Author: North Coast BBQ

RAFFLE BENEFITTING THE NORTH COUNTY FOOD BANK AND NEHALEM BAY COMMUNITY SERVICES FOOD PANTRY

When you attend one of our shows this holiday season, don’t forget we are selling raffle tickets to help battle food insecurity in our area. Our goal is to raise $3,000!

Raffle tickets are $5.00 each.

GRAND PRIZES:

-Golden Ticket for the 2026 Season. Front Row SEASON PASS to all four shows. (8 tickets/$200 value)

-A Reserved Seat Season Pass to see all four shows in the upcoming year. (8 Tickets/$160 value)

-The Grinch Outdoor Christmas Light Decoration ($250 value, as seen in the window of the Performing Arts Center and on stage).

Grand Prize Drawing 12/22/25

DAILY PRIZES:

Daily drawings during intermission of each show include tickets to all four shows in the 2026 Season, including MISERY, THE ODD COUPLE, DRACULA: THE RADIO PLAY, and WINTER WONDERETTES (our first holiday musical).

For tickets to the remaining shows for THE HOLIDAY CHANNEL CHRISTMAS MOVIE WONDERTHON, CLICK HERE:
riverbendplayers.ludus.com/index.php

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Fast-forward to now. CARTM has been through some twists (understatement), changed names, lost capacity, but—still scrappy—is fighting its way back into itself as Heart of Cartm.

But the truth is simpler than the legend. The magic of old CARTM was never just the dump or the trash or the punk-rock trashion shows (though we’re happy to continue hosting them each May). The magic was that it turned a place everyone had to go anyway into a civic commons. CARTM was that one locale in North County where people of every age, income, politics, and walks of life crossed paths, worked alongside each other, traded knowledge, swapped stories, and recognized themselves as part of the same community. The location mattered only because it created a social equalizer; the story that unfolded was the wonder of community itself.

When that disappeared in 2018, what the region lost wasn’t a quirky reuse site—it was a communal space where belonging, creativity, and resourcefulness were practiced in the open. A microcosm of rural life. One where a 75-year-old in a bubble-wrap gown, a high-school kid in duct tape armor, the local coffee shop owner, retirees dropping recycling, working families hauling junk, artists with repurposed treasures, and weekend visitors all existed side-by-side in the same story.

Heart of Cartm exists because that function mattered. And still does. We’re not trying to recreate the dump or cosplay nostalgia. We’re rebuilding what the dump made possible: the civic infrastructure that helps a rural community stay connected, resilient, and imaginative. A place where people learn practical skills, care for materials and each other, and find common ground despite everything that might divide them.

So what is Heart of Cartm now?

Today, HoC doesn’t live at the dump, and it doesn’t look like old CARTM—because the community needs something different now. What we are is the continuation of the part that mattered most: the commons.

Right now, Heart of Cartm is:

– a reuse store where materials find new life instead of going to waste
– a hands-on place to learn—to repair something, make something, figure something out
– a workshop space where people create, teach each other, and share practical skills
– a place to gather, whether you’re dropping off fabric, volunteering, or just wandering in
– a connector between neighbors, artists, teachers, makers, environmental groups, land trusts, schools, and local businesses
– a tiny nonprofit trying to hold onto (and rebuild) one of the few shared community spaces we have left

In other words, Heart of Cartm is the same kind of commons CARTM used to be—in a new form. People still come here to find something useful, learn something practical, bump into neighbors, swap stories, solve problems, and make things together. The magic didn’t disappear; it just moved from the dump to a storefront in Downtown Wheeler.

Our work now responds directly to rural realities of economic precarity, climate pressure, and the shrinking number of shared spaces where community can actually happen beyond our screens. What we’re rebuilding isn’t the past—it’s the capacity that made the past powerful. It’s the practical and cultural infrastructure that keeps an organization like ours connected.

And in a moment like this, when the work feels fragile and the stakes feel high, it helps to return to a truth steadier than any circumstance, expressed in Margaret Mead’s simple directive:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.
Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

It was true in CARTM’s early days.
It’s true now.
And Heart of Cartm is what happens when that commitment takes root again, rebuilt not through myth or memory, but through the people who still show up, care, create, and carry the story forward.

