July 2005

MCC donates money, time to Molalla

By Jerry Raehal

Molalla Pioneer

Michael East's eyebrow raised, and he paused after the question.

"How did you hear about that?"

That was his reaction when first asked about the 40-plus bricks purchased for the Justin Hobart Locker Room Fund in the names of Molalla Communications employees.

Given the frequency MCC donates money, the reaction was not what one would expect. East, MCC's CEO and President, said the brick donation was special to him.

After having board approval to donate $5,000 to the fund, he wanted to further recognize the members of the Co-op company.

"The $5,000 was a nice gesture," said the locker room fundraising coordinator Dennis Wise. "The pride part of it came back when he heard about the bricks. He said, 'Without our individual employees, we wouldn't be where we are at. So I just want to recognize each individual person and what ever they want to put on the brick (they can).' For $50 per person, that really hit home."

MCC donates on average $12,000-$20,000 per year to the Molalla community via its Education and Economic Development Fund.

Last year, those funds translated into new uniforms for the Molalla High School girls basketball team, donations to help Molalla RiverWatch with river cleanups, and a $15,000 grant for TEAMolalla.

This year, $15,000 helped pay for batting cages and $750 went to the Relay for Life. MCC sponsored the Chamber of Commerce Golf Tournament, and helped fund the Molalla Community Theater's, "A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum."

"The ticket prices for that were $6, and the ticket prices don't cover it," said East of the play. "But it's important to have activities to go do, and go see some of the arts. We donated some funds to help make that possible to the community."

MCC also helps pick up the slack when the city of Molalla can no longer budget programs into its finances, such as Meals on Wheels.

"I think they've touched almost every aspect of our community," City Manager Gene Green said."...When there is a need, if they can help fill that need, they will."

MCC Marketing Supervisor, Chris Michalopoulos points out it's not just money that is donated, but employee's time. Gearing up for projects like MCC Customer Appreciation Day or the upcoming Thanksgiving Feast, "we are working nights and getting here at 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning, preparing for something like that," said Michalopoulos. "But that's fun."

"I don't even view it as work," added East. "That's the best part of the job, but it does take quite a bit of time for all of our staff."

MCC's Donation Pool

Plenty sing the praise of MCC's giving ways, but some do object.

"The reaction normally during events is positive," East said. "...That's not to say that we don't get the one or two people who think that it is inappropriate to donate cooperative dollars to the community, I think a lot of that is due to lack of understanding. They believe (less money for donations) translates into lowering their bill.

"The two are mutally exclusive. I am hoping to clear up that (misunderstanding). This doesn't translate into your phone bill at all."

As a cooperative, MCC has profits every year, East explained, and the profits get reallocated back to the members at some future point.

There are people slated to receive profits but who MCC cannot find, often because they have moved out of town and not kept MCC current on their forwarding address. For the people MCC cannot find, those funds go through a forfeiture process.

"That's where we put their name in the paper ( in the legals) for months, and we try to locate those people," East said. "After that process, there are still people that we cannot find. If we cannot find them, then those dollars are forfeited back to the cooperative, and it goes back into the Education and Economic Development Fund. That's how we fund the community events."

Money raised each year by the fund "varies," said East. "It varies on the forfeiture, and it varies all over the place. It just depends on the membership."

The money in the fund is earmarked for the community development," East said. "There is not one favorite (thing to donate to) versus another one. Lately the funding has been on youth sports, and I think that is reflective inside the state of schools."

Anther option MCC could do with the unclaimed profits is turn it over to the state of Oregon, according to East.

"That doesn't really help our community at all, so we would rather donate it to the community," he said.