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.