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Waste: The way we live

Waste: The way we live

            Opening the front door. Taking a few slow steps. Standing outside and feeling the morning breeze on my face, listening to the joyful conversations of the birds. Looking at green trees with rain drops falling slowly down from the leaves. Picking fresh berries and peas growing in the garden. Taking a deep breath in from the fresh and crisp morning air. Looking at the sun rise. I feel joy for a moment. I feel really fortunate to still be able to have this experience every morning when I wake up and go outside. It makes me wonder how many more mornings will I be so fortunate? Too many people don’t have this same experience anymore. Either they are too sick to be able to go outside or the air is too polluted where they live to be able to enjoy being outside.

In the past few days, I had multiple conversations with friends, co-workers and family about the way we live. The conversations started after I wrote an article about nuclear waste and our environment. People I talked with felt very compassionate about this topic. Ranges of emotions were in the air. All of the discussions ended with similar conclusions. We had come up with more questions than answers. The way we live is not sustainable. Multiple questions circled around us. How did we get here? How can we stop and reverse the effects and the harm we have done? Is it even possible to reverse the consequences and destructions caused by all the waste we been producing or did we go down on the road so steep that there is no return? Did we ruined our planet and our existence with creating so much waste that causes harm? Why are we using  and producing so many products that are harmful for us, our children, animals and our environment? Could we drink the water from our streams? Rivers? Probably not. Most of our waters are too polluted to be able to use them for drinking, cooking, or bathing. Our air we breathe, the water we drink and food including plants animals we consume can make us very sick. The waste we create from manufacturing products makes us unwell. Air pollution causes lung problems, people have difficulty breathing, develop asthma and chronic diseases. Water pollution creates multiple stomach problems, cancers, diarrhea. Eating polluted foods creates multiple stomach problems, viruses, toxins building up in our bodies causing poisoning, cancers, and death.  

As far as I am aware our planet earth is the only one where we can live right now.  Is it possible to change our way and create more sustainable living? Is it possible to live on our planet with respect and love for our environment? Can we afford not to change our ways? The way we are living right now is leading us in the wrong direction. We had created a situation that ultimately hurries us towards our own extinction. What would it take to care more about each other, our environment and planet more than about wealth, power, and money? We cannot breathe in money. Money cannot make us healthy once diseases conquer our bodies. Could we learn to live in a respectful way and leave no footprint and leave our environment in a better condition for our children? Could we learn to respect plants and animals instead of just using and abusing them? Could we learn to use natural products instead of chemicals? Could we eat products that are not perfect but organic?

For all of us I hope we can.

Gratefulness

Gratefulness

Dr. Gabriella Kőrösi, PhD, MN, RN

           I been thinking for a while to write about gratefulness. It is a very emotional topic for me. Gratefulness is on my mind every day. It is so personal that I have not thought about writing about it openly. Something switched in my thinking about a week ago. I was pondering upon my next topic for a blog. I was having a wonderful conversation while sitting in a comfortable and welcoming space with my acupuncturist discussing different topics. We talked about health, the world we live in, the importance to bring positive thinking and actions to our world, our place in the world, our feelings, interactions, and connections to others. It was a beautiful sunny day. I was thinking that I am so grateful to be here, to be in this exact moment, at this exact time to have this conversation. I was grateful for the nice day and was looking forward to my session. I been searching for the right words how to describe gratitude and gratefulness since that moment. I knew I have to write it. It is time to be open and express deep and intimate feelings about a core principle of my life. The word finally come to me as I was waking up this morning, just as I was thinking about all the things that I am grateful for.

            I was thinking that first of all I am grateful to be able to wake up this morning. I am grateful for the ability to open my eyes, to see the world and my surroundings. I am grateful for my family, my spouse, my children. All my sisters, cousins, their children, and spouses. I am grateful for all my friends and their families. My parents. I would not be able to be here without them to experience this life. Thank you for having me, mom, and dad. I love you both very much. I am grateful for all the doctors and nurses who took care me when I was born and throughout the years. I would not be able to be here without them. I was born way too early to survive on my own. I am profoundly grateful for the health care workers who took care of me, I truly would not exist without them. I am grateful for all the cells in my body that operate endlessly as a smooth working machinery, they function continuously at every moment of my life to form my body, my organs, my muscles. I just would not be able to exist without them. It is like a magical musical. A continuous opera that keeps going on and on with an amazing symphony as long as we live and beyond. I am grateful for all the people who touched my life throughout the years, friends, co-workers, classmates, professors, teachers, and their families. I am grateful for all of you. People who I interacted with at any time at any place. They all formed who I am today. Thank you. There are really no words that could express how grateful I am.