The hard part is this: we’re rebuilding quickly, and it’s working—but we’re doing it on an extremely lean budget. We’ve secured grants, rebuilt programs, and even have federal funding on the horizon, but we need to survive the next few months to reach that stability. If you believe in what Heart of Cartm is becoming again, this is the moment to help. Give what you can. Pass the word along if you can’t. The commons only works when the community carries it together.

www.heartofcartm.org/donate

We are the “Honey Guys” – usually at our Stand by the Garibaldi ‘Smokestack’. During the WINTER months, our days of operating are limited – due to Weather permitting considerations. Because of this, WE HAVE DECIDED TO OFFER LOCAL (Manzanita to Tillamook) DELIVERY

SIZES AVAILABLE – 1/2 PINTS ($15) PINTS ($25)
QUARTS ($40)
AVAILABLE TYPES LIMITED! BLACKBERRY/CLOVER/KNOTWEED/WILDFLOWER
** RASPBERRY – Premium (1/2 PINT size $20)
Contact us at Deepboxllc@gmail.com, and we will setup a delivery date/time for your HONEY NEEDS! Thanks to ALL our ‘Loyal Customers’. ALSO – our HONEY is available at our friend’s BAKERY business – BRITTANY BAKES in Garibaldi (next to the Maritime Museum) – during their regular business hours. Pick up some fresh baked goodies while you’re there!! HAVE HAPPY HOLIDAYS

Deep Cleans: Go beyond the surface with our intensive deep cleans to tackle built-up grime, dust, and hard-to-reach areas not normally gotten by standard cleaning.

Standard Cleans: Perfect for regular upkeep, keeping your space consistently tidy, hygienic, and welcoming.

Please call us at 503-368-2929 and ask for the housekeeping department to schedule a clean!

BIGGEST OPENING WEEKEND EVER! COME SEE WHY!

DON’T MISS THE HOLIDAY HILLARITY!
‘THE HOLIDAY CHANNEL CHRISTMAS MOVIE WONDERTHON’

This weekend, the largest cast in Riverbend Players’ history breaks the record for the biggest opening weekend ever!

SEE IT LIVE ON STAGE, THRU 12/21/25 AT THE NCRD PERFORMING ARTS CENTER

RESERVE YOUR SEATS NOW!
www.riverbendplayers.ludus.com/index.php

THE HOLIDAY CHANNEL CHRISTMAS MOVIE WONDERTHON, by Don Zolidis and directed by Frank Squillo, is a hilarious spoof of the Hallmark and Lifetime Channel Christmas movies.

Set in a cozy Vermont inn during Christmas time, the play follows six predictable, intertwined love stories filled with small-town charm, romantic misunderstandings, and holiday magic.

THE HOLIDAY CHANNEL CHRISTMAS MOVIE WONDERTHON comically embraces every cliché, trope, and heartwarming twist of these beloved holiday movies.

Friday and Saturday nights at 7 pm, Sunday matinees at 2 pm.

Get tickets now: www.riverbendplayers.ludus.com/index.php

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The first time I learned about the art of Kintsugi, I was listening to a woman speak at a conference. Kintsugi is an ancient Japanese practice where a broken piece of pottery is glued back together and the cracks are highlighted with gold. The pot is not hidden. The breaks are not erased. They are honored.

She shared how frustrated she became in her workshop. The glue would not hold. The pieces would not fit perfectly. The gold paint felt sloppy. She felt like she was failing at the art and missing the point entirely. She took the piece home and placed it on her mantle, unimpressed and disappointed.

Days later, she really looked at it. The imperfect seams. The visible glue. The uneven gold. And suddenly she saw her own life in it. Still healing. Still mending. Still becoming. And yet somehow beautiful.

That story stayed with me because it feels like the truest picture of trauma and healing I have ever seen.

We all get shattered at some point. By heartbreak. By loss. By abuse. By betrayal. By relationships that believed in us less than we believed in them. By things we did not deserve. Those impacts break us. But they do not get to define the final version of us.

Healing is the slow work of picking up the pieces. It is learning how to hold them again. It is asking for help when your hands are not steady enough. I never glued myself back together alone. My glue was my counselors. My coaches. My friends. My family. My coworkers. The people who held me in my mess until I could stand again.

And the gold for me has shown up in unexpected ways.

I see it in my tattoos. Each one marks a season of healing. When I am at my strongest, I rarely walk into a tattoo shop. But when I am at my lowest, when life has knocked the breath out of me, I find myself choosing new ink. Each piece marks survival. Recovery. Becoming. The ashes tried to bring me down. The ink reminds me I rose anyway.

The cracks did not disappear. They were highlighted.

And now I find myself in a new place. I am no longer only working on my own healing. I am helping others see the gold in theirs. I get to sit with people in the middle of their breaking and help them gather the pieces without shame. I get to remind them that nothing about their story disqualifies them from becoming whole. Their cracks are not a flaw. They are the entry point for the light.

If you are in a season where you feel shattered, stuck, lost, or unsure how to put yourself back together, you do not have to do it alone. This is the work I now devote my life to. Helping people move from survival into strength. From broken into becoming. From cracks into gold.

Healing is not about going back to who you were before the break. It is about becoming someone deeper, stronger, and more fully alive because of it.

And sometimes, all you need is someone steady enough to hold the glue while your hands learn how to trust again.