"Regrow Cascadia" Soccer Clubs in the PNW Give Back
On September 6, 2020, the weather app showed that there was going to be a severe wind storm on the following date and some suspected it might be problematic. Oregon and Washington were already in the midst of a rather dry and hot late summer / early autumn, with temperatures in the high 80s and into the 90s the conditions were just right for something terrible to happen. There were already fires, started by lightening or your typical human ignorance, and in some cases, it can take weeks or even a month for firefighters to contain these.
On the night of September 7th, when power lines were knocked down and transformers popped, several more blazes began; some combined with existing wildfires, while some started all new puzzles for already-stretched fire departments to solve. The fires, which started on September 7th and 8th, destroyed over 724,000 acres in Oregon alone and as recently as November 1st, a few are still listed as not 100% contained. “In Washington, more acres had been burned in 2020 than in the past 12 fire seasons,” with 713,000 acres destroyed in the great state of Washington – the combined devastation in the Pacific Northwest nears 1.5 million acres with hundreds of homes destroyed and tens of thousands of people displaced.
Wildfires in Oregon and Washington destroyed nearly 1.5 million acres of forest land and engulfed entire communities
Within days of the fires, a handful of soccer clubs in the Pacific Northwest, colloquially and reverentially referred to as Cascadia, put their heads together and decided to raise some money to donate to recovery efforts. With so many fires: Echo Mountain, Chehalem Bald-Peak, Riverside, Almeda Drive, Archie Creek, Evans Canyon, Cold Springs Canyon, Pearl Hill and so on… It was hard to decide on a single organization to donate to which would benefit all of the communities affected throughout the region. So, the clubs involved; AC Chehalem Valley, CFC Atletica/Timbers U23s, Lane United FC, Oly Town Artesians, PDX FC, and Snohomish County Football Club agreed to the plan to sell a charitable patch and sticker set independently then donate local, respective to their location.
Calyx Design of Portland volunteered their expertise and collaborated with the clubs to craft an image with both unifies the clubs’ intents but allows them to each have representation within the design. The Pinecone is a seed and the implies ability grow again – while each scale on the pinecone is colored to represent the clubs who make up the soccer community from the top of Washington to the bottom of Oregon. The mice peeking out of the Doug Fir pinecones are a callback to a local lore; when once upon a time, there was a mighty forest fire and the Fir agreed to allow the mice to find safety from the fire in its branches and cones. Patchmarks, also out of Portland, ensured the patches could be made to specs and at an expedited speed to get them out to Cascadians who decided to pre-order. These beauties are out now, and have begun to ship to those who put a little money on the line while they waited. There were only 240 total patches made and after costs are covered the clubs look to generate at least $1200 to charity – each club responsible for choosing a charity close their community to donate to.
There are a few left for each club and below we’ve listed their respective location and a link to buy:
AC Chehalem Valley – McMinnville / Newberg, Oregon
CFC Atletica / Timbers U23s – Salem, Oregon
Lane United FC – Eugene / Springfield, Oregon
The communities of Talent, and Phoenix, Oregon were completely destroyed