Chad: So, going forward this session is going to be recorded. We will then upload the completed session to Facebook. Through technological discovery we realized we couldn't do a Facebook live stream or a YouTube live. We were trying to figure out how to do that and weren't successful, so we will upload this to Facebook after this event has concluded. So, my apologies for that.


The Zoom setup essentially looks like this: you are able to mute your Zoom on your own. Please do so if you have any background noise such as talking or anything like that going on, or any pets or anything. There's also closed captioning that you can use by using the bar at the bottom of the window that allows you to choose the CC button and pick "show subtitles." Everything's ready and running and there's a person who is doing real-time captioning currently as we speak. If you don't have  anything behind you, as far as a background, please be mindful of background visual noise. It's often difficult for people to track your signing or anything like that when you have either backlighting or a noisy visual atmosphere behind you. We want to make sure that we give everyone an opportunity to participate. Someone just came into the Zoom room and I needed to let them in from the waiting room, so that's what I was doing. During our question and answer period, we're going to allow you to turn your cameras on. You can either speak or sign, and we will also spotlight you so that your picture will show up on the video. The interpreter will also be present to interpret for you should you need that into ASL or English.


If you have a question throughout this procedure at least during the half hour of question and answers, please write that question down and Zoom has a "raise hand" feature that's also in that lower taskbar. You can click on "raise hand," and we can go ahead and answer that. You can also do this on the Facebook page as well, but we have disabled chat at this time.


Our goal is for the next half hour to have no interaction in chat, and the reason for that is because the chat is automatically voiced by screen readers so people out there who are deaf-blind, or hard of hearing and blind, or hearing and blind and rely on the screen reading technology will hear this automatic chat voice being read over the interpretation while people are talking, and that kind of crosstalk is very hard to follow for individuals, so please hold your chats until we give you the go-ahead to do that. So, I'd like to do a little introduction. There are two people here my name is Chad Ludwig, and I'm the executive director of Bridges Oregon, the sign for Bridges Oregon was just done on screen which is two hands touching one another.


I've been running Bridges for almost four years. This summer will be four years. I'm a white male. I have computer type classes and they look a little bit blue, and I also have a long sleeved shirt on with the sleeves rolled up, and I have a blue background. That was my visual description of essentially what I look like.


So now I'm going to turn it over to Sami. 


Sami: Hi everybody, my name is Sami Weethee, and this is my sign name:  "S" on the chin. I'm the new VOCA client advocate for Bridges Oregon, and I'm excited to work with you. I guess we can go ahead and include my visual description as well.  I'm a white female with dark hair pulled back and a black short sleeved shirt.


Chad:  So,  I'd like to also do a Land Acknowledgement: We're gathered on the land of the Kalypua who are represented today by the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde and the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians whose relationship with this land continues to this day. We offer gratitude for the land itself, and for those who have stewarded it for generations, and for the opportunity to study, learn, work, and be in the community on this land, and finally, we respectfully acknowledge and honor past, present, and future indigenous individuals of the Willamette Valley.


So Bridges Oregon is an organization that is of, by, and for Deaf Deaf-Blind, and hard-of-hearing individuals, as well as those with additional disabilities in the state of Oregon. You could have an individual who's hard-of-hearing who uses a wheelchair, or an individual who has an intellectual disability and is Deaf and so on and so forth, so this includes all community members that may fall under the Deaf, Deaf-Blind and hard of hearing category. 


Sami: Bridges Oregon's mission statement is to facilitate equity inclusiveness and provide a bridge to opportunities through advocacy, education, and communication.


Chad: We did a community-based needs assessment which is abbreviated CNA, and this was based on some legislative work that was done back in 2015 that resulted in a bill being passed and money was allocated to the Department of Human Services which contracted with Western Oregon University to employ a principal investigator named Denise Thew-Hackett.


