Nonprofit Girl

Earlier this week, I had a conversation with John Wilson, one of the family owners of Beef Northwest. In response to my initial entry on the efforts of their employees to unionize, the business had posted a thorough FAQ on their website; this addresses both the history of the negotiations with UFW and claims made [...]

Last Saturday, Beef Northwest employees from Boardman, Oregon, union partners, and members of the faith community gathered at Whole Foods in Portland’s Pearl District to call attention to working conditions and practices at Beef Northwest, the feedlot for Oregon Country Natural Beef, and to seek support for their efforts to unionize. Whole Foods is among [...]

The Housing Authority of Portland will be selling a number of single-family residences and smaller multi-family residences and moving the subsidized households elsewhere in order to stay within budget, reports the Oregonian [story]. One wonders–why is there no consideration of a meaningful home-buying program to let the current tenants work on owning their home? Selling [...]

I thought I must have misheard OPB reporters this morning when they discussed the release of the hospital cost comparison website; it didn’t show up on oregon.gov’s main page until later today. The home page for the project follows the state’s standard unnavigable format, which of course means that the most important information for consumers [...]

I just received an email update from OCPP regarding the Farm Bill and food stamps and post it below in its entirety; please visit their website links below for more information. Punishing Food Stamp Success: The Bush Administration’s Farm Bill would reverse Oregon’s progress against hunger The Agriculture Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives [...]

I’m currently in eastern Oregon, facilitating a community meeting with farm workers and monitoring the programs I manage. My options for food have been suddenly limited in these past few days, and identifying a place to eat in a small town that could accommodate the restrictions was a challenge; nevertheless, last night, I found a [...]

A recent spate of surveys indicate that the national electorate has undergone a huge shift to the left on a number of key progressive issues (see my favorite summary here). Carla at Loaded Orygun summarizes political trends among Oregonians in her post here.

In the last days of their current session, the Oregon Legislature is likely to approve a 23% increase in the Department of Human Services budget, says a story in the Oregonian this morning. [link] Around 27% of the final budget comes from state tax dollars, and the remainder comes from other sources–which might be news [...]

For all you Oregonians out there, today’s Election Day. It’s obviously too late to mail in your ballot, so take it to a drop box near you. You can even vote the old-fashioned way, in a booth, at your county elections office. But why do that when you can fill it out at home with [...]

After receiving an email from a friend who wondered if I’d survived the food stamp challenge, I realized that a final update might be in order. The media continue to report on Oregon’s governor’s participation in the challenge, which I’m glad to see. I’ll believe we’ve talked about it enough the day that every family [...]