I am grateful that I was able to sleep in my bed last night. I have a roof over my head and food on the table. Then I started to think about all the people who made this possible. The millions of people out and around in the world. The people who made the bed and the people who made the sheets, the factories where things were produced. My job that allowed me to buy the bed and the sheets. The people who made those jobs possible. The places and people where the furniture was built, where the sheets were made. It is almost impossible to count how many people and how many things touch our lives. I do not know the person who made the bedside cabinet I have in my bedroom. Yet, I use it every day and enjoy its presence. I am grateful for that person, without knowing they touched my life.

It all the sudden made perfect sense. I could keep writing endlessly for months, possibly for years about all the things and people I am grateful for. The possibilities are endless. The word I was searching for just jumped out of my mind, made me smile and made me incredibly happy. I am grateful for it. Ready? The word I think the best describes gratefulness for me is Infinity. There is really no other way to put it. The possibilities to be grateful at every moment of every day are truly limitless. ∞

Kindness

Take a moment. Look outside, what do you see? I see shades of green of lush evergreens. Ferns, flowers, birds. I see the sky that is a little gloomy this morning. Rain drops collecting on the front deck, paddles of rain providing water for thirsty birds. I see chickens walking around looking for tasty bugs to eat. I see peace and serenity. The leaves gently move with the morning wind. No judgement. No questions. Trees, plants , animals, survive the best they can. They need water, nourishment of good soil, sun. Then, just let them grow. If I want them to grow better I take care of them. Take the weeds out. Make compost from scraps of unused fruits, vegetables and make compost juice that I dilute with water to provide additional nourishment. Some plants are more temperamental then others. Regardless: basic needs of water, sun and some soil is needed for every plant to survive. Basic water and food for animals to survive.

I watch sadly in the world all the negativity and lack of kindness when it comes to treat each other as human beings. I am grateful for each and every person who is kind to another. Violence, racism, sexism, judgement, blame will not take us anywhere. All that brings is loss, tears and sorrow. I recently took a genetic testing. I was curious. What I learned was that I belong to most of the continents and most of the groups, generally of course. In my genetics I have European blood and Asian blood, African and Philippine, German and Italian, Slavic and Scandinavian, Peruvian and Indian. The list goes on. I am so mixed that I can only say that I am human. I belong to all. I care for all. I would only want to be judged by another person based on my actions. Not by looking at me with judgement because where I was born or where I live now or what color my skin is. My skin color does not tell you who I am, what have I done and what have I lived through in my life.

I do see some kindness in the world. I hope that it will spread. I hope that one day most people realize that we are the same. Life is tough as it is. So many people do not have even the basic things to survive. They do not have the food and water and shelter they need. They die. People die every day. Mother nature provides and takes away. We kill our environment, it kills us. People kill and hurt each other. It is hard enough to survive in this planet without having to deal with lack of kindness and continuous judgement. I do have hope. I do believe in the human race. I hope that for the future kindness will prevail. I hope that we will nurture each other that same way mother nature nurtures plants. I hope that each and every person who is kind to another will grow and provide a positive example to others to follow. I hope that we will survive and flourish.

Be kind.

Friendly Invaders

            It started on a Saturday afternoon. The weather was beautiful, the sun rays showed their amazing play on the surrounding evergreens. I was standing by the kitchen sink, washing dishes, and was looking out on the window. I knew something was out of place. I was not sure what it was at first. I slowly closed the faucet, the water stopped running. Stillness. For a minute I was just standing there looking out of the window. I heard them before I saw them. It is not something I seen before, so I was unsure what was really going on. I just stood still with a million thoughts running through my head. What it that sound? My body just moved like if it knew that I had to do. I went to investigate. Took a closer look. I went outside to the front porch. Walked to the side of the house and stopped. Here they were. Many of them. Buzzing around happily by our roof. Their little wings flopping enthusiastically, exploring, checking out the place. I have to say it was the perfect spot for them. I was standing there trying to count how many. I think it was about 50 or maybe a 100 to start with. I was just standing there watching them. I was not sure what kind they were; I was just hoping that they were friendly. I knew that this was lucky in a way, we do need them, and their numbers have been declining for a while. They are in danger from so many things. I intuitively knew that this was also a problem, and also that I need to try to save them.

