Clear Lake Community Center

Welcome to the podcast of the City Club of Eugene, Oregon. The city club builds community vision through open inquiry and is dedicated to engaging the public on a wide range of topics. Coming up on this program, the people in Bethel got together and figured out what could they do with this resource that would be, make a contribution to the community. Because what they did really was sort of mind the community's best ideas and best capacities to assemble a program that served many purposes, all of them compatible with public education. We appreciate the sponsors who make our civic work possible, including Lane Community College, lanecc.edu. and the University of Oregon, u.orgon.edu. And here is your podcast episode. Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Eugene's October 24th, 2025 program, Clear Lake Community Center, a lesson in collaboration. My name is Thomas Heura. I serve as president of City Club, and I'm pleased to welcome you to another of the many forums we've held since 1990 in the name of our mission to build community vision through open inquiry. City Club is lucky to be a trusted, open, and independent voice for Eugene area community members to be heard. And as a lifelong Eugenian, I dare say the community is lucky to have the City Club and to hear from our program guests and questions from the audience, whether here in the beautiful Wow Hall, online, or over the radio. We believe these kinds of gatherings around critical community topics strengthen our understanding of one another and ultimately our ability to support the community building work in so many sectors of Eugene. In today's Fractured Information Landscape, we want to be a space where you can participate in unearthing, disseminating, and sharing relevant information in conversation together. We would love for you to browse our past programs at city club of eugene.org or our YouTube or Facebook. Please consider becoming a member if you'd like to support our rigorous volunteer work as Oregon's only city club that meets weekly. And with that, I proudly turn the mic over to the coordinator of today's program, Mary Layton. So for this purpose, I get to be called Dr. Mary Layton. So in July, I responded to an invitation from NAACP to attend an opening event of their new programs at Clear Lake Elementary School. And I thought, okay, I'm game. Let's go and see what's happening. And what I heard made me. very happy to know that in this fractured information context, we have people still talking to each other and trying to figure out what's going on. A school is a very, very, very expensive asset for the community. But because times are changing, every building as originally conceived can't work as a school anymore. It would cost more to fix it than to redo it. And so the people in Bethel...

got together and figured out what could they do with this resource that would be make a contribution to the community. Now, what the people on the platform didn't know is that in a previous life, I was an education policy researcher in Washington and did some of the seminal research on after school programs and programs collaboratively sponsored by community organizations in schools and with schools. And what we learned traveling around the country. is that the schools that collaborated with community organizations to develop programs that were compatible with the organization's general mission, Not only were they more sustainable than just random commercial operations, but they produced outcomes you could measure with a standardized test. So it doesn't happen every time. Some good ideas you can't do that. But these, every school that did this, generated improved outcomes for students. So I was really happy to hear what happened in Bethel. And so I asked these people to come and talk about that. Because what they did really was sort of mind the community's best ideas and best capacities to assemble a program that served many purposes, all of them compatible with public education. So we have here Superintendent Craig Sproles. He's the Bethel Superintendent since 2021. He has been an administrator for many years. He earned a PhD in education at the University of Oregon. Go docks me too. And he studied school conditions that encourage teachers and students to flourish by establishing strong relationships, finding their learning meaningful, and experiencing joy. Brian Hind is Bethel parent, and a member of, a joiner, a member of the boards of Bethel School District and active Bethel community. He has lived in the Bethel area for eight years, so his career sort of began as a parent, and then he started joining committees, and eventually in recent months, he was elected to the board. But he comes in as a community member actively engaged. Shelly Kay Ivey is the executive director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Emerald Valley, dedicated to enhancing community support through strategic initiatives, partnerships, and innovative programs. So here you see the theme. organizations that believe in working together sort of collective impact is how some of us call it. Dre Charles was supposed to come, but he has a competing parental duties, so he's not here today. But Craig will tell us a little bit about what NACP has been doing in the building. So we're going to start with Craig, who has the big picture.

