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March Of Dimes Honors 5 For Making A Difference
By Janine Robben
The Portland Tribune
While many women will get flowers this month of Mother’s Day, only five Oregon women will get white roses with gratitude from the March of Dimes.
On Friday, each woman will receive a White Rose Award for her volunteerism, professional excellence, community contribution and commitment to improving the status of women in Oregon. This is the 19th year that the March of Dimes Greater Oregon Chapter has given the awards. Two recipients are from Portland:
Mary K. Mark and Jody Stahancyk.
Mark is being recognized for a lifetime of volunteerism that includes co-sharing with her husband Melvin "Pete" Mark Jr., two campaigns that together raised $70 million for the Portland Art Museum.
In 1996 and 1997, the first campaign, called "Shaping the Next Century" raised money to equip the museum for the "Tombs of China" exhibit. The second campaign the "Project for the Millennium," was the largest capital endowment campaign ever conducted for an Oregon cultural nonprofit organization. Begun in 1997, it ended in August 2000 with the opening of the museum’s Hoffman Wing.
Mark serves in the board of trustees of The Library Foundation Inc., which benefits Multnomah County libraries, and The Oregon Community Foundation, a statewide, nonprofit organization that uses endowment funds to make grants to charitable, educational and cultural organizations, most of them in
Oregon.
Stahancyk is senior partner in the Portland law firm of Stahancyk, Gearing, Rackner and Kent, P.C. At her direction, the firm hires high school students who need work , helps them identify college scholarships and provides free legal counsel for young adults in exchange for their community
service.
While her son was a student at Grant High School, Stahancyk formed "Pride in Athletics," which recruited parents who were not involved in their children’s sporting events to celebrate those events with them.
The other award recipients are Linda Gilleese, a Hermiston resident who has spent 40 years volunteering with dozens of organizations, including the Hermiston Desert Arts COuncil; Sister Catherine Hellmann, who moved to Bend from Indiana in 1928 as a surgical nurse and retired in 1989 as chief executive officer of the St. Charles Medical Center; and Alice Rampton, who has made two trips from her home in Corvallis to Ukraine to deliver medical and other supplies and has helped create a youth resource guide for Benton County.
Proceeds from the awards luncheon, which is open to the public, will benefit the Greater Oregon Chapter of the March of Dimes, a national, nonprofit organization dedication to preventing birth defects and reducing infant mortality.
The 19th annual White Rose Luncheon will begin at noon Friday at the Benson Hotel, 309 SW Broadway. Tickets are $60 - $75. For more information, call the March of Dimes at 503-222 9424.
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