Agencies lose access to voice mail.Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard It's a Catch-22 if ever there was one. A person is homeless or unemployed and doesn't have a phone number. Yet he needs a phone number to find a home or a job. So what does he do? For the past six years, hundreds of people without a phone could maintain a recorded greeting and receive messages through the Lane County Community Voice Mail service. But the Lane Workforce Network, the group that provided the service, had to end it June 30 when the grant money supporting it ran out. About two dozen Lane County organizations, including AARP AARP, a nonprofit, nonpartisan national organization dedicated to "enriching the experience of aging"; membership is open to people age 50 or older. Founded in 1958 by Ethel Percy Andrus as American Association of Retired Persons, AARP now has over 30 million , White Bird Clinic, St. Vincent de Paul Vin·cent de Paul , Saint 1581-1660. French ecclesiastic who founded the Congregation of the Mission (1625) and the Daughters of Charity (1633). and the state Employment Department, relied on the service to help an average of 600 individuals and families at any given time search for work or housing, or to keep in contact with social service agencies. The service helped homeless people, laid-off workers, runaways and victims of domestic violence. "It is an integral part of our community support," said Jim Pfarrer, manager of the Eugene office of the Employment Department. Two new sponsors are stepping in with plans to resurrect the service later this month. HeartCore International Inc., a local nonprofit organization Nonprofit Organization An association that is given tax-free status. Donations to a non-profit organization are often tax deductible as well. Notes: Examples of non-profit organizations are charities, hospitals and schools. that provides help to the underemployed un·der·em·ployed adj. 1. Employed only part-time when one needs and desires full-time employment. 2. Inadequately employed, especially employed at a low-paying job that requires less skill or training than one possesses. and working poor, is teaming up with Telnix Inc., a Eugene-based technology company, to get the voice mail boxes working again. Telnix will set up the service at HeartCore's main office in south Eugene near the University of Oregon campus The University of Oregon campus in Eugene, Oregon has around 80 buildings and facilities, including athletics sites such as Hayward Field, which is the site for the 2008 Olympic Track and Field Trials, and McArthur Court, and off-campus sites such as nearby Autzen Stadium and the . Dianna Graff, executive director and founder of HeartCore, said the project will be a long-term commitment for the agency that will cost about $70,000 a year. She said Heart- Core also is researching how it can provide a local address and regular mailbox A simulated mailbox in the computer that holds e-mail messages. Mailboxes are stored on disk as a file of messages, a database of messages or as an individual file for each message. The standard mailboxes are usually In, Out, Trash and Junk (Spam). for clients. "We kind of envision ourselves as the oasis oasis (ōā`sĭs), an area within a desert where the water table reaches the surface, with enough moisture to permit the growth of vegetation. The water may come up to the surface in springs, or it may collect in mountain hollows. in the desert for people who are trying to rebuild their lives: providing food and clothing, the voice mail and a mailbox," she said. To offset the costs of offering the service, HeartCore is asking for community and business donations and/or sponsorship. For more information, call Graff at 338-9896. |
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