Tigard woman takes her compassion for homeless to the streets

By Barbara Sherman

The Times, Nov 22, 2009, Updated Nov 24, 2009

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Homeless people have a friend in Mary Downer, who works by day as a dental assistant at Apple Tree Dentistry in King City and on weekends as a one-person rolling soup kitchen under bridges in Portland.

She can be found most weekends on the streets of downtown Portland, handing out hot beverages to homeless people to brighten their day and to let them know that someone cares about them.

This is a rather unusual way for a young person to spend her days off, but Downer, who graduated from high school in 2003, is on a mission to make a difference in people’s lives.

Downer, who lives in Tigard, has been the beneficiary of other people’s goodwill when she needed it, and she wants to return the favor. She started cleaning the office of Dr. Toivo Sepp in 2002 while still in high school and started working in his Apple Tree Dentistry office two days after she graduated.

She got her state certificate to be a dental assistant in 2005, and two years after that, a life-changing event happened to her.

Downer was in the Tualatin Fred Meyer parking lot and noticed an elderly woman sitting in a car, but her purse and keys were on the pavement outside the vehicle.

“It was two weeks before Christmas, and people were walking by and not paying any attention,” Downer said. “My antenna went up. I knocked on the door and handed her the purse and keys and asked if she was OK.”

When the woman replied in the affirmative, Downer went into the store and told an employee about it. She learned later that the employee had done nothing about it, and when Downer went back outside, she got into the car with the woman.

“I had her try to put her gloves on, and she couldn’t,” Downer said. “She didn’t know her name.”

Downer got the woman’s cell phone and called the last number on it, which turned out to be the woman’s son.

An ambulance was called to take the woman to a hospital, and her granddaughters came and took her purse. The 86-year-old woman had had multiple strokes.

Downer called the hospital the next day to check on the woman; her family was with her and passed the phone around so they could all thank the Good Samaritan.

After the woman recovered, she took Downer out to lunch and gave her a $500 Fred Meyer gift certificate.

Instead of thinking how she could spend it on herself, Downer immediately thought of how many people she could help with that money.

“I was excited,” she said. “I knew I could buy things I needed to help the homeless. I went to the store and bought two carafes, packages of hot chocolate and Cup Noodles, Styrofoam cups, socks, hats and gloves.”

Downer said that she did it because she feels an affinity with the homeless.

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