E_Hoot_Owls

The Sunshine Division began as a Christmas distribution of holiday

food baskets and trees. Previously, the Portland police had been

collecting and distributing these items themselves, augmented by

police reserves and a group of volunteer citizens known as the

Portland Vigilance Police. With Christmas 1923 approaching, the

police asked the Hoot owls for help in securing donations and the

program, already operating the charitable Rainbow Division,

established the Sunshine

Division for that purpose.

While initially a Christmas

effort, it later grew to a

year-round enterprise.

Reports of need regularly

came in and were broadcast

on the program throughout

the year and listeners always

responded quickly and

generously. (pictured Hoot

Owls Sunshine Division,

1927)

Once, when the Hoot Owls were seeking fuel for needy families, the

Grand Scream was called to the phone during the broadcast where a

Hoot Owl listener reported: “There will be a flat car loaded with 18

cords of forest wood delivered to you in the Portland freight yard

tomorrow morning for the Hoot Owls, charges prepaid”. An appeal

for a wheel-chair brought eight wheelchairs. The program’s appeals

proved so successful that the Sunshine Division had to use a donated

warehouse to handle the volume of contributed goods.

As the Depression reached its depths, the “Hoot Owl Cannery” was

established for a week when the owner of McMinnville’s Mione

Packing Plant offered to can fruits and vegetables, which had been

donated by farmers in response to Hoot Owl appeals, without

charge. Distant Hoot Owl chapters in other cities set up efforts

similar to those in Portland and, thus, the effect of the Hoot Owls’

charitable enterprise extended broadly outside the “home roost”.

Through the Hoot

Owls’ efforts, the

Sunshine Division

became a permanent

division of the

Portland Police. As

long as they remained

on the air, the

surviving Hoot Owls

periodically rendered

fundraising assistance

to the Sunshine

Division long after the regular Hoot Owls broadcasts had ended,

(pictured, Degree Team with Portland Police, 1927)

The Sunshine Division’s structure, established through the Hoot

Owls’ efforts, endured until 1987 when the City of Portland

withdrew the cash appropriation which had provided some Police

Department staffing. Beginning in 1988, the Sunshine Division agreed

to reimburse the Police Department for the salary expense of the

department’s officer who supervised the division and established

itself as a separate non-profit corporation. Operating in coordination

with the Portland Police Department, as

of this writing the Sunshine Division

(current logo pictured) continues to run

its emergency food relief program nearly

90 years after the Hoot Owls founding

efforts, by soliciting and distributing

donations of cash, food and services

from local businesses and the public.