On Tuesday, Oct. 15, Central City Concern (CCC) held our annual Compassion In Action fundraising luncheon at the Hilton Portland Downtown. This year, CCC used the opportunity to celebrate not only all that is possible when community members work together to bring lasting change to people in need, but also four decades of helping people find home, hope and healing.

With a blast of horns, Portland-based 12-piece funk and soul band Soul Vaccination kicked off the day’s program, performing their hit song “Funk P-Town” with several lyrics altered to celebrate CCC’s 40th anniversary.

CCC President and CEO Rachel Solotaroff then took the stage, thanking elected officials in attendance; the event’s Presenting, Home of Our Own and Ready to Work sponsors; and several corporate partners who have generously given to CCC for more than 20 years.

Rachel went on to speak about a concept that is vital to the staff members, clients and the very spirit of CCC: resilience. She shared that resilience “isn’t something people are born with. It’s something people are given, and they are given it through human connection.”

“Resilience requires relationships, not rugged individualism,” Rachel continues. “We are not the survival of the fittest. We are the survival of the nurtured.”

“Resilience requires relationships, not rugged individualism."

G. Robert (Bobby) Watts, CEO of National Health Care for the Homeless Council, served as the luncheon’s keynote speaker. Bobby tapped into the deep familiarity with CCC’s work that he’s developed as the leader of the nation’s preeminent membership organization of homeless health care organizations, people with lived experience of homelessness and advocates. CCC is, Bobby said, “doing some things that no one else is doing and they are doing some things better than most others are doing. We, as a council, are going to rely on them.”

Bobby then pivoted to speaking about homelessness as a national epidemic. He shared that our collective hope and goal should be moving toward “compassionate justice”: a society that not only sees housing and health care as human rights, but provides them as such. Our path toward that goal consists of doing what we know works: affordable housing and housing subsidies, health care to people experiencing homelessness, supportive housing, medical respite, practicing a Housing First approach, trauma-informed care, harm reduction and addressing racism.

The audience was treated to the premiere of “40 Years of Hope and Healing: The Human Connection,” a video feature that showed the transformative ripple effect of making human connection through the stories of two long-time CCC employees, Bobby T. and Medina. (Watch the video for yourself at the end of the post.)

Stacey Dodson, market president at U.S. Bank, followed the video to make the pitch. Before she began her ask, however, she shared about her intimate connection to the devastation that addiction can ravage on families, making the work of CCC all the more vital to our community.

Soul Vaccination closed the program with three more songs, including a raucous version of Earth Wind & Fire’s “September.”

In total, CCC’s 2019 Compassion In Action campaign raised over $290,000.

Central City Concern (CCC) wrapped up National Recovery Month on a powerful note this past Saturday, Sept. 28, at the second annual Walk for Recovery, where members of the Portland recovery community and their families united to improve Oregon’s fractured and incomplete addiction recovery system.

CCC staff and clients, along with their friends, family and hundreds of other community members and organizations, took part in the two-mile walk from southwest to northwest Portland, which felt more like a political march than a fundraising event. Key legislators and decision makers helped kick off the walk at an opening rally, sharing words of encouragement to participants about why mobilizing to address addiction is so important. Representatives from Oregon Recovers, which organized the Walk for Recovery, emphasized the goal of building a movement of people in recovery in order to drive widespread support for addiction prevention and treatment across Oregon.

During the walk, as participants passed by multiple addiction treatment and help centers — including CCC’s own CCC Recovery Center, Imani Center and Old Town Recovery Center programs — they proudly help up hand-made signs with messages of encouragement to those in recovery and calls to action for elected officials to increase access to treatment.

One of the largest contingents at the Walk for Recovery was made up of staff, clients and alumni of Puentes, CCC’s culturally specific recovery program for Spanish speakers. Ricardo Verdeguez, a recovery mentor and drug and alcohol counselor at Puentes, highlighted a significant barrier in recovery services: the lack of Spanish-language treatment programs.

"Today I have a life and I have a family because I am in recovery."

