LES 2020-2021 Graduates Present Final Group Projects
Leadership Eugene-Springfield is reflected in its goal to create knowledgeable, networked, skilled, involved and passionate leaders who will advocate for and represent the community as whole, value the interaction of government, business and charitable institutions in creating a healthy Eugene/Springfield economy, and become involved in creating a positive future for their community. On May 13th of this year, we were pleased to celebrate the graduation of the 2020-2021 Leadership Eugene-Springfield (LES) Cohort. Over the past 8 months, cohort members completed community projects based on what they identified as the greatest opportunities and challenges facing our community, and presented these projects during the May 13th graduation celebration. Group presentations covered topics of homelessness, COVID-19 impacts on small businesses, racial equity, and education, and how to address them in Lane County. Summaries of each project can be found below.
VIEW THE FULL 2020-2021 COHORT HERE
Group 1: Impact COVID has had on Small Business
Team Members: Danielle Thompson, Jessica Price, Kevin Walters, Mark Nystrom, Sarah Puls , Kianna Cabuco, Adam Loris
Our group knew that in one way or another, we wanted to make a positive impact on our small businesses that have been hit so hard this past year. We ultimately decided that a sector we wanted to lend our focus to were the local restaurants, who have been ordered to shut their doors, limit their capacity, and now are struggling to get workers back through their doors. With the constantly changing environment that we have been living in for the past year and a half, there were challenges when we sat down to think about how we could really make an impact on the restaurant industry. Ultimately after lots of brainstorming, we decided to implement a gift card chain. Partnering with The Hope Project, we were able to gather donations from local businesses, which we will use to purchase gift cards from a handful of BIPOC and women owned restaurants in the Eugene and Springfield area. We have chosen four nonprofit organizations, Hosea Youth Services, Bags of Love, Relief Nursery, and 15thNight, where they can either give these cards directly to those they serve, or use them for upcoming fundraising events. Although we know this project is quite small, we absolutely loved the idea that we could partner with businesses in the area looking to give back, benefit some of our local restaurants, while also serving our nonprofit organizations who have such a wide spread service area of their own.
Group 2: Homelessness
Team Members: Adam Jenkins, Audrey Stone , Jenny Freeman
In the beginning, we were all interested in how homelessness affects our community, specifically in the intersection of mental health, illicit drug abuse, and homelessness, all of which are REALLY big topics.
To figure out what exactly we wanted to do, we decided to each reach out to community organizations that are ALREADY doing work with the unhoused population in Lane County. We wanted to focus on NOT recreating the wheel, but rather tapping into agencies already doing the work and to see how we could help or what we could learn from them. We reached out to Whitebird Clinic, Eugene PD, Springfield PD, Food for Lane County, and a few other agencies.
When we heard back from Food for Lane County, we all decided that a project to help feed our unhoused population was what we wanted to do. We received information from FFLC that described some of the hurdles to feeding the unhoused population including 1) the types of donations given to food banks/ distributors, 2) the numerous agencies that could work together, and 3) the wrinkle COVID-19 presented (e.g., the need for to-go containers).
We decided on a two-fold project that 1) educated the community/ our personal networks and 2) helped connect the numerous food agencies in our community.
For 1), we decided to create an informational poster with the purpose of sharing with our personal networks and posting around town. For 2), we decided to create a food agency directory with the purpose of sharing amongst the other agencies in the community and highlighting some of the service changes due to COVID.
View Group 2’s presentation slides here.
Group 3: Racial Equity in K-12 Schools
Team Members: Antonio Huerta , Alexis Sliwinski , Candice King , Jeanette Graff , Troy Jones
This group’s project was to research what is being done in local K-12 schools to promote racial equity, and help move the needle forward. Their research approach was to reach out to Misael Flores Gutierrez, who is the Equity, Instruction, and partnerships administrator at Eugene SD 4J, and to Todd Hamilton with Springfield District #19, to set an appointment Tod discuss their process to address cultural equity and education. They connected with Maria Covernali who is a 4J District social worker who connected them with the 4J Equity Administrator.
For Action, they attended the Oregon Regional Racial Equity Meeting Hosted by the Corvallis School District. They Reached out to 4J Eugene School District’s Equity Committee and invited them to join the Oregon Regional Racial Equity Meeting. They reached out to 4J superintendent Cydney Vandercar and made connections with her to the Oregon Regional Racial Equity Committee. They attended Dr. Lake’s Weekly mentorship lunch meetup, and connected current 4J school board candidates with statewide Schoo equity professionals.
Key takeaways from the project: Promoting racial equity in schools begins with a multi-tiered understanding of the current state of affairs. To that end, much work is being done within the local school districts and the broader community to combat the incidents and impacts of systemic racism on our kids. Exploring collective identity, hiring diverse and motivated personnel at all levels, creating opportunities to obtain training, engaging with internal and community conversations, reckoning with past mistakes and taking actions to prevent repeating them. These are the fundamental inputs of promoting and creating tangible progress toward racial equity in our schools.
View Group 3’s presentation slides here.
