SAMM with David Klinkenberg & Special Guest Joey Harrington

When: Tuesday, December 22nd

Where: St. Mary’s Academy Auditorium

Doors open at 6pm, Concert begins at 7pm. Tickets are  on sale NOW for $20! Please call Mary at 503.735.5252 or visit Facebook.com keyword Blanchet House for ticket information.

All proceeds will directly benefit the Blanchet House!

Note: Music appropriate for all ages.

“More good news for the most underserved community in our city—the Blanchet House is about to launch a major capital campaign to offset some of the costs of a brand new multi-million dollar facility on the corner of NW Glisan and NW 4th Ave. Brian Ferschweiler, Executive Director of Blanchet (which includes Blanchet House, Riley House, and Blanchet Farm) says that he is confident that, with their tremendous donor base and helpful community partners, they’ll be able to reach their goal.”

Along with her in-depth article, photos of the Blanchet community taken by Kenneth Aaron are available for viewing, as well as short video. Read the original article at Neighborhood Notes.

The Blanchet Boys, left to right: Joe Van Gulik, Pete Van Hoomissen ’50, Bob Wack ’43, Gene Feltz ’50, Tom Moore ’49, Jim O'Hanlon ’51, and Jack Moore ’50. Feltz, O’Hanlon, and Van Hoomissen are also proud alumni of Columbia Prep, the high school that shared The Bluff with the University until 1955. And on page 22, a beaming Kyle Schick ’09.

It started, seventy years ago, as a cheerful gang of University of Portland boys who totally believed Father Francis Kennard when Frank said that Christ wasn’t kidding when He said whatever we do for the least among us we do unto Him. They took the University’s blunt devotion to prayer in action seriously, those boys, and they scraped up money and teammates, and opened Blanchet House on Northwest Glisan Street in Portland, in 1952, and in the six decades since, the Christ in so many weary and ragged and holy people has been served some eighteen million hot meals, a million nights’ safe lodging, nearly a million items of clothing, and more than a hundred thousand small jobs that needed to be done and offered dignity along the way. And long ago Blanchet House lost count of how many free boxes of food quietly got to families in need, and how many small loans got made for job training, schools, tools, and whatever else might add up to a chance to tip a life back toward light and hope. More chances than could ever be counted, and is there a lovelier sentence than that?

Guests of Blanchet House, enjoying a hot meal.

Those cheerful headlong boys are elder chieftains of the clan now, and some have gone to speak to Christ face to face about what they did every Saturday of their adult lives and many hours extra, but, you know, in the 108 years of this University’s life, its intent passion to live its belief in Christ, to sing and celebrate the holy, to act and not just fulminate, maybe there’s never been a better, sweeter, crazier, more wonderful proof of the University’s mission in action than what those boys started one day on The Bluff. Blanchet House isn’t a place, really – it’s a verb. It happens every day, and every day its insistence on quiet action says something powerful about hope and holiness, and how we can and do and must change the world with our hands and hearts and brains and brawn.

Blanchet House sets off on a campaign this year to secure its future, to make sure no force can ever dissolve the creative energy that has done so much for so many. We celebrate those first boys – see below – and bow here in thanks for a terrific idea, executed daily for years with grace and salt and humor and humility. Amen, boys.

Well done.

Julia raised $450 for Blanchet House this year selling gingerbread cookies.

The Blanchet Youth Capital Campaign Kickoff was yesterday, June 28th, at the Northwest Natural Gas Building. It was announced that there are already $150,000 in matching gifts for this part of the campaign, and that Joey and Emily Harrington would be Honorary Chairs.

Perhaps the highlight of the afternoon was a speech given by eight year old Julia Albert. She attended the kickoff with her parents, Steve and Carol.

Nothing else needs to be said after you read her words:

“Hi, name is Julia, and the reason I’m here is because when I was in Kindergarten, 3 and 1/2 years ago, I had a dream that I could help the homeless.

I decided to help the Blanchet House because I had seen the lines of homeless waiting for food so many times.

I wanted to sell cookies at the park but my mom said it was a cold winter and nobody would be around.

So we contacted Safeway in Damascus and asked if we could do it there and they said yes!

We have sold gingerbread cookies and let people decorate them with us, every year since, and this year we sold heart cookies for Valentines Day, too.

Over the years, we have raised over $1,000 for the Blanchet House and we are touched by peoples hearts and generosity.

It has become a family tradition that we look forward to every year.

We want to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who works and volunteers at the Blanchet House to help the homeless.

Thank you everybody and have a good night.”

Sweet dreams, everyone!

The first $25,000 raised by the Youth Campaign will be matched one-for-one. The second $25,000 raised will be matched two-for-one. The third $25,000 raised will be matched three-for-one. Therefore, if the Blanchet Youth Campaign raises $75,000 by Septmeber 30, 2010, the Youth Campaign will generate a total of $150,000 of matching gifts. A total of $225,000 raised by the Youth Campaign would be a great contribution. Once the campaign reaches $75,000, new motivations will be found!!

