TWST Blog

Our last stop on the Southern Oregon Coast Tour was Brookings, the “Home of Winter Flowers,” just north of the California border.

The meeting room at the Chetco Community Public Library provided the perfect venue for the higher-than-expected turnout of almost 30 people, which surprised our host, Renee Brooks, board member of the Curry County Children and Families Commission, and provided us with lively conversation from a community benefiting from a strong core of volunteers, both long-time residents and new arrivals. Several of the area’s nonprofits straddle both states, covering Curry and Del Norte counties. We even hosted the local reporter from the Curry Coastal Pilot, which will assure us all much future fame and fortune!

We had strong attendance at this meeting from representatives of the area’s educational institutions, from individual public schools, the school district, a charter school, as well as the local high school’s ASPIRE program, which seeks to prepare students to attend college. As Meyer doesn’t fund single school projects per se, we discussed what we do fund--projects specifically targeted to special need and/or high need populations and district-wide projects that provide enriched services to students. This strong showing from educational organizations, both paid staff and volunteers, tells us that this community really values its youth. One teacher even showed up very briefly (and slightly out of breath) between her classes to introduce herself and her project to provide support services for struggling students. Now that’s dedication!

We heard again about the overarching issue of health care access, even for those who have health insurance. The lack of available medical providers makes health care access much more than an income issue for smaller rural communities. Most of the few existing providers are not taking new patients, and even if you have a provider, the wait for an appointment can stretch up to six months. We also heard again about the need for workforce housing in addition to the need for low-income housing. Those making middle-class wages still struggle to afford rents in the area and can’t even begin to consider purchasing a house.

We fielded a lot of questions about how small, volunteer-run organizations fit into Meyer’s giving preferences: Do we look at these small organizations in the same way we look at larger, staff-run organizations? This topic led to a discussion of the importance of board development regardless of the size of your organization and a principle area Meyer will look at no matter how big an organization is. Do board members understand their roles? Are they so busy volunteering to run the organization that they’re not spending enough time as a group planning for and overseeing the work of the organization to meet its mission?

Gerry Livingston from the Wild Rivers Community Foundation, which serves Curry and Del Norte counties, expressed strong interest in partnering with MMT and other foundations to provide more technical assistance to local nonprofit organizations, and they will be developing a resource lending library similar to the one provided by Ford Family Foundation. This gave us another chance to plug our new colleague, Barbara Bauder from Oregon Community Foundation’s new Coos Bay office. In fact, this group was quite interested in networking with each other to the point of orchestrating a five-minute break so they could connect the dots among their organizations (and eat a few of those delicious muffins). Some of the networking lasted well beyond the conclusion of the meeting, reinforcing to us that the real power and knowledge lies inside communities themselves, and sometimes they just need an assist in gathering themselves together in one place long enough to connect.

Our last stop before the long drive back to Portland (in the brilliant sunshine—and just so you know, it’s raining again in Portland) was for a delicious lunch at Rancho Viejo Mexican Restaurant. Almost made us not want to leave...so that means we will be back!

Signing off for now,

Sally and Kim

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