She is currently our board chair, and she's also here with us today.  She did some research, talked with a number of people, gathered a lot of data and compiled that data into a report that was then given to the legislature back in 2017, as far as the community-based needs and what those entailed. We've been in touch with them for a number of years after that, but the point was that we had a lot of different needs that were identified as a result of that research, and there were a lot of disparities and deficiencies in a number of areas for Deaf, Deaf-Blind, and hard-of-hearing individuals. Certainly they were facing barriers in a number of areas, so there was lack of access, lack of communication cultural competency and a number of other types of things for example we noticed the disparities being quite marked in the different areas that are listed on the slide. Thus far, we've been trying to identify these, and also we decided that within this organization we wanted to go ahead and set up an organization to address these needs and put that information that we got in the Community Needs Assessment to good use. So, we felt like one of the major issues was domestic violence and sexual assault and the law talked about two of these types of situations being a serious issue over the last number of years. Especially with access to services for victims, misunderstanding of cultural norms, lack of cultural sensitivity when dealing with individuals who are victims of domestic and sexual violence, and so we wanted to respond to that need. So, we were led to search out grants, and that's where we came to be involved with the VOCA grant. 


Sami: Now the voca grant, you're going to see that come up. VOCA stands for: Victims Of Crime Act, and that did pass back in the 1980s. I'm going to expand a little bit more about advocacy and accompaniment services, and what we will do, and what I can do, and also give you a few examples of what I can't do as well. 


Chad:  We do want to take time to really clearly explain our position on confidentiality. Sami:  Right.  Chad:  Confidentiality is a critical component of this process. A number of members of the Deaf, hard-of- hearing, and Deaf-Blind communities are very concerned about confidentiality, and whether or not Chad or Sami are going to keep their information confidential, or if Bridges as a whole is going to keep that confidential. Is it a safe place to go to expose all of these stories and  potentially traumatic events that have happened? Is there going to be any kind of disclosure of this sort of information? And I've noticed that a number of people have come to me, some people haven't come to me personally, but others have come to their friends or other confidants, and they have been concerned about this which is completely understandable. And we really want to make sure that you understand that confidentiality is a critical component of this. Our agency values confidentiality very highly.


This grant money that we have received is from the Oregon Department of Justice, and their expectation is that we follow confidentiality very strictly both as an agency and as a grant recipient.


We also really need you to understand that we have an expectation of policies and procedures, we have various paperwork that we have to fill out  in response to this grant, and confidentiality is at the forefront of all of that. There's clear state law that talks about the expectation and requirement of confidentiality for anyone who is working with survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse. DV is the abbreviation for domestic violence and SA is the abbreviation for sexual abuse for those of you watching.


We will not disclose any information about crimes that have occurred at all. However, there are certain things that we may be required to report. For example, if there is abuse of a vulnerable adult. For example, there is a person who is taking advantage of a senior citizen in some way, that may be something we are required by law to report. We also may be required to report child abuse. If someone discloses that they plan to kill someone else, we may be required to disclose that as well, and these will be analyzed on a case-by-case basis and a determination made as to whether or not we have to disclose. But what we would prefer to do first, is talk with the person: sit down with them and have a discussion and explain what the law says and what our responsibilities are so that that person can understand and decide how they want to work with us and what they choose to disclose, and we can choose how we want to work with you as well.


But as a whole, we continue to maintain confidentiality and make sure that that is one of the most important tenets that we follow.


As far as your children, your husband, your wife, all of those people that are in your lives: we are not going to disclose any information to those friends and family members at all. What is said here will stay between yourself and Sami as the client advocate, or yourself and myself. That is how it works here, and so I want everyone to understand that very clearly. That it's a safe space, and everything shared will be kept between the two of you. 


Sami: And I also wanted to add to the point that you made is that we will be sure to be transparent with you, and just let you know if we feel a situation is, like you said it's a case-by-case basis, some of them I can go on with the process, but then some of the situations can be considered a possibility that we have to go ahead and report. We have to be transparent with you and communicate with you about that first, and then when you feel comfortable you can sit with me. It's not like I'm going to say, "Oh I'm not going to communicate with you," and go ahead with that process of reporting. That's not going to happen.