Thank you, Mary. And what you need to know about Mary, I'm a little taller than Mary is. What you need to know about Mary is, Mary is an organizer extraordinaire. I do these types of events every once in a while, and sometimes you get an email or two with a little bit of backstory and preparedness to be ready to go. Mary is the most prepared person I've ever worked with in this sort of a setting. Mary, thank you for all the communication that you lend to us and get us ready to be able to launch. We appreciate you. So I am Craig Sproles, and I've been the Bethel superintendent for the last five years. And the work that I did in my doctorate at U of O is studying the conditions for flourishing and thriving is something that we take really, really seriously in Bethel. Part of the reason I wanted to wear this T-shirt is because our mission statement is to create relevant, responsive, and joyful school communities where all of our members thrive. So we think deeply about what are the conditions for thriving. So that's kind of the context of the story of the Clear Lake Community Center and how that story has came to be. So Bethel, like many, many school districts throughout Oregon, are experiencing declining enrollment. For a variety of reasons, housing values being one of the biggest drivers and an aging population being another one. But we have been decreasing our number of students in the district for about 15 years. It dropped precipitously during COVID. We had a slight rebound, and then we've continued to decrease. So what that means is we don't need as many schools to be able to serve our current population that we serve in Bethel. So we were going through the painful process of closing in elementary school. And as a superintendent, I can tell you it's one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do. Because an elementary school represents the heart and soul of a neighborhood. Being able to walk to your elementary school and make those connections, I remember. My own kids, I have a 25-year-old, and I distinctly remember walking him up to Llewellyn Elementary in Portland Public Schools, turning him over to Mrs. Tersey, who was our kindergarten teacher. And that is a memory that is locked in my mind forever. And that's what an elementary school functions as is in a community. So closing one is really, really difficult. So as we were going through the process of closing Clear Lake Elementary, we started the conversation about... How could this be an asset for our overall community in Bethel? that notion was exhilarated because the county, so Lane County was going out for grants with the EPA to be able to build resiliency centers across Lane County. And it would have provided seed money. Here's a cliffhanger to the end of the story. We didn't get the money. But we thought we were at that point. So it would have provided seed money for upgrades to the building and to really be able to start thinking about resilience in a holistic way.

So that's environmental resilience. But we and Bethel are thinking about relational resilience. So in a time when we feel incredibly divided as a country, but we have a neighborhood connection. There's a lot of research that if people project politics on the national level, it feels divided as ever, but I still know my neighbor. And they may be different than me. They may have a different perspective than me, but my neighbor is my neighbor. So how can we facilitate that type of resilience in Bethel using this asset of the Clear Lake, that time was the Clear Lake Elementary School? So we started bringing in community partners saying, let's have a vision that we can then make that vision turn into a reality when we actually close the school. So we brought in a lot of preschool providers because there's a child care desert throughout Lane County. And we thought, can we be a piece of that puzzle? So preschool promise, head start, early childhood cares. We brought in a lot of preschool providers. We talked to the NACP and we said, is there a piece of this that you can help us reach out to our community that might have been underserved in other ways? So the NACP came to the table. We talked to the city of Eugene. We talked to the county. We said, could you come along with us? We talked to our active Bethel neighborhood group to be able to have them come in and say, how can we make sure that this is a true approach based on the needs of Bethel? And many, many other people, 27 other people were in the room as we start talking about building a more resilient Bethel. So we met for months and months, and then with the new Trump administration, when they came into power, they backed out on the grants that we had already signed. So we have a contract signed with the federal government to be able to provide the resiliency fund, which they've failed to honor. So at that point, we had to say, okay, we no longer have the funds. Where are we? And this vision of a building more resilient Bethel stays true. It's still a need for that we had. And that endured from what could have, we could have fallen apart at that point. when we said, well, we don't have the funding source. We don't have that anymore. So let's back burner this idea. But instead, we said it's the vision and it's the community and it's the community partners around the table that are going to make the difference here. It was never the $3 million, $4 million. It's these people around the table that show up every day. That's what's going to make the difference. So we had a long-term relationship with Boys and Girls Club in the district. We had established them. So we talked to Shelley and her team about being a key partner at this new Clear Lake Community Center, NAACP moved their offices out. So now we have a presence in the front office, and that includes community-based health workers. We worked with preschool promise and moved five gorgeous classrooms in. We got a preschool revitalization grant, and the classrooms are absolutely gorgeous. So we have five classrooms there. We worked with a group.