“After 30 years of battling addiction, there was no treatment for me as a third-generation Latino,” Ricardo shared during his speech at the Walk for Recovery rally. “I found treatment with Central City Concern and I’m grateful, because they have culturally specific treatment. Today I have a life and I have a family because I am in recovery.”

Puentes’ large presence at the Walk for Recovery was fitting, where increasing access to recovery services was a reoccurring theme. Oregon ranks 50th in the country — last place — in access to treatment. Puentes has worked hard to welcome Portland’s Spanish-speakers into a culturally responsive community where things like language, country of origin and documentation status are not barriers to beginning and maintaining a life in recovery. While much work remains in breaking barriers to preventing and treating addiction, we are proud to serve the Latino recovery community through our Puentes program.

With hundreds of Portlanders in attendance and over $100,000 raised to improve Oregon’s addiction recovery system, the Walk for Recovery was a success that CCC was thrilled to be a part of. While National Recovery Month might be over, our work to bring hope and healing to those struggling with addiction continues with the same determination and fire we witnessed during the weekend’s events.

We close out our National Health Center Week 2019 series with a unique take on what it means to be “rooted in community” by focusing on Central City Concern (CCC) volunteers. CCC Volunteer Manager Westbrook Evans shares several ways our volunteers help CCC take root in our community, as well as how volunteers themselves become part of the community to which they give their time.

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This year’s theme of National Health Center Week is “rooted in community.” To honor this theme, we’re highlighting a group of people that elevates CCC's work and roots it in the broader community every day: our health center volunteers.

From administrative tasks and customer service roles, all the way to volunteer providers, more than 200 volunteers worked in our health care sites over the past year. On top of the positive impact volunteers have on our clients and staff, volunteers are often some of the best ambassadors for our mission. They share their work and experiences with their families, friends and co-workers. Volunteers truly spread our roots throughout Portland!

Check out some of the ways volunteers make a big difference in our community health centers.

The Living Room

The Living Room program is at the cornerstone (literally) of two Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) sites, Old Town Clinic (OTC) and the Old Town Recovery Center (OTRC). The Living Room is a program for CCC patients who are living with and managing behavioral and mental health challenges, and serves the spiritual and community needs of patients engaged in our medical services. It is a peer-led, community-driven program, and a place for its members, CCC staff and our members of the broader community to come together and support one another through activities, conversations and relationships.

According to Living Room Coordinator Hayden, volunteers are an integral part of the work the program does. Volunteers participate as part of a service team alongside staff, helping set up and facilitate Living Room activities. Most importantly, they spend time with members building relationships while participating in the programing. An important part of well-being is building and creating positive community connections.

Volunteers often help to bridge the gap between paid staff and users of CCC services. I asked Beau, a Living Room volunteer, what being “rooted in community” means to him in relation to his volunteer role. “To me, it means people. People make up a community with the knowledge and ideas they share with each other.”

We are so grateful that the Living Room volunteers show up every day to share this experience and build the community.

Clinic Concierge Program

The Clinic Concierge program is in its fifth year at OTC. The concierge role is part of CCC’s goal to create a clinical environment where those alienated from mainstream medical services feel welcome. When a concierge is on shift, visitors are always met with a friendly smile. As in the Living Room, knowing that the volunteers show up just because they want to be there emphasizes that our patients are valued members of the community. In the words of an OTC staff member:

“The concierge program has been awesome. They may be the first point of contact when someone walks into the building. They are full of information and resources, and may have a friendly conversation with our patients or help the patient to find their way around the clinic.

“Patients are always really happy to see them; they are one of the first people they see or approach. Concierges improve patient flow. We get so busy up front that sometimes we forget to smile, but the concierges are always ready with one. Some form really good rapport with the patients. The concierges make an effort to let patients know they are welcome here by learning their names, their pets’ names, and remembering specific facts about them. They are a lovely presence here in the clinic.”

Other volunteer activities

Within OTC and OTRC and across our 13 FQHC sites, volunteers assist in many more ways. We have volunteer pharmacists, medical providers, administrative and data entry assistants, translators and more, all freely giving their time and energy to our clients and staff. We are so grateful for all our volunteers and how they root our health centers in the community!

To learn more about volunteering in our health center, visit our volunteer opportunities page.