What a great night! Together, we raised over $235,000 at the annual Iron Chef event last Saturday night, thanks to our donors. A big round of applause to the entire CRN team of the board, staff, volunteers, and supporters. Thank you!
Adam Sappington won his third – yes, third – Iron Chef title! Congratulations, Adam for working magic with three secret ingredients: cherries, Guinness, and Greek yogurt!
Adam Higgs won the People’s Choice Competition with his Louisiana Cane Syrup Cured Pork Tenderloin. Yum!
#pdxironchef was Twitter’s trending topic in Portland on Saturday night
Please join this joyous momentum and get involved in Children’s Relief Nursery. There are so many ways to be involved:
RSVP for a tour of our site to see us in action with the kids (call us at 503-595-4511)
Participate in an event committee or other special initiative (call us at 503-595-4511)
Join Young Friends of CRN (call us at 503-595-4511)
We are grateful to include you in the CRN family. Thank you for joining with us in the critical mission of preventing child abuse and neglect in Portland!
The Nursery sincerely thanks these wonderful companies who are helping to prevent child abuse every day with their gifts to our Iron Chef Event. Over the course of a year, they are supporting hundreds of children and families who are at-risk.
Julia was not excited about the impending birth of her third child. She worked hard to be a good mom, but with two special needs children and a husband forced to work incredibly long hours, she was physically and emotionally exhausted. Add to those burdens the stresses of being on the wrong side of a language barrier and barely on the right side of the poverty barrier. Plus, Julia and her husband had no family that could help out with caring for a daughter with a severe speech problem and a son with Down Syndrome.
It’s a story no less poignant for its familiarity to Children’s Relief Nursery staff. Sometimes one more stress is just one stress too many.
As soon as Julia came to Children’s Relief Nursery, she met with a bilingual case manager who steered her to available community resources and who served as her guide through the maze of social service agencies. Julia enrolled in the Latino Parent Connection and learned how to raise special needs children in a loving and structured home. Perhaps most important, Julia made friends with a network of parents facing similar issues. After her third child was born, a much more confident Julia started attending weekly parent-infant classes where she worked on forming a close bond with her new baby. We were able to form a close bond with Julia through weekly home visits. Julia’s family also received food boxes, clothing, and diapers from our donors. One of our special features is the respite care program, which lets parents like Julia drop off their children when they need to go to an appointment, run errands, or just take a break.
It’s when we can connect on multiple levels, as was the case with Julia, that the stresses that interfere with a normal life can be reduced. Most important, it makes for a safer, stronger family.
*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of our clients
Throughout the month of April, we are spreading awareness about child abuse and neglect. Please join and support CRN in the following ways:
• Make a gift to support keeping kids safe
• Host a fundraising event in your home
• Visit one of these local businesses who will send us a portion of sales (view the calendar of events)
• Volunteer at Children’s Relief Nursery
• Donate a Family Support Package to help struggling families
To learn more about these activities, please call Flavia at 503-595-4511 or email her to learn more. Thank you for your support!
The 3rd annual Iron Bartender event on February 10th was a huge success! Together, over 350 CRN friends raised over $25,000 to keep children safe from abuse and neglect. We increased what we raised last year by an incredible 25%!
Thank you to all of our wonderful CRN supporters and friends who made the event successful on behalf of kids and their struggling families.
Congratulations to Brandon Wise from Irving Street Kitchen for winning both the People’s Choice competition and the Iron Bartender competition! This is a first for the Children’s Relief Nursery Iron Bartender competition.
Enormous Thanks To:
The Faye and Lucille Stewart Foundation – for sponsoring the bartending competition
Knowledge Universe – for sponsoring winning bartender Brandon Wise from Irving Street Kitchen
PacifiCorp – for sponsoring bartender Douglas Derrick from Nostrana
NW Natural – for sponsoring bartender Adam Robinson from Park Kitchen
Capital Pacific Bank – for sponsoring bartender Chino Lee from Fratelli
Organic Nation Spirits – for the delicious organic and local vodka and gin
Bon Appetit – for the wonderful catering and for judge Kirk Mustain
Deschutes Brewery – for the tasty beer
Fliptography – for giving us a great discount on those wonderful flip books
Begonia Charitable Foundation – for underwriting DJ Sacrilicious
Leisure Public House – for our competition judge, Travis Blanchette
Mint/820 – for our competition judge, Lucy Brennan
Beaker and Flask – for our competition judge, David Shenaut
Chloe Houser from PDX TV for emceeing the event
Nicole Ishida for taking fabulous photographs (view photos)
Our amazing bartenders and their respective restaurants, who donated gift certificates, time, and goods
The Iron Bartending Steering committee and other volunteers for donating hundreds of hours
Our friendly businesses in the community who gave us wine and raffle items
Our Board of Directors
Thanks to your support, hundreds of young babies and toddlers have a chance at a life free from neglect, abuse, and other trauma.
These children have a chance to grow up and be a positive addition to our community.
The board of directors is delighted to officially announce that Children’s Relief Nursery will expand services to East Portland with the opening of a satellite nursery in Fall, 2011.
The satellite nursery will meet an ever-growing need for child abuse prevention services in the eastern portion of our city. Although the Gateway community is already a hub for services for at-risk families, there is an increased need for child abuse prevention services, as well as a specialization in the birth to 3 age range.
The expansion is possible through a three-year $300,000 “challenge grant” from the Portland Children’s Levy Leverage Fund which required that organizations match public dollars with private ones. Last month, those matching dollars were secured from two other major funding partners: the M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust, at $230,000 and The Collins Foundation, at $120,000.
This project is the realization of a long-held vision of our founding board – to expand services to other parts of the Metro area and bring much-needed support and hope to young children and families.
Children’s Relief Nursery continues to be dedicated to keeping children safe and families strong. For nearly a decade, we have been working with families at risk for child abuse and neglect, incorporating wrap-around services that include parenting education, small-group classrooms for children, respite childcare, mental health therapy and home visits. This new investment in CRN builds healthy relationships between parents and their children and encourages infants and toddlers to overcome trauma-induced delays and form close relationships.
We thank our donors, friends, and supporters for helping us build Children’s Relief Nursery into what we are today: an organization with a strong reputation for providing high quality early intervention services to vulnerable families in Portland. We wouldn’t be here without you!
At the end of September, Karin Peers, CRN Program Services Director, was the featured speaker at the OHSU Pediatric Grand Rounds. Thank you to Board Member Dr. Miles Ellenby for making this opportunity possible. Watch the video now!
The OHSU presentation is a wonderful and insightful briefing on our work. Karin provides an in-depth view of the mental health services we’re providing and the history and rationale leading up to this critical work for our community.
What a great night! Together, we raised over $235,000 at the annual Iron Chef event last Saturday night, thanks to our donors. A big round of applause to the entire CRN team of the board, staff, volunteers, and supporters. Thank you!
Julia was not excited about the impending birth of her third child. She worked hard to be a good mom, but with two special needs children and a husband forced to work incredibly long hours, she was physically and emotionally exhausted. Add to those burdens the stresses of being on the wrong side of a language barrier and barely on the right side of the poverty barrier. Plus, Julia and her husband had no family that could help out with caring for a daughter with a severe speech problem and a son with Down Syndrome.
The 
At the end of September, Karin Peers, 