called Honey, which is honoring our new ethnic youth, which is a group that serves primarily BIPAC staff or BIPAC students in the community. And they ran a great summer program as well. So we started to piece this together. We talked about food security and food in food insecurity. So we contracted with food for Lane County and first few at fruits. And now we're one of the largest food distribution centers in Lane County. So all of these things came together when we start thinking about how do we build a more resilient Bethel? What does this look like? So I think we're a little bit of a case study on what is possible. So taking something which is a vision. which had a lot of process time, but not stopping. Sometimes we get in our own way. We have a vision. We come out with a document. We produce a white paper, and then we hand it off, and it sits on a shelf, and that's it. What we've done with Clear Lake Community Center is we had a really strong team coming together for the vision, and then we made it happen. We closed Clear Lake as an elementary school, the third week of June. We opened it up as a community center, the fourth week of June. And the only way that happens is if we have viable partners who are willing to come to the table and a really, really committed district staff to make it happen. So I'm excited about Clear Lake. I'm excited about where we're headed and you're going to hear a little bit about the Boys and Girls Club program. You're going to hear a little bit about our ongoing connection with the neighborhood association and our commitment from our school board. But I think we're an example of possibility. We're an example of how we can knit ourselves together and pull ourselves up. And we just can't wait. I think that's the other thing that we get caught in too long. Well, let's wait to see if we get this grant. Let's wait to see if we can produce another white paper. Let's wait and see we just can't wait. So we're a possible, we are enacting what we've been talking about. So I'm, as you can tell, I'm excited about where we are and I'm also excited about where we're headed as a community because I think we're an example of possibility. So I'll turn it over to Shelley to talk a little bit about Boys and Girls Club.

Well, thank you, Craig. I'm Shelley Kay Ivey. I am the executive director for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Emerald Valley. And I'm also a Bethel parent. I've got three kiddos in the area. We have two at Meadowview and one now at Willam it. So I am also a proud Bethel parent. I had the honor of joining the Boys and Girls Club in 2020 in the middle of the pandemic when we only could really safely serve about 50 kids in the middle. So we navigated the challenges of what it would look like to run an emergency child care operation. We've had our organization of Boys and Girls Club in our community since 1999. And it's remained relatively small. But when I came on board in 2020 alongside our past leadership under Matt Sorensen, we saw that there was this huge gap with after school and summer camp programming. And what really makes our program so much different and there's such a need for is that we really try to remove those financial barriers. The true cost of running an after school program per kid is closer to 400, 450. $50 a month. But for many families, that's just completely unattainable. Myself included, I don't think I really could shell out $400 per kid for them to have a safe place to be after school while I complete my responsibilities in the workforce. And so we looked at the community and say, okay, where is the need? Where can we keep growing and scaling what we've already started at the Coleman Community Center? And we've done really well since 1999. And how can we find new partners and new facilities? to help us scale and meet the needs. And so we began a beautiful partnership with Bethel School District in 2022. And using some COVID relief dollars, we were able to say, well, let's use these funds to start a small program inside Prairie Mountain School. We could start with about 20, 30 kids, and we'd serve them Monday through Friday, 2.30 to about 6.30 p.m. And then, of course, all summer long from 8 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. Well, we quickly realized that there was a huge need in the Bethel community. We were able to grow our program and double our numbers to comfortably about 60, and we had one dedicated space inside Prairie Mountain School, which was such a gift. And we were able to use some of the gyms and the shared cafeteria. But as you know, like a shared space, there's other competing priorities. There's other groups that need to use the gym, other teachers who want to have a meeting in the cafeteria. And so when the opportunity presented itself to be part of this envisioning process of, well, what would it look like if we had a little bit more? space. How many more kids and how many more families could we serve? And so we began this conversation as a group saying, okay, well, What if we had four classrooms? What if we had five classrooms in a gym at Clear Lake that we could share with maybe two, three, four other partners instead of an entire school? And so we were really proud of our team to kind of dream what that could look like and actually just roll up their sleeves to make this move. Because moving even from one dedicated classroom at Prairie Mountain and having to take all of our stuff and then help teachers move out of this big elementary school, we're able to turn this around. very quickly. And so just like Craig said, that school closed Thursday, Friday, and by that following one week later, we opened safely for 125 kids that we can now safely and comfortably serve in this big, beautiful space. So we're continuing to try to meet those needs. And one factor that we realized is that alongside preschool POMIS, now we've got three and four-year-olds using these classroom spaces and they're now comfortable in the building. They know.