Chad:  Yes, that's right. Sami would then need to contact a person for outside counsel or information, but if that happens that will only be done with your permission, and once you give permission then you would be able to get that. We would be able to ask someone for that information, but if you don't want that, then that's fine. So you can change your mind. For example, if you said at one point that you wanted to give permission for us to contact someone else, and then you change your mind, you can do that, and then we won't contact that other person. So, it's very important that we acknowledge and understand the value and importance of confidentiality in keeping your information to ourselves and within the program. We have a timeline here and this is our grant timeline through VOCA. It started in January when we received funding, and we've been moving along. Basically, I have gone through this training process and have to complete a variety of different trainings in order to qualify for receiving the money, and they require me to do different things as I go throughout the process. So, one example is I had to send goals and objectives to explain what our service is supposed to be providing, and in April we started talking with candidates and advertising to different organizations to get a job description out there, which is what resulted in getting Sami her position with us, so we could actually start serving clients within the community. Initially, it was kind of difficult to figure out what we needed to do, and the training helped quite a bit with that. We had to finish the training first and there was a scheduled training that had not yet been scheduled, so we were waiting for a chance to get that scheduled so that we could be trained, and then I could satisfy all of the requirements that I had to do before I was able to see clients and so was Sami. 


Sami: Right, and like Chad just mentioned  it's tentative. There's a possibility starting on July the 21st and that is the goal, but the SVAA training is provided by Oregon State and we are required to do that before we can move forward to actually serve the public. And the training is 40 hours required, but only provided two times a year.  I was hired in May, and the trainings are in March and August, and you have to take that it both times.  I missed the recent one, so hopefully we can find training that can substitute for that. If not, then it really depends on that. It is required by the grant. It's under the federal government, so we see we'll see how that goes.


And then also Bridges is here to actually serve the public who are Deaf, Deaf-Blind, and hard-of-hearing. And what we do is, you are going to work with me as the advocate regarding legal matters, if you want to show up to court I come with you. Medical exams, medical appointments, police or lawyer interviews that you need support, I can come in with you. And also Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS), those appointments, if you feel like you need me with you, I can come in with you as well and also just to make sure that you're aware of what your victim/survivor rights are. We are making sure that you have access to emergency interviews, legal matters, and also medical matters, too. I'll be there with you to support you all the way, and I'll provide a list of resources that are available. Also, if this organization, if we can't provide those resources, we'll make sure that we can contact somebody that can. We'll refer you to an agency to get what you need.


Chad: So, the Oregon Department of Human Services as Sammy mentioned, talked about a variety of different things that we are able to, or they are able to provide.


Information and referral is one of the things. If a client needs to apply for something or get benefits of some sort, for example: food stamps, insurance, those sorts of things, we can advocate with that individual to parse out what they need and get that set up for them. There are some clients


who are in the system with DHS for child investigation, sometimes there are senior citizen complaints and things like that that have gone through DHS, and they are doing an investigation we can be contacted so that we can go with you to advocate and support you throughout that process, so you understand clearly what's going on in terms of the investigation and where things stand.


It could be an abuse application, it could be something related to foster care, or independent living, developmental disabilities, senior citizens - all of these individuals who are in senior care and such, we can get involved in those organizations as advocates to help you through whatever process you may be going through.


Sami: And like we already mentioned, VOCA: Victims Of Crime Act, is a federal grant that we get that  mandates what we have to actually give out as far as our services go like adult physical assault, adult sexual assault, arson  - intentional arson, bullying: verbal cyber, or physical burglary child physical abuse or neglect, child sexual abuse or assault, domestic violence or family violence, DUI: driving under the influence, driving while intoxicated which is DWI, senior citizen abuse or neglect, hate crimes like racial, religious, gender, sexual orientation, and there's others as well, identity theft, fraud, financial crime, immigration, kidnapping, other vehicular victimizations having to do with a car,  stalking and harassment, survivors of homicide victims, teen dating victimization, violation of a court order - all of those things are what we can actually serve the public with. You can come to Bridges and you can ask us for help, and we can go ahead and serve you for these things.


