What makes us tick

Chapin Hemmingway, CKs’ resident photographer, digs into the qualities of film over digital photography in our latest blog.

With this blog post we are announcing and publishing our third Certified B-Corp and Oregon Benefit Company Annual Report. Coates Kokes is proud of its continued growth in B Corp activities, with the highlight being our renewed certification late last year. The bar keeps getting higher, and that’s as it should be.

Last year, I had a friend move to Portland from out of state, and as I was helping her settle into the local culture, she had some questions about recycling. Some of these answers were straightforward, like “what goes in the yellow bin?” But other questions I was left answering with a bit of shrillness in my voice. Because I know how to recycle, right? I recycle every day. There’s no reason for me to be this unsure about a few questions from a friend.

A year ago, when I was living and working on my mom’s new farm, I would wake up to the noises of chickens, goats and sheep welcoming the day with their cacophony. I had alfalfa hay in every single one of my jacket pockets. Never would I have imagined that in six short months I would be working on the 13th floor in downtown Portland for a communications agency. Talk about a change of scenery!

The first time my mom mentioned to me that my grandpa was an alcoholic, I was shocked. I always knew he liked to have a good time, but it took me by surprise because I was very young, and he didn’t fit my stereotypical conception of what someone going through alcoholism was like.

We all have an HIV status, regardless of who we are or where we live. And we should all be tested for HIV at least once. Yet 6 in 10 Oregonians have never been tested. In rural parts of the state, it’s even more evident there’s work left to be done to increase testing for HIV and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI).