Friends of the Coquille Library raised over $700 dollars on Trivia night. The winning team from left to right: Ryan
Hughes, Jim Krumholz, Shani Krumholz, Debbie Tovey, Amy Muenchrath, Gordon West, Sara Dorland, and Clint
Dorland.

The people hit hardest by the current economic crisis are usually the ones already living on the edge, surviving from paycheck to paycheck. This includes people with children, the poor, the ill, the disabled, and the elderly. During hard times, these folks are often forced to make use of the resources made available by local charitable organizations, which can offer assistance with such expenses as rent, utilities, mortgage payments, auto repairs, and medical bills. Whoozits, Whatzits, Gadgets & Widgets, the second hand store on the corner of 1st and Baxter, is at the hub of the charitable activity.

According to Whoozits manager, Mike White, the store started as an outreach of Faith Lutheran Church, then became a 501c3 non profit agency and an outreach of the Coquille Valley Christian Ministerial Association. Whoozits administers the People Helping People fund, a fund set up by the ministerial association to help people with emergency needs. Pastor Jim Settle, President of the Ministerial Association, told us the People Helping People fund is a joint effort of the various local churches. The churches contribute to the fund and present the contributions to Whoozits, who distributes the donations to the needy. Whoozits is also a Salvation Army extension office authorized to distribute their food vouchers & emergency fuel/transportation vouchers.

Other agencies like the police department, city hall and the hospital refer people to Whoozits, and sometimes people just walk in off the street. Mike says, the store is funded by the donated items they sell and is staffed by a hardworking volunteer labor force that is dedicated to do whatever they can to help meet folks' needs.¤

Edible Sparassis (also known as cauliflower
mushroom) found by Michael Trigg in the Coos
County forest. Michael estimates the mushroom
to weigh over 3 lbs. According to "The Cook's
Thesaurus" cooking encyclopedia, "Cauliflower
mushrooms are very flavorful, but a bit chewy.
They're good fried, or in soups or stews."

Since the 1980's the mushroom market in the Pacific Northwest has flourished. Our own area has much of the best and most accessible forest habitat for wild, edible mushrooms, which exists on National Forest (US Department of Agriculture) and Bureau of Land Management (US Department of Interior) lands.

 If you decide to join the ranks of wild mushroom gatherers, you must learn to identify your mushrooms correctly. There are wild, edible, choice mushrooms that look almost identical to very poisonous mushrooms ... and sometimes they grow right next to each other! If in doubt, don't pick at all. At a minimum, consult an expert or a well-respected and illustrated mushroom identification guide. Tips for collecting and storing: • Collect mushrooms in paper bags, baskets, or buckets with side holes to increase aeration and prevent molding. Don't use plastic bags; plastic increases humidity and causes mushroom deterioration and molding. • Discard very young or old mushrooms, which are difficult to identify accurately. Older mushrooms also can be tough or filled with insect larvae. • Wash mushrooms in cool water after picking. If desired, remove the stalks. • Keep mushrooms cool.

 If you want to store them, let them air dry or place them in an electric food dryer. You also can pickle mushrooms for long-term storage. Original Americans only collected a few edible forest mushrooms, but a wide variety of species have been collected in the Pacific Northwest since Europeans settled here and sought species they knew from their homelands. Commerce in these mushrooms has existed for decades; however, only since the late 1980's has the market really fluorished. Growing public demand for both recreational and commercial mushroom harvest opportunities has prompted the Pacific Northwest Research Station (a research unit of the US Forest Service) to institute a research program to address the concerns that managers and the public have about the vastly increased harvests.

Michael Meichsner as Pinocchio and Dan Davidson as Geppetto in Missoula Theatre's production of “Pinocchio” performed at the Sawdust Theatre on Saturday with a cast and crew of over 60 local children. This year the Missoula Children’s Theatre, a nonprofit organization, will visit all 50 states, 3 Canadian Territories and provinces, and 16 countries. 65,000 children will participate as performers.

 Missoula Children’s Theatre was founded in 1970 by Jim Caron and Don Collins, two actors who wanted to bring the joy of theatre to schools across the country that didn't have drama programs. Auditions take place at local schools, and rehearsals last only one week before the performance.

Survey Shows Coquille Valley Values Books

Sharon Nelson, Ryan Jack, Shayna Coleman, Laura Jo Hofsess, Bob Main and Carl Wilson hand out dictionaries to
third graders in Mrs. Reents’ class

Dictionary Project is underway!! This year 5,110 Rotary Clubs will be handing out more than 15,000 dictionaries to third graders in our District. Three million children in the U.S. every year receive a dictionary from volunteers like our local Rotary Club, who participate in The Dictionary Project. Noah Webster's birthday is October 16, and volunteers strive to give the dictionaries to children as close to this date as possible.

 Reading is the most important skill of all. It is the starting point for all the economic and social opportunities this world has to offer. Educators see third grade as the dividing line between learning to read and reading to learn. Every year we watch The Dictionary Project grow by expanding our pool of sponsors, so more children can enjoy the benefits of owning their own personal dictionary.

Friends of the Library held their largest book sale ever, Saturday and Sunday. The well attended sale was put on by Friends of the Library, whose purpose is to strengthen, expand, enhance and focus attention on our library services, materials and facilities. They do this by sponsoring fundraising events, through citizen donations and from membership fees. Immediate plans include planning and assisting the library with solving the crowded conditions in the library. . The group is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with the IRS.

 When plans are completed for a new library, the group will commence grant writing and a capital campaign for the building. The Coquille Valley is in agreement with the Rotary and Friends of the Library. In a recent survey circulated by The Merchants Association, visiting the Library and reading were the most agreed upon activities.