There are a few examples of things that we cannot do. There are things that we can and can't do. If you're saying, "Oh is that all you can provide?" No, we cannot be like your Deaf interpreter. We can't go with you  and be your deaf interpreter at an appointment. And if you're not a victim of any crime, and you have a landlord/tenant or local issue, or  you're reading a letter, and you don't understand what's going on with DHS or Social Security, and you just don't understand, or you have no accommodation for your appointment or Social Security letters are sent to you saying that you have an overpayment, and they're going to take your money, or you have personal issues with access when your child's in school, and they're not providing any interpreters - those don't have to do with a crime. We will still be able to connect you with the appropriate resources, and we can steer you along that way, but there are limits to what we can help you with.


Okay, what I CAN give you assistance in is I can go to you with you to fill out a restraining order. I can accompany you to get checked out by a doctor after an assault. Getting paperwork - if you get the paperwork, or you report that a crime has happened I can help you with the proceedings just to make sure that you understand, and connect you also with resources as appropriate, providing support to make the appearance in court. If you just want to make sure that you feel safe, I'll go along with you, giving you support, being present with you while you have this visitation or investigation during interviews - things like that. Making sure that you have appropriate accessibility and accommodations in your type of situation if you're a victim of a crime. And this is on a case-by-case basis - we can provide coverage of interpreting services as well.


You know, like I mentioned,  these are just a few examples of what we can and can't do and that's the list that I just mentioned,


Chad: And just to review, this lists of crimes that are indicated here on the slide - 


these are the kinds of things that we had talked about that we CAN get involved with. If it's not listed on the slide, we cannot get involved with it in terms of  various other types of crimes.


Sami:  Right, and we do have other services available like information and referral, like we just mentioned, and there are several organizations -  well a long list of organizations and agencies that we can refer you to if we can't provide that type of assistance or service. And we will be there for you as your personal advocate and mentor, and we'll make sure that you'll be able to make your own decisions and make your own choices during that process. If you feel like you're unsure with the criminal or civil justice system, we can be there with you to support you along the way and make sure you understand the proceedings when you go through them.


Chad: There's more to the service as well we have client advocates who can sit down with you and help you develop a safety plan for your home, a safe workplace or other space where you may feel unsafe, we can work together to help set something like that up and brainstorm ways to lead you to safety within your own home or workplace or other areas. We can also help you really fully understand what your rights are within the legal system, which is very complex and often very difficult to follow and understand. An advocate can work with you and give you information about the rights that you have - what you're able to do, and make sure that you fully understand your rights and responsibilities in navigating the legal system. So, the advocate can go with you to do those things, and in addition to that we also do some outreach and training to various organizations on more of a one-on-one basis. And I guess it kind of depends on COVID-19 how we're going to work that out from here on, but we shall see. We can also collect surveys as well from clients who are looking to get services, about what kind of services they like, what they don't like, what they feel needs improvement, and what has not worked well. So, we can get survey responses from each of our clients, and that data will help us, which we also will then report to the  grant funder as far as how we're doing with the services that we're providing. 


Sami: And also, we're emphasizing that here at Bridges we will help victims and survivors whether the police are involved or not, no matter if you want to leave the abuser or not. It doesn't matter. Bridges will continue to work with the victims and survivors as long as they want, until they feel a hundred percent safe. And then with Bridges our goal is to communicate to Deaf and Deaf-Blind, or hard-of-hearing victims and survivors and their children, so they can take control of their lives. And they have their own choices and make their own decisions, and we give the information and assist with that. And you can do whatever you want with that. We empower them to make their own decisions and that is what is most important in that situation.


