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The Columbian
Published: January 23, 2010, 12:00am

HOCKINSON

Emergency doctor heading to Haiti

Dr. Tan Pinney, an emergency physician who lives in Hockinson, is headed for Haiti as part of a medical team dispatched by Project Helping Hands, a national nonprofit group.

He will leave Feb. 3 and be back Feb. 16, he said.

“It all came together in the last few days,” he said Friday. “We’ll be going and helping relieve the medical personnel who are already there.”

Volunteers headed to Haiti with Project Helping Hands are paying their own travel expenses, Pinney said, but various local contributors are donating supplies and assistance, too. Lacamas Medical Group has donated $2,000 in supplies, Hockinson Middle School is holding a coin drive, and ambulance company American Medical Response is donating a complete emergency kit, he said.

More donations are welcome, Pinney said, and will help the group buy medications at wholesale cost. If you want to help, go to the Project Helping Hands Web site: www.project-helping-hands.org.

Look for a Columbian story about Pinney’s experience in Haiti once he returns.

PORTLAND

Grants help Oregon Food Bank help Clark County

Two major grants from local foundations will help the Oregon Food Bank Network purchase nearly 1.5 million pounds of food. The network supports food banks all over Oregon, as well as 15 food banks in Clark County.

The Meyer Memorial Trust — based in Portland and not affiliated with Fred Meyer stores — has given the Oregon Food Bank Network $500,000. The Collins Foundation, also based in Portland, made a $25,000 grant.

Distribution of emergency food and the number of people served throughout the OFB Network escalated to historic highs during fiscal year 2008-09. Distribution of emergency food boxes increased 14 percent and the number of people who ate meals from emergency food boxes jumped 20 percent to an average of 240,000 per month. Of those, 36 percent are children.

Approximately 25 percent of the food that passes through the Clark County Food Bank’s central Stop Hunger warehouse in Hazel Dell comes from the OFB Network. That’s an average of 44,000 pounds per month.

For more information, visit www.oregonfoodbank.org or www.clarkcountyfoodbank.org.

MOUNT ST. HELENS

Climbing permits to be sold online next month

An online sale of climbing permits for Mount St. Helens will begin at 9 a.m. Feb. 1.

The permits will be sold online through the nonprofit Mount St. Helens Institute at www.mshinstitute.org. Permits are required year-round to climb above 4,800 feet.

From April 1 through Oct. 31, the U.S. Forest Service charges a $22 fee. The permits are free during the winter.

Beginning May 15, the Gifford Pinchot National Forest limits the number of permits to 100 a day. The purpose is to protect the volcano’s physical and biological features and processes, and to reduce crowding.

Crowding could be a problem May 18, for example — the 30th anniversary of the eruption that obliterated the top 1,314 feet of the volcano’s once-conical top.

From Nov. 1 through March 31, permits are available on a self-registration basis at Marble Mountain Sno-Park and at the climber’s register at the Lone Fir Resort in Cougar.

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