Each week we recognize those people and organizations in the community deserving of public praise for the good things they do to make the North Coast a better place to live, and also those who should be called out for their actions.

This week’s Shoutouts go to:

• Volunteer organizations which conducted free, open-to-the-public Thanksgiving Day dinner events for those in need. Riverfolk, the nonprofit recipient of the Safeway Turkey Bucks program, hosted a Thanksgiving Dinner at the Astoria Armory, which donated the facility for the event. In Warrenton, Thankful Hearts, a group of local families who have come together to cook and serve the community, conducted A Community Day of Thanks dinner at the Warrenton Community Center.

• The Cannery Pier Hotel, which was recently honored by Trivago.com with an award as one of America’s best properties based entirely on guest reviews. The travel website’s awards recognize the 10 best hotels in America in four different categories. The Cannery Pier Hotel was ranked No. 6 of the best 5-star hotels in the country. The list was published in mid-November by Trivago.com and its digital magazine Room5. The Langham Hotel in Chicago is the best 5-Star hotel, according to guests’ online reviews. In the 4-star category, The Oxford Hotel in Bend was ranked No. 8, and was the only other Oregon hotel to receive recognition in any of the categories.

• Columbia Memorial Hospital nurse Kendra Gohl, who was honored with a Nurse of the Year Award by the March of Dimes. It marked the second consecutive year a CMH nurse received the honor. Gohl, a certified infection preventionist, was named the 2016 Small Hospital Nurse of the Year in Oregon and Southwest Washington during an award ceremony earlier this month in Portland. In 2015, Laura Brown was named Nurse of the Year for Women’s Health.

• Clatsop County Surveyor Vance Swenson, who was named Surveyor of the Year for 2016 by the Oregon Association of County Engineers and Surveyors, a statewide professional group. Swenson was also picked to join the group’s board of directors. The professional organization promotes ethical practices in both public works professions and provides for the exchange of ideas between county engineers and surveyors from around the state. Swenson joined the county Public Works Department in 2003 was named county surveyor in 2011. The county surveyor maintains all survey records for the county, and works with private surveyors and the public to provide access to survey data.

• The annual Laundry Love event, which was conducted at the Seaside Laundromat. The event was sponsored by At the Water’s Gate and helped families in need by paying for two loads of laundry, per family, with no strings attached. Winter clothing donations were also given to those in need. Shirley Smith-Yates, one of the organizers of the event, said it “was the largest one we have ever had. The participants started showing up an hour early and we ended up using all our funding within two hours. We had 25-30 families represented at Laundry Love and we gave away mounds of clothes.”

• Dutch Bros. Coffee, which recently conducted its “Buck for Kids Day” that raised $1,566 to benefit the Astoria Food for Kids Program. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul–St. Mary Star of the Sea Conference has operated the program in the Astoria School District for children in grades K-8 during the past four years. The program provides weekend backpacks to help stop hunger for local students, with a typical backpack containing a breakfast, lunch and snacks for each day of the weekend for children in the program. Last school year the program provided 1,411 food backpacks and it is anticipated that 1,500 will be sent home this school year.

This week’s Callouts go to:

• Shoppers who don’t think of shopping local first now that the holiday shopping season is officially underway. While it’s understandable to shop out of town when an item can’t be found locally, and it’s convenient to shop online, shopping out of town or at dot com behemoths like Amazon doesn’t contribute to the health of our local economy or our coastal communities.

Suggestions?

Do you have a Shoutout or Callout you think we should know about? Let us know at news@dailyastorian.com and we’ll make sure to take a look.