the rules, the policies, the procedures, they know how to operate in this space. And typically, Boys and Girls Club had really asked and required kids have completed kindergarten before entering our program. But then not, we quickly realized, like, there will now be this gap in services. So I worked with our team to say, how can we begin a Kinder pilot program specifically for Clear Lake? And so we're really fortunate to be able to have another classroom dedicated to that space. And this year, really proud to have launched a very small kinder program to be able to continue to ramp that up by next school year so that as these three and four year olds get bigger, they can now enter into our kinder program and then eventually enter into our entire after school program, which is now designed for first, all the way up through 12th graders. One other area that we also recognize is there's not a lot of access to opportunities for our team and tween members. And so that's another area of focus for our program, say, well, now that we have this beautiful. shared space, can we open up in the evenings for a drop in gym? Could we offer teen nights? Can we take kids off site to go to putters? Can we take them to football games? And that is a key area of what Boys and Girls Club does, is that we bring on paid mentors and we provide kids access to opportunities that they wouldn't have anywhere else. And so with this Clear Lake, we have now hired a new teen director to be able to grow and recruit and retain these tweens and teens so that we can help. kids along the spectrum all the way from sixth grade to 12th grade and help them get to cross that finish line for graduation with a plan for a future. So we already built on the work that we'd already started here in our Coleman Community Center in 1999, and it's been really amazing to come alongside Bethel School District to even grow to meet those needs further. So happy to take questions a little bit later, but I'm going to turn it over to Brian next to talk a little bit more about some of the other shared use and what else you might see in that shared community space. Thank you.

And the shortest one goes last, I think, is that's, that is on purpose. I'm glad to know I'm not used to speaking in public, so glad to know how that usually goes. So I'm Brian Hind. I would like to kind of talk about how my experiences led me to be here to discuss how I, as an active person in the community, parent of two kids, and an active Bethel community. which I'm sorry I did not wear the yellow vest Lynn. Community, yes. But also as a new school board member that just got recently sworn in, I moved here back from back about nine years ago from Springfield, living in Springfield for about five years. And I moved into the Bethel community, not necessarily because that's the area that I was looking for, but it's literally the only part of Eugene that I could afford. We have the most affordable housing in Eugene, and we have the most land for expansion that hopefully will see some new housing. I moved into Eugene because I loved what Eugene offered the community. They have lots of parks. They have the best library system I could imagine, and they have a generally good school district that I was proud to get my at that time. you know two and a half year old and a little toddler into that school system so i i move into the community but what do i find when i move into the bethel neighborhood bethel is quote unquote the wrong side of the tracks for a lot of services that eugene offers downtown university districts West Eugene the Southwest Hills and that kind of came as a shock to me but I did not know it at the time but I know I had my school system and it was still a good area and I did have lots of parks and open spaces one thing I didn't have though was a very good dedicated community center that served multiple variety of needs, that had enough space for group rentals and all that stuff. We only have Peterson Barn, which is the 1930s built house. barn, excuse me, that really doesn't have enough space, staff, timing to really accommodate any of the beautiful things that we as a Bethel community need. We have 25,000 people around about living in the Bethel area. And those people all need services. The city of Eugene does not.

