Oregon’s First Lady helps with program
Mary Oberst helps local volunteers as part of ‘Take Care of Oregon’ venture
By Larry Meyer
Argus Observer
Monday, May 18, 2009 12:21 AM PDT
ONTARIO -Area volunteers got by with a little help from some friends Saturday as part of the statewide, “Take Care of Oregon” program.
One of those friends came a long way.
Oregon’s First Lady Mary Oberst traveled across the state to participate in the projects in Ontario and Nyssa Saturday morning.
One of Ontario’s more visible “Take Care of Oregon” projects was the installation of a Welcome to Ontario sign at the main west entrance to the city, at Southwest Fourth Avenue and Oregon Highway 201 — Airport Corner.
The “Welcome to Ontario, Where Oregon begins,” sign was the result of donations from more than 20 people, businesses and organizations and was the work of T-N-T Signs and Graphics which also performed the installation, with the help of volunteers.
Workers also helped remove brush and weeds.
“We had just enough money to put up the sign,” Ontario Mayor Joe Dominick said Saturday morning. He said the city was looking for more grants or donations to fund completion of the landscaping which will go around the sign. Plans include solar-powered lighting, flowers and other plants.
Oberst said the Ontario venture was her second “Take Care of Oregon” project, one of the elements of the celebration of Oregon’s 150th birthday. She is involved in an on-going project to remove invasive species along Mill Creek in Salem.
“We’re replanting native species,” Oberst said.
One of the underlying themes of Take Care of Oregon is connecting people together as they work. As it turned out, Howard Lavine, the governor’s policy advisor for arts and culture, was on hand Saturday at the sign project site with Dr. Jeffery Pittz and discovered they had both lived at Syracuse, New York and Baltimore at the same time and had shopped at the same grocery store at one of those cities.
After giving some time in Ontario, Oberst and Lavine participated in the project to clean up the garden around the welcome sign at Nyssa’s north entrance, clearing weeds and removing and reinstalling rock over sheets of landscaping rock.
That event was followed by a barbecue, which was put on by M & W Market.
“The Oregon 150 staff is in Portland, and I decided to go across the state,” Oberst said, adding she also used the occasion to come visit a good friend, Susan Barton, secretary of the Nyssa Chamber of Commerce.
Other projects around the valley included a litter patrol in Vale, led by scouts, a clean up along the Snake River at the Ontario State Park, sprucing up around the Ontario Golf Course and youth painting a mural at the Eastside Kiwanis Park. Also, other volunteer groups were painting the grandstands and Girvin Hall at the Malheur County Fair Grounds under the local annual Serve Day volunteer program.
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