Jan 2024 | Page 6

6 January 2024 Pamplin Media Group

By MARGIE WIESENTHAL

By GARY NEWBORE

Because we live near a big city , we read and hear about many children and young people who are at high risk . They are at high risk because they are homeless , or without parents , or they may be

WIESENTHAL very poor and on the streets , or into drugs .

Boys & Girls Aid was formed in the late 1800s because at that time , many of the children on the East Coast were like these kids we read about now . They had been abandoned after arriving here on ships from other countries . There were no adults with them and so they were picked up by the police and taken by train as far away as Portland and just dropped off . Why Portland ? That ’ s because this city was at the end of the line for these trains from the East .

Now in 2024 there are many children and young adults living down the road from us who are also “ at the end of the line .” Without help they would probably not survive into their 20s or 30s . Some of them are in gangs in order to “ have a family .” We know where that leads !

Some of these children and young adults are in the foster care system . It is hard for foster parents to deal with them because they act out . They act out from anger , a feeling of being abandoned and they think the world has forgotten that they exist . Many foster parents give up on them because of their behavior and then they are sent to another foster “ home .” What this may mean is that they pack their things in a garbage bag and take it all with them to the next placement , or maybe even to school that day . We have discovered that some children experience this transition from 6 to 12 times within a few years . These children are really angry and confused . Who

COURTESY PHOTO

Cheryl Brennan , Candy Ferguson , Gail Mikkelson , Robert Donaldson , Zoe Niklas , Dianne Mc Michael and Susan Rosenau .

wouldn ’ t be !

But the fortunate children have come to Boys & Girls Aid and will never need to carry a garbage bag with them . Why ? It is because of what we do at the Charbonneau Cypress Branch .

When we discovered what had happened to many children and young people before they came to Boys & Girls Aid it was decided that , among other things , all of them needed a really good bag in which to store the things that mattered to them . One of our members , Dianne , has been chairing a committee ( of basically herself ) in order to supply sport bags to girls and boys . Not only is it a really good sport bag , it is stuffed with a soccer ball , sweatshirt , a gift card , socks , a box of 24 cookies , small fidgets and a small stuffed animal . Oh yes , the boys do like the stuffed animals but they hide them in their pockets . On a given day before Christmas Dianne and her volunteers from the Cypress Branch put all the bags together . At this point she has a committee to help . These bags are then taken to the Boys & Girls Aid headquarters and

given to the Girls and Boys at a party .

Is this project expensive ? Yes . But we owe others in our neighborhood for funding it . The money comes from the Rotary Club of Wilsonville . Some of the Rotary members will be with us when the bags are stuffed . Besides thanking them we will suggest that they are “ just here to check out the leftover chocolate chip cookies .”

For further information about Boys and Girls Aid please go to : cypressonline . org or BoysandGirlsAid . org .

FOR MORE INFORMATION Boys and Girls Aid : � www . boysandgirlsaid . org Charbonneau Cypress Branch : � www . cypressonline . org

Happy new year everyone .

� I ’ d like to send a great big thanks to the restaurants that have “ to go ” parking . Since I ’ ve gotten older , I have to go quite often .

� My teacher told me not to worry about spelling because in the future we will have autocorrect . And for that I am eternally grapefruit .

� Person 1 : “ These burgers are actually plant based .” Person 2 : “ Really , they are so delicious . Which plant do they come from ?” Person 1 : “ A meat processing plant .”

� I read that 95 % of electrical vehicles are still on the road . I guess the remaining 5 % made it all the way home .

� A man is dining in a fancy restaurant and there is a gorgeous redhead sitting at the next table . He ’ s been checking her out since he sat down , but lacks the will to talk with her . Suddenly she sneezes and her glass eye comes flying out of its socket toward the man . He reflexively grabs it out of the air and returns it to her . “ Oh my , I am so sorry . Let me buy you dinner and make it up to you ,” she says . They enjoy a wonderful dinner together and afterwards they go to the theater followed by drinks . They talk , they laugh , they share each other ’ s life stories and she pays for everything . “ You know ,” he said , “ you are the perfect woman . Are you this nice to every guy you meet ?” “ No ,” she replies , “... you just happened to catch my eye .”

� Irony is that computers have begun asking humans to prove they aren ’ t a robot .

� Many years ago after watching the sun go around the earth for 24 hours , astronomers got tired of watching and decided to call it a day .

� We celebrated last night with a couple of adult beverages : Metamucil and Ensure .