            Their little bodies were covered with fuzzy, yellow, and black striped coat. Honeybees. They were scouts and decided that our rooftop would be a perfect place for them to move in and build a new nest. Their visit was exciting and worrisome at the same time. I started to call around friends and people we knew who knew more about bees to get some ideas that might help us what to do with the bees.  I also started searching for ideas and learning from others more about the bees what do they like what they do not like. I learned that they do not like cinnamon and moth balls and like lemongrass. We did not want them to make a home in our house and started to come up with ideas how to gently move them out. We found someone who had an extra honey box that they brought to our house. They set it up on top of one of our small buildings next to the house. We made cinnamon water and started to shoot it up with a water gun, squirting it up to the rooftop where the bees were. Stuffed some moth balls up to the area as well. The buzzing were so loud we could hear it through the ceiling. Sleeping and wondering what will happen was difficult.

            The next day was also warm and beautiful. The buzzing got louder, and the dogs got terribly upset, they kept barking and barking continuously. I got the puppies inside and went outside to look around.  The buzzing got extremely loud. Nothing I ever heard before. I just listened for a while. Then, I walked outside by the side of the house and looked up. Well. The day before I had seen maybe 50-100 bees, now, they were everywhere. Thousands of them. Time has stopped. I stood silently, amazed, and shocked at the same time. I was scared and excited. The bees covered the whole house, it was a huge swarm. The weather changed suddenly, and the rain started. We have not seen the bees again for a long time and kept wondering if they have moved into the bee-box or not. It took about two weeks before the weather got warmer again. We heard them first, then I started to see them around the bee box. It was extremely exciting. We sent pictures and videos to the beekeepers. It seemed the bees moved into the box. I felt relieved. After about another week the beekeepers come and took the bees away to their home. When they lifted up the box, they estimated that there were about two pounds of bees in the box. I never even heard about bees referred by their weight before. I was glad that the bees now had a safe home and they moved out of our house. I found out the next day that two pounds of bees equal about 7,000 bees. We had saved 7,000 little lives. It made my day.

Save the bees.

Fight for a Lifetime

There is an epidemic and you are not alone. She is been waiting for those results for awhile. She received some of them a few weeks back. The company could not finish running all the results, there was not enough material. She had to wait. She was sitting in a rolling black computer chair wondering what will be next. Then a sound that is familiar came through. A pin drop in the air. Is it good news? Is it something helpful or something annoying? There was a new message. She glanced; kind of half interested so see what it was. Then she thought, well here it is. The results I been waiting for. What will they tell me. A lot of things were running through her mind. What will I find out? Should I open the results now? Wait until I get home? What will all this mean?

These tests are more and more common. She was seeking out this test because there had been a lack of answers. She has been trying hard to get better, to feel better. Nothing seemed to be working. A lot of people are in those same shoes. What shoes? She got what she had from her parents, grandparents, great grandparents. There was not a lot of choice in the matter. Just the way she was born. She could not wait, the intensity of emotion filled up the office. The sun was shining outside, the trees were watching intensely. The workday was almost over. Just do it her mind commanded. She did.

The workday was almost over. Well, why not, she thought. What the worst that could happen? She opened up her CRI genetics health report. She started to read about her genetics as they relate to her health, allergies, sensitivities, metabolism and so forth. The more she read the more it made sense. Quick caffeine metabolism, caffeine anxiety, allergies to cats, dogs, and pollen, high triglycerides, low salt sensitivity, the list goes on. Now those teary eyes and swollen eye lids made more and more sense. It was like switching on a light bulb. The more she read the more she understood herself, her family, and problems she has been having. Then there it was. The result that made tears come to her eyes. It still does every time she thinks about it. It has been a struggle and a fight for over 20 years now ever since her second child. It all made perfect sense now. It is not just her, there is a genetic disposition that is working against her. Not just one gene. Six. Three in each category. The categories, just looking at them so simply written with and explanation made her head spin. It almost seemed surreal. She was in another dimension.

