The Elgin Station Brings the Community Together to Help Those in Need
By Garrett Christensen on Wednesday, December 28th, 2022 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
ELGIN – A common observation of small towns is that their communities are often tight–knit and quick to support one another. Everybody knows somebody that is in need of help or is willing to help someone else, especially during the holiday season. One local business, however, goes above neighborly niceties each year and brings their community together to give those in need a proper Christmas.
For four years, The Elgin Station Grill & Bar has hosted an annual holiday raffle to raise money for local families during Christmas. Overseen by Brothers Phil and Randy Smith, who purchased the restaurant in 2019, the raffle started out as nothing more than a community gift basket but has since expanded to have supporters from across the state of Oregon and see thousands of dollars reach those in need each Christmas. As commented by Phil:
“It’s something we’ve been doing every year. It seems to be growing…It’s a small town. We came to town, me and my brother, three and a half years ago. Our goal was to become part of the community. We do a lot of stuff. We like to help the community…One of our biggest things is the Christmas raffle.”
The raffle works by primarily offering several firearms purchased from a local company by friends of The Elgin Station, Rayhan Higgins and Ed Sharp Systems, along with an outdoor gear package and rifle scopes provided by another business. The raffle usually begins either near the end of September or in Early October.
Once money has been raised from ticket sales, several families from the Elgin area are selected based on feedback from the school district and local police department. Care is taken to ensure recipients are those in genuine need of help and are not involved in anything nefarious. As Phil commented, “It’s really important to us that we’re helping families that need a hand up, not a handout and that they’re not involved in illegal activities.”
When it comes to donations for those families, Elgin Station staff generally purchase five hundred dollars’ worth of gifts for each child in the families being helped, though this is sometimes slightly less depending on how many are in each family. The remaining money is split between all the families and given to them directly. In addition, a box of meat provided by another partnered business and loads of firewood from some Elgin residents are given to each family. All money from the event goes to the recipients either directly or through gifts, with none being kept to cover expenses.
This is just the basics though, as the raffle means a lot more to the community than just some convenient cash and care packages. The event has continued to expand in scope and success each year as more and more donors have become involved, bringing brighter and happier Christmas’s to local families each time around. As noted by Phil:
“The first year we started out with a little over three thousand dollars, the second year we got four thousand and the third year we got sixty-seven hundred. We started six weeks late this year and we were able to raise eight thousand, three hundred dollars. We were able to help two families with three thousand six hundred and fifty dollars each. They both got five hundred dollars’ worth of gifts for their children, then of course the meat and wood.”
As an aside, since the two primary families didn’t have wood stoves, the wood was instead donated, along with another meat box, to a local senior family. On the subject of local donations, it’s also not just local donors helping the raffle grow, though that is a major piece of it. Donations come from as far as northwest Oregon in large part thanks to the efforts and connections of the local contributors. As Phil further described:
“Rayhan Higgins runs a fishing boat out of Astoria. He just sat here for two days calling all his friends, his clients. The sheriff’s department over there are good friends with him, so are the police department, they bought over two thousand dollars in two days over in Astoria. We’ve had people call in from Salem, from all over the state that purchase tickets that just hear about it. It’s the state of Oregon. It’s a lot of people and this little town here really pitches in with all the ranchers and farmers around.”
And pitch in they do. Though The Elgin Station started and continues to operate the raffle, it is still undoubtedly a home-grown effort, spurred by the wish that no one be left destitute, especially on Christmas. In a way, the Elgin Station and their efforts serve as a form of rally point for the community, not only providing monetary support, but letting people know that the community is there for them. During one of this year’s donations, described by Phil:
“I don’t know if you’ve seen the video of the grandma and her little girl, but I’ll tell you, it brings a tear to your eye. They didn’t think they were going to get a Christmas. Her daughter died just last year. She took on her grandchild and she was struggling; didn’t know how she was going to have Christmas. We didn’t know that, how bad it was, until we got there. She goes, ‘yeah we didn’t think we were going to have Christmas,’ and we’re like ‘yeah, well now you are.’”
For those interested in supporting the raffle next year, they can stop by the restaurant or call them at 541-437-0100 to arrange donations. The Elgin Station is located at 52 North 8th Street, Elgin, OR. For those that would like to donate to the families but are not interested in the raffle prizes, direct cash donations are accepted when the raffle is running. Videos of the donation deliveries can be viewed on their Facebook page at (10) Elgin Station Grill & Bar | Elgin OR | Facebook. Note that firearm winners will need to pass a background check with the original provider of the before they can receive their prizes. As a final Note from Phil:“I just want to be clear that the community pitched in and made this happen, it wasn’t just us. We started it, but it’s become a full community thing. I want the community to know that we appreciate them, we care, and appreciate the people that are able to help.”