Now also I just wanted to make sure that I emphasize, like what Chad just mentioned, about confidentiality. It is required about Oregon State law, and  the grant is federally funded. We're under the federal government, and we're required to have that confidentiality. And also wanted to let you know too, that we respect your privacy as well. We are not going to go out and share your information out to the public. We keep that confidentiality, and it's very important to us, and for me, as well as it is for you.


Now this says the service will be available starting the summer of 2021 and emphasizing in Marion and Polk counties. We are starting with those two counties because -  I'm not really sure if I already said that I'm the only employee here. Hats off to Chad as he has been working as a 100% volunteer going through the process. For sure this the goal is for this to become statewide, and we're going to get there, but we're going to start with Marion and Polk counties first.


Chad: Right. Marion and Polk counties comprise about 36 different - well are just two of 36 different counties in the state, so we have regional resources.


For example, the Crime Victim's Assistance Program, and we also have other services that provide victims with a variety of different programs. There are court system services, there are other more urban systems, and that sort of thing, so we decided that we wanted to start with a smaller counties like Marion and Polk to sort of get a little taste of how we are going to do this, and work things out as we get started before we get to the larger cities. We don't want to end up getting overwhelmed and not be able to provide the services that we want to, so we are learning as we go. And we want to, as we get better at it, and are ready, we will add additional counties and expand our reach to different counties. So, our goal is to serve the entire state of Oregon, but this is where we're starting for now. If there's a client in another area, for example, Bend, and that person reaches out to us for help, we're not simply going to turn them away. What we'll try to do is locate or refer them to a service that could help them out in Bend, and we're happy to get involved in making sure that person isn't forgotten, and give that referral some partnership with us where we give them information about what supports a Deaf individual might need in the situation that they may be in. So, we are very willing and ready to get into the trenches with all of you and help as much as we possibly can. We don't know exactly how long it will take for us to expand to the whole state. It really depends. Our vision is to continue to grow southward to Medford first, and then move north throughout the state and do Portland last. And the reason that we're looking at Portland as the last place that we expand to is because it's much larger. It's very heavy, and there are a lot of complexities going on up in the metro area, so we're holding off on serving that population until we get things settled in the other regions of Oregon.  I mean, there's only enough money to pay for one person in this position right now, so one advocate, which is Sami -  imagine her trying to serve the entire state!  We need to grow this program little by little so that our organization is not going to be hurting. If that happens, then you guys are going to be hurting as well, and we don't want that to happen. We want everybody to have the appropriate mental health resources, and we want to serve you the best that we possibly can.


Sami: Right. Absolutely right.


Chad: So, now we're going to open the floor to questions and answers, so I'm going to stop the screen sharing so I can see everybody.


Does anyone here have a question?
We're done with our presentation, but I wanted to see if anybody had a question. Sharla? 
Sharla: Hi, the chat was disabled, so should I go ahead and sign for myself? Should I just go ahead and do that? 
Chad: Let me look at the chat real quick. Okay, all right, the chat is now on currently.  
Sharla: I'm going to go ahead and ask you directly anyway. Hello, I'm Sharla Jones, and I am the director here of the Oregon School for the Deaf.
I'm so thrilled to see this information! This is fantastic! You're going to help so many people in the area! So, you had mentioned you're going to be in Marion and Polk counties first and that would be it to start with, correct?
Chad: Yes, we're going to just start with both of those counties, yes, that's correct.
Sharla:  Okay, so if there are students from other areas you may or may not be able to help them even though they go to Oregon School for the Deaf which is located in Marion County? Is that right, even though because their home county may be a different county? So, what do you think?


