Our Funding Request Denied

Our Funding Request Denied

Greetings, board members and friends---

I am sorry to say that I just found out from our grant officer at the Northwest Health Foundation that their board met on Monday [Dec. 5] and that we were not awarded funding.  

Please, please do not take this as a "rejection of MH/OSTA"—I'm guessing that it has more to do with the match between the organization's funding criteria and what we were proposing and the extremely competitive nature of grants in this era of scarce resources. I've reviewed a lot of grant applications in my time, and I can assure you that our organization is deserving of support.  We do good work, and we work hard at it.  We are a viable, valuable organization providing a needed service—and sooner or later we will find a funding source that matches our profile. 

I want to especially express appreciation to Rita Loberger, who was my partner in this effort.  She represented the board and organization admirably and stepped up to the challenge of introducing the Northwest Health Foundation grant officer to manufactured housing community living.

So, the next step is to look ahead to another source of funding. I believe that the “Request for Proposals” goes out in January to another source with funding [expected to be] available in June. The MH/OSTA board will be discussing this possibility at their next meetings.

We will keep at it!!!                                                                                  —Andrée Tremoulet

Miller Estates Contribute to Adopt-A School - Central Point Elementary School

Briarwood MHP in Eugene Update on Adopt-a-School

Katherine Barnes and I are feeling kind of warm and fuzzy about the progress of our Adopt-a-School project.

Katherine headed up the knitting and crocheting project and wow did she do a super job! She alone knitted around 30 hats and donated several other things. She had a friend she works with at Meals on Wheels that donated a couple of cute homemade back packs and a lot of cute hats and several homemade stuffed toys. Others donated gloves, hats and scarves, most of them crocheted or knitted. We still have more coming in later that we will take over to Danebo School. Oh, and someone even donated toothbrushes and dental floss they had gotten from their dentist.

Our Bunko group that has been collecting money for shoes had $172. We got a letter from Mari Weil, who is the principal, and she suggested if we didn't want to donate it for shoes they have a program at Christmas and try to get together enough money for food to send home to 30 of the families at Christmas time. So that is what we did with the money.

We had a thank you party yesterday, the 21^st, for all of our donors so we could show them all of our goodies. Katherine and I made cake and had tea, coffee and lemonade for all of them. Pretty good turn-out we thought. Then we bundled everything up and took it all to the school along with more Box Tops for Education, which we are still collecting as well.

                                                                          --Nancy Robinson, Co-chair,

                                                                             Briarwood OSTA Chapter, Eugene

Annual MH/OSTA meeting in Keizer in Brief

The annual MH/OSTA meeting in Keizer this fall was very informative. Andree Tremoulet and her panel on Aging in Place presented information about in-home care and basic remodeling so that older manufactured home owners can continue living in their homes.

Four directors were re-elected for a two year term: Terry Smith, Rita Loberger, Susan DeLateur, and Gary Walters. The board will elect officers for the 2011-12 year that runs November through October. Any member wishing to be on the governing board needs to get an application from one of the board members and submit it. Contact information is on page 2 of the OSTA Review. 

Following lunch, chapters that have adopted a school reported on their efforts and John VanLandingham introduced Rep. Bill Kennemer from Oregon City who spoke. VanLandingham then entertained suggestions for the coalition to consider for the 2013 legislative session. He pointed out that we can't expect the Legislature to consider our issues in their brief 2012 session when all attention will be based on the state budget. 

A full report of the meeting will be in the next OSTA Review, which will be mailed to members in early December. Theresa Wingard, the program coordinator for Manufactured Communities Resource Center, the state agency that provides landlord/tenant dispute resolution, also provided useful information. 

2011 FALL Review See MH-OSTA REVIEW links to see it in full

ADOPT A SHOOL NEWS - Miller Estates adopts Central Point Elementary

Miller Estates, a 55 + Manufactured Home Community in Central Point, Oregon, adoped Central Point Elementary School for there "Adopt a School" program. Contributions for the under privileged elementary school children totaled $782.00 from a very caring, very concerned group of senior homeowners. Louise LaFoya, chapter board member, volunteered to head up the program and is directly responsible for talking with the school principal, talking with school teachers, collecting donations, and  finding the lowest prices on school supplies.

 Louise, along with board president Terry Smith, purchased $444.99 worth of school supplies on August, 23rd to be delivered to the Kindergarten class teachers on August 30th. Then, after talking with the teachers on August, 30th, and finding out their future needs for the children, the remaining $337.01 will be spent for additional school supplies.

I am very proud of the Miller Estate homeowners for their generosity, in giving for such a worthy cause.

Miller Estates

Chapter President
Terry Smith

New Members seeking Friends in Bend, OR

Hello, Central Oregon!

A friend and I have just joined MH/OSTA and we would very much like to contact other members and potential members on this side of the mountains, with the intention of forming an informal, or maybe formal, group in central Oregon. We both live in a manufactured home park in Bend. Perhaps we could get together for a BBQ or something. Please contact me at 541-647-1120 evenings only.

Chris and Cathy.