It has been 20 years of wondering what she has been doing wrong. Why she does not feel healthy, why she does not look the way she used to look. Here it was. Genetics plays a huge part in it so she will need to work extra hard to get better and get healthier.  It’s been so long. Here are the answers. Tears are flowing and she is trying to understand what it all means. What it means is that she will have to work extra hard for the rest of her life. The struggle will not end. Here are the genes that were handed down to her by her ancestry: genes RS10968576 is AG RS12444979 is CC and RS4771122 is GG. Looking at them does not mean a lot, they just seem interesting numbers, then the description comes.  Higher predisposition to high BMI (body mass index). The genes tell her to prefer high calorie foods, tell her that it will be difficult to maintain weight. The list goes on. Another three genes although they are on different chromosomes, numbered 3, 6 and 16 tell the difficulty to maintain weight and experience the yoyo effect as it is described in the report. Greater difficulty staying in shape comes from both parents. She has to exercise more, not have any drinks, no sugar or use tobacco products. Good to know she thought. Smoking and alcohol was never a problem. Bread and sweets on the other hand, well that is another story.

One interesting fact it the bottom of the page it stated the confirmation as to why this is a big problem. It is not just a problem for her. She knew this. There is an epidemic. Obesity epidemic. The processed foods don’t help either. Fat and sugar loaded foods don’t hep either. Also, genetics play a role. The things she craves, the things others crave. Others who took this health test over 76% people got the same results, two parents, high difficulty to maintain weight. What does this mean for our future, she wondered. About 20% people had moderate difficulty maintaining the weight, this left about 2.6% little difficulties and some inconclusive results. She did not know how many people took this test, still it is most likely a good representation of the population. So, the population is predisposed to obesity, yet look at our food stores. Full of fatty and sugary foods. Welcome to the new evolution, she thought. Well she will just have to work harder. She will. No other choice. She has this sentence taped to her computer screen: “Never give up”. She is me and I won’t give up.

Hope you will join the fight to be healthier with me. This piece was written for myself and the group of Transformers for our weekly weight loss challenge requested by my coach Allison. She asked us what courageous thing we can do this week. I said I will write about my struggles to maintain my weight. Hope you enjoyed. Stay healthy, stay safe.

Mothers

It was an early spring day, she was standing there, her hair down, slight wind in the air. It was a parking lot. A place where many people come and go. She was looking at me and I was looking at her. A secret glimpse. The drive was not easy. I was sitting in the back seat, to her right and I know that here I am, and yet, I am about to leaving again in a few moments. My emotions were up on the car ceiling. The world felt like it was spinning around me. Two weeks flew by so quickly, it was just not enough time. I appreciated every moment. This was 2 years ago. There was no need to say any words. I could see it in her eyes, the movements in her body, the unspoken words, I knew that my tears will follow. The truth of deep love and caring for each other. It is hard to say goodby when you do not know when it will be again to see your mother, and as a mother to see your child and let them go again. It might have been a normal day for everyone else. Not for me, and not for her. There was an understanding between us that only a mother and a child can feel. A bond that forms while in the womb and gets stronger while growing up. There are moments that are wonderful and moments that we tend to forget. The last moments for me were in the airport saying goodby.

I talk to my mother often. It is not the same. Especially now. The borders are closed and I can not even go to see her even if I would want to go. She is thousands of miles away, yet she is with me all the time. There are many times when I think : ” What would my mother say now? What would she tell me to do?”. Even if she would live close by today, I could only see her from far apart and could not hug her, hold her, or be close to her. It is certainly a difficult time for mother’s day. I am grateful for all the mothers. Not just the human ones. I am amazed by all the wonderful mothers of the animal kingdom as well. I am also very grateful for all the step mothers, adopting mothers, grandmothers and sisters, foster parents and the list go on and on. I am grateful for everyone who takes care of others. When I think of mothers I also think of “mother nature” and I am grateful that there is air that is breathable and food that is edible and natural elements that can be used to provide housing. I am grateful for all the wonders of the world. I hope that all of the mothers and children out there will be able to connect today and keep in touch through tough times like this pandemic.

I hope that I can see my mother and my children again in person. Today, I also want to thank for all the people who are working on that solution to make connections possible again, and all the people who are social distancing and wearing protective masks to protect themselves and others. Many people who had died in the past months because of the coronavirus are older, many of them must be mothers. I thank all of you who tried and keep trying to keep them safe. It is definitely a unique and different mothers day that I had not seen before. The best anyone can do for their mother is to stay away and wish happy mothers day from at least 6 feet. I think mothers day is a nice tradition, on the other hand I appreciate my mother every day. I am grateful for each day we are both on this earth. Mom, thank you. Love you.

