Andy Atkinson / Mail TribuneBryan Flores keeps organized on Friday night at the fire station in the Shoppes at Exit 24 in Phoenix. A storefront that operated in Phoenix for nearly a year, providing meals, supplies, and support to victims of the Almeda and Obenchain fires, closed its doors on Saturday, but services will continue in other ways. The Phoenix Fire Relief Center at the Shoppes at Exit 24 was administered by Rogue Climate, Rogue Action Center, and the Southern Oregon Health Equity Coalition. The center provided food and relief supplies to 450 to 800 households each week. It also provided financial assistance with gift cards, rental assistance, and emergency shelter. Volunteers worked over 12,000 hours to keep the business going. “Just hearing people’s stories was one of the really great things we could offer. We were able to connect people with the resources available, ”said Elib Crist Dwyer, home justice organizer at the Rogue Action Center. Many people were not eligible for assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and would have benefited from the center, he said. The effort arose when teachers from the Phoenix Talent School District organized giveaways for supplies and meals right after the fire. It was initially in the Home Depot parking lot but soon moved to the Shoppes location. After the move, the three groups took over the business. “You tried to go to school too. Rogue Action and Rogue Climate have taken over management of the site, ”Dwyer said. The organizations had been helping at a similar facility outside Talent Maker City in downtown Talent. This site continued to operate for about two months. People drove to all the different aid agencies to get things. It made more sense to have a place to get the things they needed, Dwyer said. The three groups were able to fill it with staff with previous experience in organizing activities and volunteers. “They were in a unique position to help because they had already built a volunteer base to coordinate the effort,” Dwyer said. “It was kind of a bottom line for the Rogue Action Center. We had done a lot of work on affordable and accessible housing, so it was exactly what we had done before. ”The center ran seven days a week until November before switching to a five-day schedule. A three-day schedule was introduced in January, but lunch and dinner service continued at all times, seven days a week, typically catering to around 100 people per day. Rogue Food Unites, another group that formed immediately after the fire, was an integral part of the center. The group has meals prepared in restaurants that are served in the relief center, where there are no food preparation facilities. This also allowed restaurants to bring back workers whose jobs were cut by the pandemic, Dwyer said. Free lunches and dinners for fire survivors will continue at the Shoppe site through August 31st. Starting September 1, meals will be served daily at the First Phoenix Presbyterian Church. Other items available included paper products, diapers, toiletries, bottled water and more, and groceries. Household items were dishes, coffee machines, microwave ovens, small appliances, clothing, bedding and small furniture. Donors could bring items straight to the shop. Donations to keep the center running have come from a variety of sources, including individual monetary donations from community members, support from the Rogue Valley Relief Fund, food from ACCESS, and help from other organizations. Cash donations averaged about $ 1,000 a week, but had slowed down recently. The community support for the effort is “incredible,” said Dwyer. Living Waters Church in Medford was helpful during food storage and brought it to the center, he said. “The need really hasn’t gone away. I don’t think a lot of people in the valley know that, ”said Dwyer. “There are still a lot of people in motels … and there is a need for social services.” The staff refer to services that are already established. These include the Teresa McCormick Center in Medford and the food and clothing programs of the First Presbyterian Church in Phoenix. “We will continue to support fire survivors, organize to bring our neighbors home, take action against climate change and build communities that are more resilient to disasters,” said Blanca Gutierrez, bilingual organizer at Rogue Climate. “We were able to reach a lot more community members through the Fire Relief Center to get people back into stable housing and ensure access to COVID-19 vaccines, both of which are important to community health,” said Michelle Glass, Politics and Advocacy Southern Oregon Health Equity Coordinator. Shoppes at Exit 24, owned by Alan DeBoer, charged a minimum rent for the space and agreed to extend the original lease for six months, Dwyer said. The Rogue Climate and Rogue Action Center will host a Fire Survivor Supply Pop-Up at Living Waters Church in Medford in early October on a date to be announced. You can reach freelance writer Tony Boom from Ashland at tboomwriter@gmail.com.
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