Peaches Youngerman’s first Lions Club meeting was in Portland’s northeast Hollywood neighborhood in October 2017. Her boyfriend, Mel, was her sponsor.
After joining the Lions that night, Peaches became a greeter at the Hollywood Farmers Market every Sunday. She made friends with the Lions Club members, joined their Monte Carlo bowling tournament and won the raffle. She and Mel got Popeye’s chicken with the winnings.
“Mel got me involved in a lot of things,” she said.
But about a year later, Mel died of cancer. Peaches has continued the work on her own.
She worked with the Street Roots staff to spearhead a Lions project to assemble survival kits – comb, hair tie, bandages, wipes, toothpaste, toothbrush, in the trademark Lions glasses cases – to donate to Street Roots. She goes to monthly Lions Club meetings. Every month, she gives $10 to the Oregon Lions Sight and Hearing Foundation.
“I made a promise to Mel before he passed away. No matter what happens to you, I’m going to keep your goals going. Where there’s a Lion, we serve,” she said.
“He wouldn’t want me to sit back and be sad.”
She’s a one-person entertainment committee, keeping a scrapbook of Lions Club events and rallying the crowd when Street Roots vendors march in the Portland Veterans Day Parade, the Starlight Parade and the Portland Pride Parade.
“I get them involved in doing the chant, ‘Hey, Street Roots. Hey, join! I can’t HEAR YOU. Give me an S,’” she cheered.
She’s recruited her father to join the Lions and her grandkids as “Little Leos.” When she visits her grandkids in Ohio this summer, she has a Lions pin for her 4-month-old grandson. The 5-year-old granddaughter already has hers.
She delights the kids with her spot-on mimic of Donald Duck’s voice.
“My niece always asks me to talk like Donald. She calls me Aunt Donald. And I ask her, ‘How can I be Aunt Donald? Donald Duck’s a boy.’ So she calls me Aunt and Uncle Donald.” Peaches laughed.
“You can always count on Peaches for the entertainment,” she said.
Peaches has more plans for ways to bring the Lions Club and Street Roots together. She’s lobbying to get some Street Roots vendors in this year’s Monte Carlo bowling tournament at KingPins Family Entertainment Center on Northeast Powell Boulevard. And she wants to organize another donation next Christmas.
The connection is a natural, she said. “There’s a lot of vets in the Lions, just like there are in Street Roots. And there’s so many activities that Street Roots does. You make connections with people.”
While Peaches’ regular Street Roots post is Southwest 12th Avenue and Washington Street, she recounts one day clowning with another vendor, her friend Andy, at his post at the Safeway on Southwest Jefferson Street.
“Andy’s passed now, but I remember one day he dared me to go on the street in front of the Safeway and make a snow angel. So I did, and they started calling us the Street Roots Daredevils,” she said.
Later, one of Andy’s regular customers who remembered the Daredevils gave her a big tip for a newspaper. “Be sure and give half to Andy,” he told her.
She told him that Andy had passed away. “But he still gives me something for Andy when I see him, she said.”
Peaches has been homeless off and on in recent years, but today she feels blessed to share an apartment on Portland’s east side. And she has a new boyfriend in her life.
But she hasn’t forgotten Mel. She read a poem about their relationship, “The Day You Took Me Home,” at a Street Roots poetry reading. Some of the Street Roots staff were in tears.
“I’m a fighter. I’m not a quitter,” she said. “Even though I may be sad or down, I always keep a smile. We’re all being put to trials and tribulations. God isn’t going to put you through anything you can’t handle.
“One of these days I’m going to be like Mel. I’m going to be known in this community – on billboards. Everybody’s going to know Peaches.”
In addition to her post on Southwest Washington, you can also find Peaches selling papers near her home on Southeast 162nd Avenue and East Burnside Street.