Thank you to those donors who generously offered these matching gifts. We are blessed to have your support.

Portland, Ore—Today, the City of Portland and Energy Trust of Oregon, Inc., announced three building projects that will receive a combined total of $425,000 in grants from the Green Investment Fund (GIF), a five-year, $2.5 million grant fund created to spur innovation in green building technologies and practices in Portland.

The GIF is a competitive program that awards grants to innovative and comprehensive projects that excel at energy efficiency, on-site storwmater management, water efficiency and waste prevention. The GIF is a collaboration among the City of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS), Water Bureau, Bureau of Environmental Services and Energy Trust of Oregon.

“For Portland to remain America’s most sustainable city, we need our entrepreneurs and engineers to keep innovating and finding new ways to push the envelope of sustainability,” said Mayor Sam Adams.  “These projects demonstrate Portlanders’ strong commitment to green building and sustainable site development. Portland’s true advantage is the creativity of our talented green building professionals.”

In addition to supporting Portland’s green building industry, the GIF also produces resources that help inform future projects. For example, the GIF program includes post-occupa ncy monitoring that evaluates each project’s performance relative to pre-construction predictions. These reports, along with photos and project updates about current and previous GIF projects, are available at www.portlandonline.com/bps/gif.

2009 Green Investment Fund Grant Recipeints

Blanchet House of Hospitality

Blanchet House of Hospitality is a charitable organization dedicated to providing hot food and temporary housing to those in need.  Offering breakfast, lunch, and dinner, the mission serves between 600-800 meals per day, six days a week at no charge to its guests, and has twenty nine men currently enrolled in their housing program.  Blanchet is undertaking an ambitious new building project, which is targeting LEED Platinum.  The proposed building, which is adjacent to its current location in Old Town/Chinatown, includes a variety of high performance features.  Key goals for the project include net-zero-energy and net–zero water for the residential portion of the building.  The project plans to incorporate rainwater collection, tenant metering, heat recovery from the kitchen and an ecoroof with an outdoor terrace.  Most importantly, the new facility will create a healthy and vibrant environment for those individuals being served by the mission.

Pearl Family Housing

When complete in early 2011, Pearl Family Housing will provide 138 affordable rental units in Portland’s Pearl District for families with children earning less than 60 percent of median family income. The building is designed to be at least 25 percent more efficient than the ASHRAE standard. The building will have an innovative ventilation and exhaust system.  Every apartment will have fresh conditioned air distributed directly into the apartments and will have continuous exhaust vents in the kitchen and bathroom.  A heat recovery system in the attic will use the heat from the exhaust to preheat the outdoor air in the winter. In conjunction with air source heat pumps, this system not only saves energy, but also provides higher indoor air quality for tenants. The complex also features “dashboard” devices in 20 percent of the apartments to provide real time feedback to residents on the amount of electricity they’re using. A 31,000 square foot ecoroof and a stormwater filter for the courtyard area will treat 100 percent of the stormwater onsite.

XVI Vernon Place Development Project

XVI Vernon Place will be a mixed-use infill project with ground floor retail and 48 upper-level apartments located in the Vernon Neighborhood of NE Portland. The project is attempting to meet the Living Building Challenge and achieve net-zero energy use through a variety of energy efficiency and pr oduction technologies. The project will manage 100 percent of its stormwater through infiltration, rainwater harvesting and a 10,000 square foot ecoroof. The project also seeks to achieve net-zero water use, with occupants’ water coming entirely from captured stormwater, greywater or closed loop water systems.

Green Investment Fund Collaborators

The City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) was created in 2009 when Portland City Council merged the Bureau of Planning with the Office of Sustainable Development. The Bureau of Planning has had an exceptional record of guiding Portland’s growth and development toward the thriving, livable city that it is today. The Office of Sustainable Development has pioneered many policies and programs that integrate environmental, economic, and social benefits. This new bureau will ensure that sustainability principles are thoroughly integrated into the core of Portland’s planning, urban design and government operations, strengthening Portland’s position as the global epicenter of sustainable practices and commerce.

The Bureau of Environmental Services is Portland’s Clean River agency, treating Portland’s wastewater, providing stormwater management services, and working in Portland watersheds to reduce stormwater pollution, restore native vegetation, and improve the quality of water in our rivers and streams. Details on the City’s sustainable stormwater management practices can be found at www.portlandonline.com/bes

The Portland Water Bureau operates the system that delivers high-quality drinking water to more than 787,000 people in the Portland metropolitan area. In addition to protecting public health, the Portland Water Bureau delivers conservation programs for residential and commercial customers. www.portlandonline.com/water

Energy Trust of Oregon, Inc., is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to energy efficiency and renewable energy development. The organization’s mission is to change how Oregonians produce and use energy by investing in efficient technologies and renewable resources that develop new sources of clean energy, help Oregonians lower their energy bills, stimulate the economy and protect the environment. www.energytrust.org