Lost Cousin Helps Her Find Herself
By Bob Welch,
as seen in the Register-Guard March 7,
2013
JUNCTION CITY — Susan Jones remembers the
night that changed everything. June
2006. She and her family were sitting in the drive-through line at the Coburg
Road Dairy Queen. And there she was: a homeless woman shuffling across the
parking lot, pushing a baby stroller with her life on board. Tall. Gray-haired.
Maybe 50. A woman easily recognized by regulars in that area, even
without her usual two white dogs. A homeless woman whom I’d written a few
columns about.
“I looked at her,” Jones says, “and then just said it:
‘That’s my cousin Jayne!’” Jones bolted from the Jeep and wrapped her in a hug. It had
been at least a decade since she’d seen the woman whom she’d once idolized. In
Jones’ younger years, her cousin’s many horse-show trophies had given her
Scappoose home the feel of an equestrian hall of fame.
But now, as she looked at Jayne, she realized her cousin
didn’t recognize her. As Jones talked, she noted one brief connection. “It was
like the someone I knew was way back there,” she says. “There was a distant
look in her eyes.” She knew that Jayne, like Jones’ now-gone sister, had
struggled with mental illness; still, it was frustrating to see her cousin so
unnerved by their meeting. Jayne clearly wanted to move on.
“I offered her some money, asked her to come home and live
with me, asked if there was anything I could do,” Jones says. Her cousin refused any help and pushed her stroller away.
Later that night, Jones began looking for her cousin. No
luck. The next morning she went to the Eugene Mission and St.
Vincent de Paul’s Eugene Service Station on Highway 99. Had they seen her?
Nope. Meanwhile, though, Jones was intrigued by St. Vinnie’s. Her
two kids were going to be on their own soon; she’d have more time. So, she
decided to volunteer. “The side benefit,” Jones says, “was if Jayne showed up, I’d
be there.” Jones never would find her cousin; she still doesn’t know
where Jayne is today. Instead, she found herself, which led to a connection of
a different kind. She changed her e-mail address to: inspiredbycousinjayne@comcast.net. In October, when the church she
attended, Eugene Faith Center,
started a food pantry, Jones volunteered to head it up.
Six months later, when a Junction City
partner agency of FOOD for Lane
County was looking for a
new director, Jones got the job. A year from the time she’d met Jayne, she was
executive director of Junction City Local Aid, which operates out of a
1,600-square-foot nook on Sixth
Street. “Some of our clients fit the same profile as my sister and
cousin,” Jones says. “I knew I couldn’t reach my sister and Jayne, but I
thought ‘I can help other people like them.’ ” She quickly made her mark. Says Kara Smith, FOOD for Lane County’s
agency relations coordinator: “Every time I have a new agency interested in
becoming a partner, I show them Susan’s setup. She runs things so smoothly,
almost perfectly.”
But the Junction
City job quickly proved challenging. When the
recession hit in 2008, Country Coach, Junction
City’s high-end motor home plant that had contributed
half of the agency’s $40,000 budget, went bankrupt.
Jones didn’t retreat, even in a community where more than 20
percent of the population was getting help from the agency. She began working
closely with the Tri-County Tribune and Tri-County Chamber of Commerce to
better get the word out — not only for donations but for potential clients.
“Every flier we hand out has a ‘donor’ side and a ‘client’
side,” says Jones, 52. “You can’t assume which side of the flier people might
be on.”
Replacement money started coming in. When a $50,000 bequest
arrived out of nowhere, the local aid board decided to use it as a down payment
to buy, ironically, an old Country Coach service center offered at a
tantalizing price. Perfect, Jones figured, to help fuel her dream of making Junction City’s poor less dependent on Eugene services.
The new digs offer five times the space. And the potential,
Jones believes, to house other agencies whose focus is helping the poor. “People in Junction City have a lack of access to
programs they need,” Jones says. The building — the plan is to move in before
April 1 — could be a catalyst to change that lack of access, she says. “To help
us not just throw fish at people, but teach them to fish.”
Once, FOOD for Lane
County’s Smith was meeting
with Jones in the local aid’s cubbyhole office. “Who’s this?” Smith asked when
seeing a photograph of a woman and a horse. “That woman,” Jones said, “is the
reason I’m here.”
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