Chad: Yes, that's a unique situation. We would make it work  - we would make it work. 
Sharla: Thank you so much! That's so great!
Chad: You're welcome! Of course!
Chad: Okay, so let's see here, Jeb did you have a question?
Jeb:  I’m Jeb. I wanted to know if you wouldn't mind sending me that one slide that lists the things that you can and can't do? Can you send that slide to me, because I need to give that list to the board so that they know what your services are that you can and can't provide, and then we can take on part of those responsibilities that you can't do, and encourage other organizations if they want to, to take on those responsibilities that they can do. That's why I was thinking it would be nice for you to share that with me. Thank you so much! 
Chad: Yes.
Sami: I’m going to send you the list of crimes as well so we could let you know what crimes we do take over.
Jeb: Yes, as always, we advertise your organization, sure, but we just need to know what you can't do, and I just wanted to make sure what we could do with that. Thank you so much! 
Chad: To answer Jeb's question or comment also, as far as these being the things that we can do and we're never going to be able to do anything else but the things listed on the slide, that is not necessarily true. We're looking for other grant funding as well to cover those sorts of things. I’m writing one grant right now that's due June 30th for something, but I also have another grant that is due in November, and I plan to watch for the posting and apply for it when it comes out. And so we'll be adding and expanding the service offerings as we can, and as we receive funding that will cover those sorts of things. As far as the community-based needs assessment, that list was vast, and we really want to be able to respond to those various issues that are needed. It's a huge, monumental task that's going to take quite a bit of time, but we're working on it and our goal is to address all of the issues that were identified in that needs assessment. That's what this center is supposed to be doing, and why it was established: to address those issues. So, the grants often determine what we're able to spend the money on, so if we apply for various other grants and other funding sources the ability to address those things will expand. So did I answer your question Jeb? 
Jeb:  Yes, cool. So, let's see here. 
Chad: I think we have another question from All Hands Interpreting, and I don't know if they want to appear or not? Hello hello?


Did you have a question or?


Cheridy (All Hands Interpreting): Well, my internet is a little bit slower today, and that's why I decided to type my question in the chat. 
Chad: Okay, there were a couple things here in your question. You said, “What can we do to help you grow this program, and the needs that you have for this program?” 
Chad: Thank you so much. Yeah, definitely.  We need to do as much as we can, and hopefully we'll be able to grow it, so currently, right now, we need volunteers.
We have a pool of interpreters and we're encouraging people to onboard with us and sign up with us as interpreters so that we can fill jobs that are directly related to the work that we're doing here, currently. So growing that pool of interpreters is something, and then if you come across any potential funding sources or donors, that would be awesome! If you know of any foundations, or if you know of other people who may know of foundations and you can connect us that would be fantastic! I’m happy I’m talking with two other foundations currently, and they have been very motivated to be involved, but their grants are pretty new, and so they're kind of waiting to see how we do as we develop a history and some experience. Once we're up and running in a more cohesive manner, they're willing to talk to us again. So, I’m trying to develop relationships with people right now that have deep pockets, essentially. I mean, that's the point, you know, we want to be able to access that funding and then maybe they'll give us money so if we can find ways to do that, that's what our organization really needs right now! And the second question that you had is, “Do we have a list of resources for Lane and Douglas counties?” At this time, we do not. We are relying on the aging and disability resource center 


and the network that we have. I know that you are, I think in Lane County? Oh, no, in Douglas County? Oh sorry, Douglas County, okay, my bad, so


maybe you can help work with us to prepare a list of resources or collect that sort of information. That would be very helpful.
Cheridy:  Yes, of course, of course. To apply to be an interpreter how would you do that?
Chad: Contact me through my email: chad@bridgesoregon.org, and I’ll show you again at the end of the PowerPoint, we'll have our email addresses.  Sami and I will both be listed on the last slide. and so, feel free to contact me if you're interested. 
Cheridy: Okay perfect! Alright, I have a friend at the DA’s office I’m going to ask and see if they don't mind sending me the victim’s advocate list, because they do have one. So, then I can send that list to you.
Chad:  That would be awesome! I look forward to that, thank you! Oh and tell me your name again?