Group 4: Hazardous Weather Shelter for Unhoused Community Members
Team Members: Jacob Painter, Jared Pruch , Jay Runte , Alli Schwartz
We began our group project with the overall goal of understanding how hazardous weather events and other disasters disproportionately impact unhoused community members. Based on recent history in Lane County, we considered disasters including wildfires, freezing temperatures, high water events, and pandemics. While COVID-19 and wildfires were on the forefront of our minds, we recognized that these were issues that were likely actively being addressed by emergency management and public health officials in our community. We toyed with doing a simulated high-water event with the Eugene and Springfield emergency response teams; however, ultimately, we decided that responses to freezing temperatures could be more easily expanded to encompass other forms of hazardous weather events.
From the point of establishing hazardous weather events as the focal point, we sought the advice of several key advisors from our community who work within our existing hazardous weather response system or support our unhoused community members in other ways. These advisors included Sarai Johnson (Lane County), Tim Black (Egan Warming Centers) and Heather Sielicki (White Bird Clinic). Through our research we found out about a program called Code Blue in Rochester, NY and a similar program in Olympia, WA. In these communities, a Code Blue activation triggers a multiparty, multi-sector response to provide shelter for unhoused individuals in times of hazardous weather. Recognizing some similarities between the Eugene/Springfield area, Olympia, and Rochester, we would start the conversation here on local implications for a program like Code Blue.
Thanks to the increasingly common use of Zoom, it was possible for us to meet with Nicholas Coulter from Person Centered Housing Options in Rochester, NY, Keylee Marineau of Thurston County Hazardous Weather Task Force in Olympia, WA, and Jim Cooper from the Olympia City Council. We opted to do a forum remotely, inviting our out-of-state guests to speak about their programs with local service providers and community members. This two-hour forum took place on May 7, 2021 from 8:30-10:30am
The goal of the forum was not to find a comprehensive answer to a problem, but rather to start the discussion with the appropriate people about some potential avenues the community could take to find those bigger answers. To achieve this, we gave space for our guest presenters to share about their programs and invited our local community members to share their thoughts in a group discussion and Q&A format. We were pleased with the level of engagement from participants; these two quotes from our key advisors are testaments to the forum’s impact:
“Wow, that was definitely quality over quantity — good group, good format, super helpful. Thank you!“
“Already have plans for following up with speakers.” – Tim Black, Egan Warming Center Coordinator
“This was one of the best forums I have ever attended. Thank you for doing this! I think it will be transformative.” – Heather Sielicki, White Bird Clinic and City of Eugene Human Rights Commission, Homelessness Work Group
A summary of the forum was shared with all attendees in the hopes that the forum sparked the start of a larger conversation about creating a community-wide mobilization in the case of a hazardous weather event, to help shelter and protect our unhoused community members.
Group 5: Impact COVID has had on K-12 Education, Specifically Around Mental Health
Team Members: Alyssa Powell, Dhruti Patel , Heather Gabbert , Malia Martin , Solange’ Mainard
Our team wanted to understand the impact the pandemic has had on the mental health and wellbeing of kids, and what each of us could do to help. We quickly learned our education system was in constant motion with ever changing rules to abide by. We interviewed organizations supporting our local school districts, parents, coaches and teachers and heard loud and clear that everyone is concerned about the emotional wellbeing of our kids and the true impact of the pandemic and a year spent a home is really unknown.
Due to many new and changing protocols to follow, organizations supporting education are generally not in need of volunteers at this time. When asked ways we could help, we learned money and awareness were key. For our project, we built a consolidated platform to share the stories we heard and provide quick access to organizations whom one could donate. We also put together a page of resources from e-books and articles to parenting tools to support mental health needs, and community organizations whom a parent, teacher or any other person can reach out to for professional or community support.
We ask you to take a few minutes to learn more about the vital organizations helping to support our youth and schools, read stories of what people have experienced throughout the pandemic, and if able, encourage you to donate to support the growing mental health needs of children in our community.
Click here to visit our project: https://bit.ly/3h8rTFq
Group 6: Racial Equity
Team Members: Siobhan Cancél, Cole Warren, Karyn Knecht, and Jessica Ubel
Our project focuses on how to create an inclusive and welcoming place for non-white people in our community. We all realized that our area is predominantly white. In addition there is a downplaying of the communities that are not white even existing in our community. Knowing this we decided to focus on improving retention by building community and providing access to local government and non profit agencies.
We seek to provide an answer the those questions like: “where do I get my hair done?” or “what store carries the ingredient for my traditional dish?”. To show that people of color are here and this is a place where you can thrive. This resource guide can be used for our current communities members and anyone who is looking to move here. This guide is meant to be a webpage where people can click on the topics within each circle and find local people and places. However with our limited funds we were not able to fully actualize the our goal for the project.
As LES is over for us, we challenge the Chambers take our project to the next step. This resource guide is made to be a fluid website where updates are made regularly. It is imperative for the resource guide to be easy to access, have relevant information and be receptive to feedback.
View Group 6’s presentation slides here.
Congratulations to all the LES 2020-2021 Graduates!
For more information on Leadership Eugene-Springfield, including how to apply for the 2021-2022 cohort,
visit www.springfield-chamber.org/leadership or contact Paige Sharpe, the Springfield Chamber’s Director of Development and Talent Initiatives (email).