provide in enough quantity. So fast forward, I live in this community. My kids eventually go to school in Bethel at Clear Lake Elementary School. And I was just, you know, trying to survive through COVID. And then, lo and behold, I get what at the time was one of the most surprising things I had heard coming from my neighbors. They are going to close my kids to school. It was a shock. My kids loved their school. They loved their teachers. I had had nothing but positive experiences throughout the school district, through that community resource of that school. And it was a shock to me. So what happens after that? I realize this. I'm upset. As a parent, of course you are. You're losing a stable part of your community. I go to the school district's open talk forum about why and what are the future steps that the school district is thinking of. And lo and behold, I sit down with Debbie Farr, another longtime school board member, and her and Craig sit down with each table of quite upset parents and discuss it. And it all makes sense. Of course, this is what has to happen. The school district is being responsible. This is just an untenable situation. We cannot keep this school open. So that kind of made me very resigned. Of course, they've got to close the school. What's going to happen next? I was happy to see that the school district wasn't just going to open it up for a private education. But what was going to happen? Well, I started going to school board meetings just by myself. trying to figure out what's going on in my kids' school district. And I found out lots. And I enjoyed going. I saw hardworking people there for the community and there for our kids. That made me want to get more interested in things. And lo and behold, active Bethel community sends out this beautiful yellow piece of paper in the mail. And they have elections coming up for their board. I'm like, well, let's see what this thing is. I've never, I don't know what's going on in my community. I, uh, I, uh,

Of course, as my wife is now used to, I say, yes, I want to be part of the active Bethel community, and I'm on their board. And I get involved through active Bethel community, through Lend, volunteering me for certain roles. And then through my work with ABC and through my continued going to school board meetings. I learned that they're going to try to turn this into something that is very important and very needed, very much needed in our community, a community center. And I get on the standing committee for its finding out how they're going to do that. It's wonderful. I get to meet all sorts of new people, new community leaders, new people that want to help our kids in our community. And next thing you know, I'm on the school board. I don't know how all this happened in, has it been a year and a half that I don't, it's all a world win. But that being said, this is something that is near and dear to me. I can't wait to see what's going to become of this. As part of Actal Bethel community, we are trying to raise awareness. We are trying to raise funds. We are trying to raise volunteers to help out this community center in whatever way that we can. We have a lot of retired people in Bethel and a lot of 55 and older communities that I know are looking to become more active in their community. And we just need to be the place and have a place for those people to come, join each other, get to know their neighbors, and become more of a part of the community. And I'm looking forward to doing that with Active Bethel. And I'm also looking forward to doing that with the school board and seeing where we can take this, what we can develop this into, and how. Bethel school district can continue to be the important member of the community out there that it is right now. So if you want to ask me questions about any opportunities for meeting space, for opportunities to volunteer, please get a hold of ABC, me, ask any questions you want about that. But I want to say, and this is probably something you will never, ever hear from a parent of kids. Thank you for closing my school down, not because he closed it, but because of what you did with it afterwards. And thank you very much. Thank you. We'll begin our Q&A quite soon. We'll have a short break before returning for questions.