Pandemic

We are in a Pandemic. It is something I learned about in the books in nursing school. It was mentioned that it is possible. I knew a little of the history. I knew it happened before. I learned more about it in my PhD program at Walden University when I was working on my public health degree. I knew viruses exist and they can be really harmful. I knew people are doing too much damage to the environment. It always scared me what are we doing to our planet. My last post was about garbage on the beach. This is feeling like nature’s way of fighting back. I recently saw a documentary on Netflix called “Corona-virus Explained”. It is a great documentary, I can highly recommend for everyone to watch. One of the people interviewed in the documentary stated: ” Nature is the greatest bio-terrorist”. I think this is very true. I learned so much in my life going through multiple schools for nursing and then for public health, yet nothing can really prepare anyone for this. I never thought that in my lifetime I will be living in a pandemic where I have to wear a mask and stay inside except to go to work or go to buy food. Very strange times indeed.

I gave away my sewing machine a few years ago with most of my materials. Now it is an essential tool to make masks. I was lucky enough that one of my co-workers let me barrow hers, people donated materials and I also bought some materials to sew masks. The last one for now that I made was for myself. I sewed masks for anyone who needed it, co-workers, their families, my spouse’s workplace and their families, people in the community who asked me for them. 4 years ago I never thought that I will sew anything again. Things change, times change. I wonder if people will change. There is a reason why new viruses emerge. We are too much for our planet we are destroying our environment, plants and animals in it and the planet is fighting back. I think we can do better. I think we can be more humble and appreciative what we have and preserve our environment, air, water, forests, animals and plants for the future for our children and their children. I think this pandemic is telling humanity to stop the distraction. I hope people will listen. If not I fear that this is just the beginning and more and more viruses will be emerging to stop us.

My heart goes out to all families during this time. This might be a new norm, a new way of living. I know that personally I will not look at someone coughing the same again. Now someone with a cold symptom can endanger our lives. Who would have thought. There is still a lot we do not know. There is more to learn every day. I am grateful that I am still standing and my family and friends are healthy. For now of course, tomorrow could be another story. There are great resources and updates that anyone can sign up for to stay informed. This is one of those times when I think it is good to be informed. Too much information and misinformation can also be a problem. I check my daily updates from Oregon Health Authority. I check Worldometer to see how everyone else is doing. I watch documentaries and check in with people I know. I do trainings to keep up on knowledge and expertise in case I need to respond. I think everyone has their own limit of how much of the news they can take. It is important to know our limits. I take breaks from the Pandemic when I can and try to do small meaningful things to ease my mind. Like making masks, do gardening, taking a walk, check in with people. Connection with others is more important now then previously, being isolated can be very hard on people. Keep in touch. I think we can fight this by staying home and taking care of each other, being mindful of our environment and how we treat animals. Humanity can survive without eating animals. This action would decrease the risk of catching a virus. The viruses are out there; it is very well described in the Netflix documentary, thousands of them. The question is what can we do to stop the next one coming. Thank you for all front line workers for everything you do. I am very grateful. Stay safe.

Garbage on the Beach

Yesterday I went with my family to the beach. It has been stormy the last few days and we wanted to see how the water looks and what kinds of things had been washed up to shore. We went to Fort Stevens State Park in Warrenton, Oregon. There are multiple places where we could go out to the beach. It was raining some, but we kept going. We ended up at the South Jetty site first where a construction of the Jetty was going on. It was interesting to observe the huge rocks being dumped to re-build the Jetty. The water was very high and hitting the Jetty very hard coming over to the other side in multiple places. It was amazing to watch so much power. It was almost like the water saying you can build, and I will destroy.

Then, we decided to explore the beach. We had to go to another area as the South Jetty was closed. We went to Area B and walked out to the beach through some woods. When we got to the top of a sand dune, we realized we can not go down, the water was in too much there was no place to walk. We stayed a little watched the water then decided to go look at another area. We ended up by the Shipwreck of the Peter Iredale. The water was in half of the parking lot was covered with sand; the restroom area was covered with sand. There was a lot of debris on the beach. Could not do down to the beach much because of the water but was able to walk on the side and the bottom edge of the sand dune. I took some plastic bags with me for garbage. There was a lot of garbage. I ended up with two bags full plus carried a big bottle of soda back. Found multiple foam fragments, a lighter, a ball, a piece of wire, rope fragments, 3 water bottles, another small bottle, and too many plastic caps, wrappers and plastic pieces to count. I was overwhelmed by the amount of garbage. I could have spent the whole day and not even make a dent.

