PARTNERS Promoting Athena group meets on the last Monday evening of each month at City Hall at 7 pm.
All are welcome to attend and become involved. Volunteers from the PARTNERS group have rallied to repair the upper storey windows in the Post Office building and to assist other Main Street building owners/occupants to update facades. Other activities include new benches positioned along Main Street, light poles, banners for special events such as Hodaka Days, and advisory workshops about repairing brickwork. "Memory pavers" have been sold to raise some of the funding. PARTNERS also purchased the seasonal and holiday banners used periodically in the downtown area. PARTNERS assisted by City Hall helped to get business and attraction signs on highway 11 alerting travelers to amenities and services. To get on the mailing list to receive minutes, announcements, and confirmation of meeting times, contact City Hall at 566-3862.

Active PARTNER members include Ken Bjorklund (chr), Dennis Jones, Jean Forsyth, Marie McMillan, Nancy Parker, Dick Roscoe, Irene Boatright, Dorothy Bjorklund, and Terry Schmidtgall. ANYONE IS WELCOME TO COME AND GET INVOLVED!! Several other community people and business representatives participate on specific projects. A spin-off committee from PARTNERS is the GEM THEATER group which is hard at work to clean out and renovate the old movie theater building, donated to the City by its previous owner. That group includes Rob MacIntyre, Gary Betts, Sam Pambrun, and Carol Speed -- contact any of them for more information.




The Athena Chamber of Commerce meets on the third Thursday of the month at 7 am at the Doubletree Cafe for a no-host breakfast. Chamber membership is open to all business owners and staff, as well as to interested individuals. All are welcome to attend meetings. Active members include Dennis Jones, David Lynde, Nancy Parker, Helen Miller, Irene Boatright, Faye Case, Dorothy and Ken Bjorklund, John Bjorklund, Dick Roscoe, Jean Forsyth, and others. Contact any of them for more information. The Chamber sponsors the summertime awards for Yard of the Month and the December awards for holiday decorated homes and businesses, as well as the Main Street fall festival on the first Saturday in October. Each year, the Chamber solicits nominations for Citizen of the Year and celebrates the winners at a January community banquet. Pictures of past winners are displayed at the Chamber's office in Timeless Treasures store on Main Street.




Sunset Housing

Sunset Housing group has completed its housing unit complex. Information about the availability of rentals should be directed to complex manager Judy Garcia at the complex during office hours, or to Nancy Parker at the US Bank.


The Athena Public Library has two local citizen groups associated with it. The Library Board is the city-authorized group handling policy recommendations and general oversight of the library. A second group, Athena Library Friends Association [ALFA], is an autonomous non-profit organization. Its main mission is to plan and raise funds to get a much needed larger library facility. Secondarily, ALFA works to broaden library resources and programs to more fully serve the community. The Athena Library is part of the Umatilla County Special Library District, a consortium of a dozen libraries throughout the county. The librarian is a city employee but the main source of funding for the library's budget come via the library district, supplemented by the city and other grants and awards.




Other organizations in Athena include a full spectrum:





Many organizations described on this page use the energies and time of volunteers. If you have an interest in contributing to your community, please check out some of the many opportunities for service (and fun!!) with one of these groups. To find out more, attend a meeting or check with the library or City Hall or the Chamber of Commerce office; any of those will put you in touch with people in the organization you want to join. The schools are another most rewarding avenue for volunteers. Another challenging opportunity would be to run for office (City Council) or submit application to a city committee or commission. Slots usually open annually on the Planning Commission and the Budget Committee.



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