Welcome back to the City Club of Eugene program about Clear Lake Community Center in Bethel School District. I'm Mary Layton, the coordinator of this program. And I'm going to open with one question based on my experience documenting successful school programs across the country. And that is, what advice would you give, based on your experience? What advice would you give to others attempting this complicated task at which you succeeded so wonderfully. Hello, I'm Shelly. Like I said, we jumped right into this, and I think I was very eager and ready in the right position to be able to make that jump because I already had my backing from my board of directors knowing that we wanted to grow. So I think for us, we were in a position to be able to do that. But I know that other partners who came to the table, they're like, I like the idea, we want to think about it, we can dream about it, but they weren't. in the right position to be able to just jump that fast. So for us, like looking back, like, I think I was ready. I could have just been like, let's go, sign me up. We get a contract. Let's go. Let's do this. But others, it just took more time to figure out whether they'd be a good fit for it. And overall, we jumped in and made it work. And the thing is, I don't think we had to have every little thing worked out before making it happen. I think that was what's so neat and amazing about our Bethel School District is we're small enough to be nimble. We have ideas and we make... it happened and it didn't have to be perfectly fleshed out. So we jumped in, we opened the building, and then we realized, oh, well, we've got to think about the front doors. We've got to think about the phones. We've got to think about shared use in locking all the spaces. But you know what? We have the right people who are poised and ready to be there and make it happen. So I think it's just finding those partners who can be nimble and just be able to figure it out, kind of build the plane while you fly it. And I just want to say, like, from my own perspective, and I'm really kind of sad and disappointed in the fact that it took me 45 years of my life before I realized that you have to be the one to step up. You don't know if anybody else is going to step up. Until you actually do it, you don't know if you're going to be able to help. So just step up, become an active person in your community, get to know your neighbors, and you will meet amazing, wonderful people that are all there to help. And that's all I have to say about that. Yeah, and I would just add, I think one of the lessons learned is it starts with community. So investing deeply in community and deeply in each other prepares you to be able to do a heavy lift and get something off the ground. And each community that wants to do this is going to be different. Like the community needs that we have in Bethel are different than the needs in other parts of Eugene, but starting deeply rooted in community. And then like Shelley said, not being scared to get out there and try it. In Bethel, we talk about this idea of getting better at getting better. So we're not going to be paralyzed because of what seems like an insurmountable thing. We're going to take that first step. And we're going to forget that somebody needs to lock the door, Clear Lake, when we first ran that thing. Should have probably thought of that. So there's parts of this that we lived into with flexibility and trying to be responsive to the needs of our community, but not to be paralyzed by a process.

that then doesn't result in action. I'm a big believer of this notion of equity in action. We talk about equity in the world. Equity in the world only happens when you show up and you try something, you learn from it, you adapt, and then you show up again tomorrow with all the integrity that you started with, and then you try something and you learn and adapt, and you show up the next day. That's how we make impact throughout the world. And if you don't show up and you don't try something, it's really, really hard to move the dial. So those things, I think, as well. Eric, thank you. Good afternoon and thank you all for being here. My name is Eric Jura. I'm on the board of ABC. I was there the other night for the open house. Great start, obviously, and of course, everybody's been in that part of town's been following it for a long time. I'm also a city club member. So you just spoke about insurmountable obstacles and jumping in and so forth. So I'll be the bad guy. I am assuming that the Bethel School District can't afford to run this operation indefinitely. You have other things, other priorities, and obviously funding is an issue and so forth. I'm also assuming that you've been thinking about next steps. And so could you maybe share a little bit about what the possibilities might be? And obviously there are many of us that would be interested in helping out, but we need to know what you're thinking about. Yeah, that's not a bad guy question. That's a question that I think about all the time. So we do happen to have a person, and she happens to be here in the audience. Mary Ford is a longtime Bethel employee, 21 years as the principal at Dana Bow, who's assumed the role of... the organizer within the community center. Because that's a missing piece that we don't have in the puzzle yet, Eric. That's exactly what we're trying to figure out is how do we have someone who can knit all of this together? I think the city has a role in this. I think the county may have a role in this. As a school district with our primary purpose of K-12 education, that's what we get paid for in the school district. We are serving a larger role than serving educational needs of our families. We are the largest food service provider. We're the largest clothing provider. We're the largest mental health provider. We run the Bethel Health Center for families and students in Belmont. So we have an expanded role in Bethel, but we need other partners to come alongside. So I think our number one need is figuring out how we can find funding and how we can find partnership for that kind of...