Cheridy: It’s Cheridy (C-H-E-R-I-D-Y). 
Chad: Okay, and this is your name sign “C” on the chin? 
Cheridy: Yes, okay great, yeah “D” on the head is my father’s name sign.
Chad: Oh, okay. Yes, I know him. Okay, so there is another question from Julie and then Joanna. So, first Julie.
Julie: H,i you guys! Oh sorry, now as far as the situation: I have a friend who is a victim/survivor and you have those services, and that's perfect! What if I tell my friend, and they don't want to come? Can you - what if I meet with you to learn how to get this person to become willing to actually come in so they can see you, is that part of your services or not, because I’m not directly involved with uh the actual crime, so I’m just curious to know? 
Chad:  That's a great question. We had a situation that was similar to that recently.


we welcome anyone to contact us to gather information, and we'd be happy to provide that to whomever, and then that person, if they want to then provide it to another individual, that's fine as well and give them the information until the crime victim, themselves feels ready to engage. You wouldn't be an advocate per se, but we would be working to encourage you to help that person move forward. And also there's another advocate


at Horizons Northwest Human Services that we can refer people to who has signing abilities as well.  So, it depends, you know. And people can be referred to various organizations - it's not therapy but Horizons does therapy, and we wouldn't talk to one another, so if that person didn't want to go to us they could be referred out to one of these other programs. And I want to be clear that there wouldn't necessarily be any kind of communication between us, so they wouldn't have to worry about breaches of confidentiality.
Julie: Okay, so what if they want me to be with my friend and maybe we build a relationship and establish that trust, and maybe after we establish that trust we can maybe kind of transition over to you guys so you guys can help, is that something you can do?
Chad: Absolutely for sure! So, the next question is from Joanna.


Let's see if I can fix this up here…


There we go. I invited you.


Joanna: Hi!  I’m just wondering… I have a few questions.  I have two questions to ask just to be clear. Okay now, you were just starting with Marion and Polk counties, right? So what if you know somebody outside of the county like in southern Oregon where I’m from? If that person is in an abusive situation can you not help them if they're in a different area? Is that what you're saying, and those are just the areas that you're working on that you can help?
Chad:  We will try to help anyone that we can even if they're outside of Marion and Polk counties. If they need help we will absolutely try to do what we can for them, but as far as our level of involvement it will be different than if you were in Marion and Polk counties. And what we mean by that is we would try to work with services that are already available in that southern Oregon county. For example, we would work closely with them as a team to try to serve that client who is in a county other than Marion and Polk. Do you understand?
Joanna: Okay.  Okay, I'm working on trying to get donations to actually work on. I'm working on that right now, so my question to you is about online donations. Do you have that open currently? 


Chad: Yes! Thank you! We're really excited about trying to get those online donations going! I’ll give you the web address at the end, and when you click on that link you'll be able to see a button that says “donate,” and you can click on that and you'll get another screen that will allow people to donate. And there are different ways you can do it. You can do it monthly. You can do a one-time donation. You can do a monthly withdrawal from your account, or whatever you want to do. 
Joanna: Yeah, I just wanted to clarify that before I start telling my friends and family when and how to donate, but that's all I have for now, thank you.  
Chad: Thanks! Yeah, great. Okay, yeah are we 501(c)(3). Yes, we are.
 
Sami: Oh, did you see the question they're asking if we’re a 501(c)(3)?  We are a non-profit organization. Yes, yes we are. 
Chad: Are there any other questions from folks at this point? Let me check on Facebook and see if anybody has sent me Facebook questions, or email questions. Just a second here.


Chad: So I’m unsure if I understand this question:  “How do we get someone trained ahead of time to help with this project?” I think that the comment is about the SVAA training that happens two times a year, in March in August. Is that what you're referring to?  I hope that's what they're talking about. 
Sami:  Okay, can Cheridy come back on again?


Cheridy:  Yes, I can. If a person wants to actually volunteer, I know you should have some sort of training for that, right? Is that available for someone like that - like the type of training that Sami has to have?