Shipwreck Peter Iredale, Fort Stevens State Park Warrenton, Oregon 1-13-2020

I felt so sorry for our birds and sea animals that they have to deal with all this garbage that we created. There is no escape for them. They don’t know the difference between a seed or a piece of plastic. I have been overwhelmed by sadness thinking about it. Every time I go to the beach, I take a plastic bag and pick up stuff. I know it is not much, but it is something. However, I think we need to do more as a society to reduce waste that hurts our environment, other animals and ultimately it hurts us. I think if waste continues this way, we will end up drowning in our own garbage. I am very grateful that there are no more plastic bags in Oregon in the stores. I think we need to get plastic out of our lives as much as we can. I saw a documentary recently showing pats of the world drowning in the plastic garbage that we created, and people are getting sick. I think we can do more. Each of us can make conscious choices and demand change. I want future generations to be able to enjoy this planet and be able to walk on the beach without seeing piles of garbage.  

The beach, Fort Stevens State park 1-13-2020

Mental Health Conference

Last weekend I drove to Salem Oregon to attend NAMI’s yearly conference. I had met some wonderful people and learned a lot about services that NAMI and affiliates provide. Some of the services that affiliates reported from the past year included but not limited to ending the silence, family and friends, CIT trainings, support groups, stigma event, basics trainings, health fair, family to family classes, table events, outreach to schools, mental health first aid, suicide prevention, launching a website with resources, sib-shops for kids siblings with mental who have mental health issues. Two counties are currently working on opening a Clubhouse for mental health support including Clatsop county and Mid Valley. It was nice to see all the collaboration and the impact that NAMI affiliates all together created in their communities. It might not seem a lot when we look at one community but adding all of them together there are a lot of services and programs that are provided. Volunteers are always needed for more support. From all of the US NAMI Oregon is #7 in providing program delivery and #11 on the number of people served.

It was great to meet the new Behavioral health director from OHA Steve Allen, and hear his vision for the future of mental health in Oregon State. He discussed multiple legislation’s. Aid and Assist admissions doubled since 2012. IMPACTS SB973 Improving People’s Access to community based treatment. He discussed improvements needed in children’s behavioral health including assessments, in home treatment(Medicaid), Crisis and treatment services (CATS), youth suicide prevention efforts. Additionally, he discussed school mental health investments, the student success act. He talked about HB 2257 as it relates to Substance abuse disorder and chronic illness. He talked about the new CCO 2.o integrated care with behavioral health benefit. Steve Allen emphasized that adequate provider network is needed to assure timely access to mental health care. It is not acceptable not to have enough providers, he added. He discussed challenges and complexities in rural areas. He felt that sometimes the least experienced people are the ones working with the most complex mental health patients. His vision is to provide wrap around services where the individual is in the middle and they are surrounded with a system and a team that provides simple, responsive and meaningful service delivery. He feels it is essential is to identify what is the most important thing to the individual in their life and start there. He would like to see decreasing barriers and simplifying work flow. Go upstream. I was very inspired by his talk.

There was a session on Clubhouses and Chadwick Clubhouse from Roseburg,OR did a very nice presentation on their new clubhouse. There was a member testimony. He described how the clubhouse helped him after he had a breakdown. Now he works for the clubhouse as staff. It is always nice to hear when people are supported. Roseburg’s clubhouse now been open about one year and just also received their own 5013c. They will become an independent organization. They are looking to hire a new director as well. Medford,OR clubhouse (Compass House) director Elizabeth Hazelwood was also present and provided data that showed the need for mental health support in the United States and the effectiveness of the clubhouse model. Elizabeth has been working with Chadwick Clubhouse, providing support for them. Clubhouses are a wonderful way to provide non clinical mental health support for those in need. They create a work ordered day, a community where people can feel safe, useful and appreciated. It was wonderful to see all the accomplishments from both clubhouses. I am very excited that a clubhouse will open soon in Clatsop County as well.

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