Press Releases: Northwest
January 13, 2005
Hundreds of Kaiser Permanente employees to honor Martin Luther King Jr. with day of service fighting hunger
PORTLAND, Ore. – About 400 Kaiser Permanente employees from the Portland-Vancouver area signed up to honor the memory of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by spending his national holiday delivering to Oregon Food Bank (OFB) food donated at Kaiser Permanente facilities by their colleagues and patients and repacking bulk food into family-sized packages.
"People tend to stop donating food and volunteer hours after the holidays, leading to drastic drops in the availability of emergency food during the winter, when many families need help the most," says Oregon Food Bank's Executive Director Rachel Bristol. "That's why the food drive Kaiser Permanente conducted in late December and early January is so welcome."
Kaiser Permanente is donating $45,000. OFB will use part of the donation to buy 35,000 pounds of salmon to provide badly needed protein. In addition, employees have already raised more than a ton of food and close to $4,000. Combined food and funds total the equivalent of 250,000 pounds of food. Moreover, Kaiser Permanente is delivering the food from more than 30 locations to OFB's warehouse in its own vehicles - saving OFB the cost of transportation.
Kaiser Permanente's Regional President Cynthia Finter will be among staff helping at Oregon Food Bank's warehouse in northeast Portland. Finter says Kaiser Permanente will keep its medical offices open on the Dr. King holiday to serve members during this busy time for colds and flu.
"Instead of closing, we think we honor the memory of Dr. King more by engaging staff in community service work. That's why we are encouraging up to 400 staff members who are not directly caring for our members to spend the day helping sort and repackage food for eventual distribution to people who are hungry."
Jan Van Marter, RN, helped organize the food drive at her workplace - Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in north Portland - where she is a project manager. "As a nurse, I know that good health begins with adequate nutrition," says Van Marter. "Children, pregnant and nursing mothers, and the homebound elderly, especially need to eat properly, yet often don't get enough to eat due to low incomes and the high cost of housing, utilities and other necessities."
Van Marter, who was 12 years old when Dr. King was assassinated, says she's proud to be helping address a social need on the holiday named for the civil rights leader. "Dr. King believed not only in equal rights but also in helping people overcome poverty and ignorance."
In addition to the volunteers at Oregon Food Bank, Kaiser Permanente dentists will give free dental exams and treatment to up to 25 selected low-income students from Harriet Tubman and Ockley Green middle schools in north Portland. Kaiser Permanente optometrists will also be volunteering in Hillsboro that day giving free eye exams to up to 100 workers and their children who belong to the Western Farmworkers Association. Those who need eyeglasses will receive a free pair from Kaiser Permanente.
Kaiser Permanente is a group practice health care organization serving the health care needs of about 450,000 people in Oregon and Southwest Washington.
Oregon Food Bank distributes donated food throughout a statewide network of more than 870 non-profit hunger-relief agencies serving Oregon and Clark County, Washington, and works to eliminate the root causes of hunger through education and advocacy.
In support of the national "A Day ON! Not a Day Off," Oregon Food Bank received a $2,500 grant from the Points of Light Foundation & Volunteer Center National Network and Service for Peace.
Note to reporters and editors: Kaiser Permanente volunteers will be volunteering from 9 to 11:30 a.m. and from 1:30 to 4 p.m. at Oregon Food Bank, 7900 S.E. 33rd.
