Press
Battle Ground deputy mayor works to help homeless
Rick Bannan / rick@thereflector.com One elected member of north Clark County government is doing her part in a countywide effort to help those experiencing homelessness. On a relatively dry day in January, Battle Ground Deputy Mayor Cherish DesRochers showed off a new bathroom unit stationed at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Vancouver. “The pod,” as DesRochers has dubbed it, is more permanent than a more mobile shower trailer, but is an extension of the nonprofit’s overarching “Shower Outreach Project” or the “SOP.” The pod features a full shower, toilet and sink, which are all connected to heated plumbing. It is the latest effort by Food With Friends, a nonprofit started by DesRochers and Jamie Spinelli. Spinelli now serves as the city of Vancouver’s homelessness response coordinator. “It’s been a couple years in the making,” DesRochers said. DesRochers said she raised roughly $4,500 to buy the pod at a Portland-based auction around 2019. DesRochers said the China-made unit is intended to be at construction sites for workers. When she purchased it, the unit didn’t have plumbing or a heater for hot water. Prior to its installation at the church, the pod made several moves across Clark County while Food With Friends figured
Shower Outreach Project: filling a gap
Jonathan Haukaas/jonathan@thereflector.com In 2016, now Battle Ground City Councilor Cherish DesRochers and her friend Jamie Spinelli, a case manager at Community Service Northwest, spearheaded an outreach program in Clark County called Food with Friends with a focus on bringing food, toiletries and other supplies to the homeless. The outreach, described in simplest terms by DesRochers as a grassroots effort to fill gaps in service for the area homeless, quickly expanded and became an official nonprofit last year. Along with the street outreach, they now do volunteer screening and training for emergency shelters and run a coordinated outreach hotline. Last year they partnered with an organization based in Portland called PERIOD., which was founded in 2014 and supplies feminine hygiene product kits to girls and women in need, to provide hundreds of tampons weekly throughout the Battle Ground school district. The most recent gap they’ve discovered and are working to fill allows Clark County homeless the opportunity to shower for free — the Shower Outreach Project (SOP). “When we learned the Share House downtown was eliminating showers we knew we had to do something,” DesRochers said. They first looked into seeing if a portable shower in Portland could make a routine
Battle Ground Councilmember starts up home video project to showcase Battle Ground’s past Community is invited to submit videos
Cade Barker / cade@thereflector.com Last week, Battle Ground Councilmember Cherish DesRochers uploaded a 42-minute video from the 1998 Battle Ground Harvest Days Parade. In a matter of a day, the video gained over 1,000 views. The response it received from the community inspired DesRochers to continue searching for other old VHS videos. She invites the community to share their videos from public spaces of Battle Ground. The goal, DesRochers said, is to highlight Battle Ground’s history, see old friends and past relatives and try and find yourself in a video. When DesRochers watched the 1998 video she uploaded to YouTube, she found a would-be future member of her household just feet away from her. “So at the beginning of the video, I see something that was where my husband used to work when he was in high school, and I’m like, ‘hey, I think that’s you,’” she said. “And then we slowed it down and he’s like, ‘no, no, I don’t remember that.’ Come to find out, I was a few feet away from my husband in 1998. We didn’t know each other, but it was him. He was in the parade.” After posting her YouTube upload to Facebook, DesRochers
DesRochers announces re-election bid for Battle Ground City Council
Norman Helgason / norman@thereflector.com Councilmember Cherish DesRochers has officially announced her campaign for re-election to Position No. 6 on the Battle Ground City Council. A lifelong local and past deputy mayor, DesRochers has served on the council since her appointment in 2016. She was elected in 2017 and re-elected in 2021. “Battle Ground has been my home since 1990. I care deeply about this city — its people, its future and its unique identity,” DesRochers said in a news release. She said her platform will focus on smart, sustainable growth, revitalizing Old Town, fiscal responsibility, public safety and maintaining low taxes without sacrificing city services. In a follow-up statement, DesRochers explained that a turning point in her decision to run again was the city’s improved financial position and recent leadership changes. “After the long recovery from the 2008 recession and then the passage of the fire annexation, the city is finally in a position where we can work on projects our citizens have been asking for,” she said. “We’ve paid down our major debts and are now basically debt-free, which puts us in a strong financial position to invest directly in our community. ” She added that new city staff
BG Councilor DesRochers seeks second term
Battle Ground City Councilor Cherish DesRochers is the latest to publicly announce her intention to run in 2021 as she seeks re-election for her Position 6 seat on council.