By Jane Ann Falls
Twenty-two Springfield and Bend Rotarians enthusiastically joined together to install new landscaping at the Orchid Health McKenzie River Clinic located up the McKenzie River in Rainbow on October 15 and 16.
At the end of last Rotary year, then District Governor Cindi O’Neil directed funds to Fire Relief efforts. Part of these resources funded the “Re-tooling Grants” which Clubs coordinated to help replace fire-lost tools and equipment so people could get back to work. DG Cindi also directed funds to assist Orchid Health, McKenzie River Clinic to purchase needed medical equipment, landscape their current clinic site and install a new road sign for the Clinic.
The McKenzie River Clinic itself, located in Blue River Oregon, burnt to the ground in September 2020. A new location for the clinic is currently operating out of a mobile unit and in a remodeled site at what was the quilt shop at Rainbow, just west of McKenzie Bridge.
For the landscaping component of this project, Kathy Poole, Past President of the Rotary Club of Eugene Metro, contacted Sayaka Akayama, a Rotary Global Grants Scholar from Japan, who is currently a University of Oregon graduate student in Landscape Architecture. Sayaka designed the Clinic landscaping as part of her internship with Noah Guadagni of Perennial Patterns Design in Eugene. Rexius of Eugene donated soil, bark and rock.
Sunshine, fellowship and hard work produced a gorgeous new landscaping!