Oregon Retired Educators Association (REA)
The Oregon Retired Educators Association (OREA) is open to people who have been connected with the school system in some capacity, not only as teachers but aides in the classroom, administrators, bus drivers, school secretaries, custodians, and cooks in school cafeterias. Membership is open to people who have an interest in the education of children.
State dues are $15 per year. Our newsletter, "The Chalkboard" is published twice a year, in March and in October.
OREA has 17 local units across the state and approximately 700 members statewide. Each year a state convention is held providing an opportunity for a large number of our members from across the state to network with one another.
We have one major youth activity in which members from every OREA unit are encouraged to participate called "Start Making A Reader Today" (SMART). The SMART program is a literacy initiative for students above third grade. Many OREA members also volunteer to work with youth and are of service to their community in a variety of ways. Each year OREA tallies the number of volunteer hours provided by our members — in 2004, 98,414 hours of service were given by our members.
In addition to our long-standing practice of awarding $2000 to three gerontology students, many units also give scholarships to students that intend to become teachers. Additionally there are a number of new awards offered this year for OREA members in recognition of outstanding individual and unit efforts:
- Golden Apple Award – a unit award for the most volunteer hours aimed toward literacy in Oregon
- Grand Prix Award – a unit award for re-activating or starting a new unit
- Golden Hand Award – a unit award for the most volunteer hours
- Dorothy Throne Award – a unit award for the largest percentage increase in membership
- Bell Ringer Award – a unit award for an outstanding community service project
- Appreciate Award – an individual award for service to OREA at the state level
- Silver Star Award – an individual award for recruiting five or more members
- Volunteer Award – an individual award given the person from each unit with the most volunteer hours
The current OREA State Officers are:
President – Margaret Dutton
First Vice President – Glenna Sams – gmslr@eoni.com
For more information about OREA, contact Margaret Dutton at margaretdutton@hotmail.com.
