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Due to inclement weather, Meyer Memorial Trust will open at 10 a.m. today, Wednesday, January 18. Check this space for further updates. Be careful out there!

If you happened into downtown Portland last Saturday, chances are you ran into Santa (photo at right). Not once, not twice, but hundreds of times. When it comes to SantaCon, Portland represents. Well, not as much as Moscow, where a reported 70,000 Santas took to the streets a few years ago.

It's December and we have sun! And quite a bit of news. But have you noticed the bark on trees lately? When did you last read a story of fantastic economic development success in rural communities? And then there's the sidewalks...

This month Meyer Memorial Trust awarded more than $7 million to 21 nonprofit organizations across Oregon. Most of the awards were grants totaling $3.925 million, while two were program-related investment loans amounting to $3.094 million.

At the October 2011 program meeting, Meyer Memorial Trust's trustees awarded nearly $3.25 million in grants to 64 nonprofit organizations across Oregon. These awards bring the total since MMT began operating in 1982 to 6,637 for more than $543 million.

At our September program meeeting, MMT trustees awarded 19 grants for more than $3.1 million dollars to nonprofit organizations across Oregon.Eight of the awards worth nearly $1.8 million went to arts and culture organizations in Portland (7) and Eugene (1). We have been grouping consideration of support to Portland area large budget arts organizations since 2009 to help them achieve financial stability (read more about this practice here).

In this issue we take you from farm fresh berries to promising grants to talented winnners to fishing and measuring and reading. And put an urban legend to rest. Check it out:http://www.mmt.org/news/berries-winners-fishing-reading

This month Meyer Memorial Trust trustees awarded 11 grants for more than $1.6 million to a wide array of nonprofit organizations across Oregon, from Lincoln City on the Oregon coast to Ontario, located on the Oregon-Idaho border.

This month Meyer Memorial Trust made 80 awards for more than $3.4 million to nonprofit organizations in Oregon and Clark County, Washington. More than three-fourths of the grants (and just over $1 million) were made under MMT's Grassroots Grants program, which provides key support to projects important to smaller nonprofits and/or communities.These awards bring the total amount funded by MMT since it began operating in 1982 to nearly $535 million.All June awards are listed below, grouped by funding program:

I have a feeling many of us have spent a lot more time indoors than we hoped as we slogged our way through this exceedingly long and cold and wet spring. Maybe you've found solace in front of a sun lamp, maybe you've energized yourself with extra cups of coffee, maybe you've cultivated that hobby you've been eyeing for a while.

Yes, April is still bringing us showers, but I'm calling them enchanted, not only because of the petals on pathways, but because I have learned that La Niña is fading into the sunset. I'm referring, of course, to the colder than normal temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean waters that have shifted the Pacific Northwest into