and intermediate poetry writing classes. “Poetry is unique in communication because every poem starts with an emotion and forms itself around that emotion. I think of a poem as a living, breathing thing. If you’re good to it, it will be good to you,” Gray says. “Unlike prose, poetry is like music, with its own rhythms and cadences. In fact, the first poems were sung and chanted. The ancients would sit around the fire and chant. Poetry’s cadence comes from music. If you want to write poetry, just as if you wanted to play the piano, you must learn how to play the instrument. You have to learn the basics, which is what we do in my Basic Poetry Writing class. I give students the tools to make the music.” Gray says she can’t remember a time when she wasn’t reading or writing the artform, and recalls a memorable experience at age 11, when her sister thought Mary was talking to herself. It turned out she was memorizing William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116. “One of the extra special things about poetry is how it pushes you to see the world with more clarity. Almost in technicolor. You notice things you never saw before,” Gray adds. “I regularly bring an artifact to class — a prompt: a vase, a flower, a statue — anything to stimulate my students’ creative juices. Each person responds uniquely. When I bring in a small wooden horse, some person has a memory of riding horses — another person a completely different response.” Those considering taking one of Gray’s classes can get a taste of her work in the book, The Shadow of My Hand, currently for sale at the Mporium. It’s inspired by the birds who reside around her home in Oysterville, Washington. Her newest collection, Sonnets to Small Things, is scheduled to release this summer.