Month: February 2023

Paint it Christmas

Posted on by egronert

Graphic of Beny

by Beny Penaloza-Betancourt, Destination Engagement Specialist, City of Woodburn

I don’t think it’s ever too early to celebrate Christmas. We can always use an excuse to share a little more joy, especially on cold winter days. In November we knew we wanted our downtown Woodburn to express that festive spirit. Every year the city hires a window painter to add some Christmas cheer to the windows downtown. This year it was up to me to go downtown and let our businesses know we were offering some free window art, Santas, snowflakes, penguins and more!

I find myself going door to door downtown a lot more than I ever expected my quiet kept self to ever do. I’m learning to enjoy meeting the people that make up the community of Woodburn. Woodburn is one of the most diverse communities in Oregon. The Latine community makes up more than 60% of the population in town and many of them have started a business in our downtown core. They own restaurants, variety stores, boot stores, a smoothie shack, cellular providers, grocery stores and more. It feels like a tiny part of Latin America landed in Oregon’s backyard.

Because of the crowd I get to meet, I find myself speaking more and more spanish. It is something special to be able to reconnect with my first language in a professional setting. I’m still not the best at communicating in Spanish, especially since we have so many Latin cultures in Woodburn, each with their own dialect and slang. I’m glad when the shop owners decide to show me some patience with speaking spanish. However sometimes they like to give me a gentle ribbing about some of my spanglish.

Being new to the community and working for the municipal government I expected to find some resistance from the community letting me in but many of the businesses have come to embrace me. I think that they appreciate having a young face with a similar cultural background being part of informing them on some of the services available to them. Sharing these resources with the community is the most rewarding part of my job. Knowing that I am helping some of these family owned businesses set themselves up for opportunities.

These mom and pop shops here in rural communities make up the lifeline of Oregon’s rural towns. So many of them help shape the character of the town. Anytime I go downtown to share some information I always find something catching my eye that I end up buying for myself. There’s always that one candy that I haven’t seen in years that I need to buy. With so many different countries being represented in our stores downtown there is always something new to learn about. At one of our Guatemalan goods market that we have near the plaza, the business owner shared some stories with me about the wonderful festivities that the Mayan communities have and why they wear the shawls full of color that they do.

I am enjoying the small town feel. The rural ecosystem is always feeding back into itself. Local dollars tend to stay local longer with everyone’s can do attitude. There often seems to be a local business for most needs. It is nice to see small shops owned by the community members instead of just long lines of large corporations running most of the commerce in an area.

It’s rewarding to play a role in sustaining the community that has developed in the downtown region of Woodburn. Being able to add a little cohesion to our window decorating downtown adds a little something for our visitors during the cold winter months. It also gives me a good chance to go down and wish people happy holidays during the holiday season.

 

Head shot of BenyAbout the author, Beny Penaloza-Betancourt: Beny is a native Oregonian coming out of Springfield and completed his studies at the University of Oregon. GO Ducks! He is proud to be the son of two immigrant parents from Mexico. Beny feels fortunate to have his education paid for through scholarships like Pathways Oregon and Diversity Excellence Scholarship, and he hopes to give back to the community of Oregon through his service and his career path of working in the public sector. His family has found a magnitude of support through different programs in their community and Beny hopes to continue with similar work to help others who find themselves in need of support and care. Beny studied Economics, Spanish and City Planning during his time at the UO. He is eager to apply what he’s learned out in the world, and he is most excited to begin engaging with the community.

Interested in gaining community and economic development experience of your own? Are you looking for a life changing experience in rural Oregon? Learn more about serving with the RARE AmeriCorps Program. Applications for Year 30 (2023-24) due April 30, 2023 by 11:59pm PDT.

Passionate About Parks: Facilitating My First Committee Meeting

Posted on by egronert

Graphic

by Julia Fox, Community Planning Consultant, City of Halsey

When I began putting out the advertisements asking for applications for the City Parks Committee, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I thought I may get most of my applications from retired folks, and that as much as I’d like their participation, parents, especially those with young children, wouldn’t apply. I didn’t think many young people my age would apply, either. My worst fear was that we wouldn’t get any applications. What I did not expect was a Park Ranger, a Park Specialist and a Nursery Manager from the USDA to apply. Two of them were only a few years older than me, and they both were parents to very young children.

Given their level of skills and expertise they brought to the table, I was both excited and a little intimidated for the first committee meeting. The mayor, a city councilor, and the city recorder also offered to join the first committee meeting.

Julia in Halsey's ParkI got to work getting everything ready for the meeting. I wanted the first meeting to be casual and relaxed, but I also didn’t want to show up empty handed. A survey I created and was busy promoting had 15 responses so far, which I added to our agenda to go over. The mayor had shared a letter he’d received from a local boy who wanted new hoops for the basketball court. I also got an email earlier in the week from a resident who was adamant about the city putting in a pickle ball court. I added their comments to the agenda as well. The evening of the first meeting soon came, and I sat in the City Hall conference room and waited for everyone to trickle in.

The energy in the room was very friendly and inviting. The counselor who came had just finished baking cookies and brought those in for everyone. We started off with introductions and discussed what everyone wanted to get out of these meetings, and what these meetings needed to accomplish so that work on the parks could begin. As I listened, I was heartened by how much everyone sitting at the table was there because they loved parks, they cared about people, and they cared about the environment.

As expected, this group of experts had questions for me that I didn’t have any answers for. How much of a budget do we already have to work with? What size grant are you going to ask for? Who will oversee all these projects? Questions I would only know the answer to further down the line when I would research cost estimates and project feasibility. I was glad I had a few city staff in my corner to help explain the planning process.

We finished going over all the items on the agenda, and I adjourned the meeting with a homework assignment for each committee member to send me a wishlist of everything they wanted for the city’s parks. And with that, everyone began trickling out of the conference room, and I could pat myself on the back for just facilitating my first committee meeting. I admired the dedication it took for these committee members who made time out of their busy lives to participate in something like this. I was also glad that my work allowed for something like this to take place. There are passionate people who care a lot in every community. A city only needs to have the capacity to tap into them.

 

Headshot of Julia FoxAbout the author, Julia Fox: Julia moved to Oregon from Texas in 2015 and has since fell in love with the state. She earned her bachelor’s degree in U.S. History from Oregon State University and obtained her master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Oregon. Her past work experience has included museum, education, and parks and recreation work. As a Community Planning Consultant, Julia will spend her service year doing community, economic, and emergency planning for the City of Halsey. Her major projects will include working with the community to design a Parks Master Plan and an Emergency Response Plan. In her free time, Julia can be found paddleboarding a scenic lake or cleaning up historic gravesites.

 

Interested in gaining community and economic development experience of your own? Are you looking for a life changing experience in rural Oregon? Learn more about serving with the RARE AmeriCorps Program. Applications for Year 30 (2023-24) due April 30, 2023 by 11:59pm PDT.