SALEM Rancher Patrick Currin didnt relish the 10 hours he spent

driving from Elgin to Salem and back June 20. But, he said, it

was worth it when he saw the reaction at the Union Gospel Mission.

You look at people when you come in and say, We have a whole beef,

and you see their faces drop, Currin said. That made it all worth

it.

Currin, an Elgin rancher, brought 265 pounds of ground beef, or

one cows worth, to the Salem homeless shelter as a donation for the

missions annual Walk for Hope.

The donation was sponsored by the Oregon Cattlemens Association,

which paid for processing the beef. The cow was donated by

Intermountain Livestock Inc., which runs the La Grande livestock yard,

and processed at cost by Staffords Custom Meats in Elgin.

Currin, co-chair of the Oregon Cattlemens Associations membership

committee, said he got the idea to donate the beef from the Baker

County Cattlemens Association, which donates beef on occasion to the

Baker School District in Eastern Oregon.

I thought it was a great idea that cattlemen were doing it for

schools, and I thought how great would it be to do it for shelters,

Currin said.

After all, Currin said, the motto of the Oregon Cattlemens

Association is cattlemen care.

The Union Gospel Missions annual 4-mile walk, scheduled for June 22,

is designed to raise awareness in the Salem community that there is no

vacation from homelessness and to raise funds for meals and care for

the homeless.

The idea, said Kyle Dickinson, vice president of advancement at the

mission, is to raise $25,000, enough to feed and house Salems

homeless population for the summer.

Funds are raised from corporate sponsors and individual donations.

About 80 people volunteer to administer the annual walk and about 320

are signed up to participate, Dickinson said.

This year, Dickinson said, the mission decided for the first time to

throw a barbecue for participants at the end of the walk.

Asked what the cattlemens donation means, he said: It is just a

huge, huge blessing for us.

Its nice that when were serving lunch for our 400 people that we

had the beef donation, Dickinson said.

The walk starts at 9:30 a.m. at the missions mens homeless shelter

in downtown Salem, 345 Commercial St. N.E., and ends at the missions

Simonka Place for Women and Children, 5119 River Road N., in Keizer.