Chad: Right now, this grant doesn't really have a lot of volunteer opportunities written into it as far as working with clients are concerned. Our focus right now is hiring full-time staff people to work with clients, not volunteers to do so. Volunteers can help us with fundraising for donations, they can help with academic/administrative paperwork - you know, grant writing that kind of stuff. But this is too new for us, and we're very new at doing it, to put volunteers into that mix. So, we're not ready for that at this point in time. I think maybe in the future it's possible, but we'll see. 
Cheridy: Do you have a list of volunteer positions or what's available?


Chad: Right now, it's more admin stuff. If you're really interested, please contact me offline and we can talk more about it and see what we can do.
Cheridy:  There are several deaf people that are looking to volunteer for of things in this area. They're retired so, they are becoming bored, and they want something to do, and they keep contacting our agency regarding this. But you know as an interpreting agency, we don't have volunteer positions here. So, I need to be able to actually give them something else for them to be a part of.
Chad:  I understand, and you can also ask them to contact me, and we can see what they can do. Now again, we have a few people who have expressed interest, but honestly I’m drowning in work so
I have to make time to actually get in touch with people and then parse out work to them. So, it's kind of challenging as far as what this organization needs in the time that I have to dedicate to doing that particular part of it. Thank you.


Okay, so Joanna did you have another question?


Joanna:  If a deaf person is incarcerated or is unable to contact someone on the outside, are we able to go and meet them at their place of incarceration, or should they contact you, or can they contact you, or will anyone not allow us to do that? How does that work?


Sharla:  Hey everybody! We have lots of volunteer opportunities here at the deaf school, if you want to go down there and work with us, we are happy to have you! Sharla posted a link in the chat which is the volunteer program link.
Chad: So, more questions? Let's see here, I’m going to go ahead and screen share the final few slides again, and that'll probably be like five minutes, and then I’m going to go ahead and turn the slides off again, and see if there are any final questions before we wrap up.


Chad: So, the bottom line is that we are here, and we need your help to grow. We need your support as much as we can, and we really want to support the community out there.


As I said, our contact information is listed on the slide.


You can contact Sami via text or you can contact her via FaceTime or email at advocate@bridgesoregon.org.


My name is also listed on this slide, Chad Ludwig, executive director, and you can contact me at chad@bridgesoregon.org.


We also have a P.O. box and a main video phone number that's listed, as well as our general email and website address on this slide. Now as far as the video phone is concerned, that phone number is 971-202-1500. Sami will be the primary person answering calls at that number.


Although I have the number here in the office, so if you call for me, you can also contact me through that same phone number, and if Sami happens to answer, she can transfer the call to me and I can do the same thing if you happen to call for if you happen to call for Sami, I can transfer the call if I happen to get it, so no problem.


We have all kinds of social media out there. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and we post information as well as send out emails. You can go to our website and on the bottom right-hand side of the screen there is a small form that you can fill out with your name and email address to subscribe to our email newsletter, and we'll send those out. And we do not over-spam you with emails. We send out emails very periodically. Since January, I think I've sent out three emails, that's it, so you will not get bombarded with spam.


So, all of the information is there. You can subscribe to get updates about the organization and the work that we're doing.


And now this community conversation that we are having is done. I really appreciate you being involved, and we're going to have another one that's hosted by the Oregon Department of Justice. I believe it will be 22 different conversations that the Oregon Department of Justice is going to have in total including: indigenous individuals, African-American individuals, LGBTQ individuals, Asian-American individuals, etc., etc. There are all kinds of organizations and groups that are going to be focused on, as well as Deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals. And I believe the Deaf and hard-of-hearing individual's focus group is going to be July 21st from 1 to 3 PM.


If you need the flyer, I'm happy to send it to you, just send email to me. It's also available on the Oregon Association of the Deaf calendar as well as their e-news informational site and


if you feel like there are still services that we're not considering, or we haven't talked about, the best place to go to find information about those services is the OAD website, and also hopefully we'll be able to get more grant money to serve those things. 


Sami: And Christine just shared a link in the chat, and you can click on that link. 


Chad: Oh great, perfect, thank you Christine.


Thank you!