Current Listing

Meals for Seniors, Inc., PO Box 852, Rockaway Beach, Oregon 97136. This organization was established about 22 years ago and has worked hard to address the food insecurity needs in our community among the elderly. In 2024 Meals for Seniors, Inc. prepared 13,852 meals of which 5,662 were enjoyed by seniors coming into their dining hall at the Catholic Church in Rockaway Beach. 8,190 of these meals were delivered to home bound seniors living between Nehalem and Garibaldi. This year they are on track to prepare over 18,200 meals! These are remarkable numbers! Food costs continue to grow exponentially, and more seniors face overall financial uncertainty. Ensuring seniors have enough to eat has always been their priority. This organization also has a Family Fund you might consider. This is a separate project with its own funds yet is housed under their non-profit status. This fund assists families in need who might otherwise “fall through the cracks”. In December they work with the Tillamook County CARE and Neah-Kah-Nie School District who identify families in need. They provide clothing, toys, gift cards and food for the holidays. Last year they assisted 34 families with a total of 82 children; we also help with utility bills throughout the year. This past summer, through their Family Fund they developed a Summer Lunch Program. Six volunteers and their drivers made and delivered 2,405 lunches when school was out for the summer. They will continue this program during the upcoming school holiday schedule. Please write Family Fund in the byline when making a donation to this great project. This program is managed and operated by volunteers and 100% of your donation goes directly to services. Please consider donations to both Meals for Seniors, Inc. and the Family Fund. This organization is a huge support to our communities. Note: Some information provided by Meals for Seniors, Inc.

Neah-Kah-Nie School District Family Resource Center, PO Box 28, Rockaway Beach, Oregon 97136 Information provided by Neah-Kah-Nie School District Family Resource Center. This organization run by the Neah-Kah-Nie School District, among other things, provides 190 students in our District with backpacks with food for the weekends and also school holidays. To see what all they do please go to their website: nknsd.org/nehalem-elementary-school/family-resource-center/
The FRC (Family Resource Center) is where students and families receive support in many forms. Many students access it as a clothing bank for new/used clothing. Swim suits, towels, warm jackets, shoes and other clothing items are checked out or given away nearly every day. The FRC also acts as a hygiene & grooming station, a temporary dental sealant area and a place to conduct individual and school-wide head checks. Students and their families may request assistance at any time. The FRC will do its best to accommodate those with small, urgent or confidential needs.
Not as visible is the partnering with community and county agencies to help families who are in need of emergency assistance. Each week the FRC helps to facilitate the backpack program by helping the amazing volunteers with the storage and distribution of weekly food assistance.
Nearly all the faces of NES make it into the FRC eventually. For some it’s a place to play games with friends as a reward for good behavior. For many it’s a classroom for extended support before and after school. Everyone is treated with kindness. Everyone is welcome. For more information, please call Jenn Hopkins at 503-355-2222. Again, this is a very essential and special organization at our schools today.

Nehalem Bay Community Services, PO Box 232, Nehalem, Oregon 97131. This local organization provides many services in our community. Again, connecting with them at their web site will fill in lots of details-https://www.nehalembaycs.org/. This organization has a Food Pantry and Clothing Bank along with Pet food, open Monday, Friday and Saturday from 10 AM to 2 PM. Wednesday they are open from 1 PM to 5 PM. Senior lunches are served and delivered on Tuesday and Thursday beginning at 11:30 AM, offering both nutrition and companionship. They also fix lunches for kids when school is out during the summer. Please consider dropping off food donations, clothing, pet food, and/or a cash donation to this organization. At this time of year, the Nehalem Bay Community Services also makes sure, through their CHILD Program many in our community have Christmas presents for their children. This CHILD Program is also very active with providing clothing and school supplies for kids before they go back to school in the fall.

Rockaway Beach Lions, PO Box 611, Rockaway Beach, Oregon 97136. As the holidays approach, the Rockaway Beach Lions step in to deliver food baskets to families and seniors. A holiday dinner is provided and presents for children are purchased. A great program that has been around for years. Your support is appreciated.

What can you do? What will you do?

If you are able, I’d like to get bold here and ask you to sit down and write a check or put some money in an envelope and get it to one or more of these organizations as fast as you can. Show these organizations how much we appreciate all the work they do to make sure our community is fed and clothed. Our Seniors, Adults, and Children are all special, and your support is needed. A huge thank you to all the volunteers!

Thanks,
Patty

The Council, which claims to have not been involved in the decision to reject the bid, could have easily increased the project budget with General Fund Transient Lodging Tax (TLT) funds. The additional $400,000 would have amounted to approximately 3 months of TLT revenue. $3.7 million dollars of unappropriated General Fund revenue comprised of TLT collections was available and citizens would have undoubtedly supported this additional investment in the project. Why wasn’t this option brought before the Council and citizens for discussion before the City Manager rejected the bid proposal?

City officials tell us that visitor TLT revenue pays for City infrastructure yet once again by refusing to consider the use of any General Fund TLT funds for this project, proves that this statement is empty rhetoric and demonstrates the inability of City officials to understand how to effectively administer their own Budget to fund infrastructure construction.

 Consequences of rejecting  the low construction bid in May:
Spending approximately $475,000 in engineering design and consulting fees and then ignoring the recommendations. 

The section of Classic Street that will be most heavily used by pedestrians has unnecessarily been compromised by placing those pedestrians between an 8 foot high retaining wall on the east side of the pedestrian path and direct contact with narrowed vehicle travel lanes on the other side. 

Splitting the project into two separate time frames resulting in additional cost and street closure time.

Legal expenses to date in excess of $111,000. The majority of these costs were associated with work connected to the rejected bid. Approximately $50,000 of those costs have been spent on the second bid of the project and attorney costs to defend charges of irregular bidding practices by the City Manager during the rebid process. 

Loss of the retaining wall on the west side of Classic Street which was recommended to: a) arrest the movement of the street base that is currently contributing to the street failure and will now likely continue into the future. b) prevents the ability to construct the wider street section providing a safer 8 foot wide pedestrian/bike path, safer 11 foot vehicle travel lanes and the 2 foot wide landscape buffer to provide additional separation between vehicles and pedestrians.

What the Council did find funding for at their November meeting was hiring of yet another City Hall employee at a total cost of approximately $85,000 to $102,000 per year which will be substantially paid for with TLT revenue. We now have 8 City Hall employee positions and 5 Police officers but still can’t open City Hall on Fridays because the City Manager claims staff are too busy.
 
The Council seems to have no problem finding TLT dollars to hire more City Hall staff. It’s unfortunate that they lacked the same motivation to use available TLT funding to ensure the construction of a safer and structurally improved design for Classic Street. Randy Kugler