person or group of people to wed this all together. And then the next thing I think that we're going to need is how do we continue to grow and develop? Like the model that we created right now isn't going to continue to meet the needs of the Bethel community next year. So how can we remain nimble and flexible? There's a lot of really, really good things in Bethel. As Brian mentioned, there's also a lot of negative perceptions about Bethel. that we are actively working to counteract. And this community center is an example of how we're building on the positive. So I think continue to accelerate that. Joel Cooran, city club member, I want to congratulate you for putting this together. And I was blown away particularly by the fact that you closed on a Friday and opened the Monday following. That's just an amazing turnaround. My question is, Are you aware of any other communities that are doing the same thing? Is anything happening in Eugene and Lane County? I don't, but I think this notion of how are we repurposing schools is... For instance, Corvallis, Corvallis is going through a school consolidation process right now where they're talking about closing an elementary school and a middle school for starting next year in the Corvallis community. It's a similar-sized school district as Bethel. So... and we're in deep communication with them. I'm not sure how they're planning on repurposing those schools, but I think as an asset, across the state of Oregon, we have very high levels of decline in enrollment across the state. This isn't just a Bethel issue. This is a 4J issue as well. So thinking about what is possible, I think we're a little bit further ahead because we anticipated. this coming and try to get, not in reaction to, but try to proactively do this. So I don't know of any communities yet, but I think it's a model that could be replicated. Thank you. And I would just like to say, I sell wine for living and I deliver wine all over the coast. And I have the pleasure of going out and seeing other parts of our states and other communities out there that have had to close down schools. And unfortunately, I've seen a lot of school districts do it the old-fashioned way, which is we don't have any funds to pay for this school. We have to close it down. We don't have a plan for it. And it just sits there or it gets sold or used by partners that don't maintain it and eventually fail. So what I'm hoping to see is I'm hoping to see that this becomes a model for what communities can do with these beautiful, maybe old, maybe falling apart, but beautiful buildings that can house a lot of good.

and fix a lot of needs for the community. So I hope other communities are paying attention. And I know that Craig is a very good advocate for what he's doing. So I know they are. I'm Lynn Woodrich, and I'm the co-chair of the active Bethel community. And I know that there's one thing that we forgot to mention. was that we have a website. It's active bethelcommunity.org. And you can sign up for our email list at the bottom of the homepage. And we do spotlight all the fun things that are going on in Bethel, as well as the school district. And we're also going to have a special column for the community center when we know what exactly is going on. every month. And I do send it out every single month. So if you're interested in finding out more about Bethel and what's going on with us, please sign up for our newsletter at active bethelcommunity.org. Thank you. And we will be really trying to work with the school district with Mary Ford to get community members to volunteer and to use and to find out what happens at this community center. So please do follow us there and our Facebook page. Hi, I'm Kurt Yider, club member. First, congratulations on your successes. It's really impressive. I've, it's sort of a two-part question, long-term, not Bethelcentric, I think. One is I've always thought that one of the best successes of our country's education system was neighborhood-based schools, smaller, manageable population, whether they're geographic or serving a community. Is that still a long-term goal to have that kind of school system and scale of schools for your district? Second is something I don't understand. I understand your school, the student population has been going down. The community is getting larger. Homes are being built. Neighborhoods like mine, the residents have gone gray and my cohorts are dying out, and we're being replaced by younger families in our homes. Seems to me the long-term trend would be increased enrollment in the schools again. So getting back to community-based schools, are you precluding the ability to provide that type of service by repurposing the schools? or divesting of the land that you now have available. Thank you. That sounds like a me question. So thank you so much for that question.

So when we started the process of thinking about whether we're going to need to close in elementary school, we teamed up with a lot of partners around long range planning to look at what is happening with our declining enrollment. In Bethel, the average homeowner is 56 years old. I'm 58 years old myself. I hope to not be having to turn over my home in the next 15, 20, 30 years. And part of what happened in Bethel is a little bit unique because we had two large developments built at approximately the same time, the late 1990s, early 2000s. And those were affordable homes for Eugene when they were built. Think about the neighborhoods around Meadowview and Prairie Mountain. So those were affordable homes when they were built. And a lot of our teachers... Mary Ford that we've been talking about lives in those, live in those houses, and we'll probably stay in those houses for another 20 to 25 years. So as they start to turn over, we would expect that there will be more students coming through, but it's a pretty long lag time. What we're hoping is Bethel is on three different sides budding up against the urban growth boundary. If we can get extensions to the urban growth boundary, a community like Bethel, that's a radical transformation for a community like Bethel, to think about having new affordable homes, which can be populated by students that will come to our schools. So I think it's a couple of different things. The other thing in Lane County is the birth to death rate has flipped. So we don't have as many people being born in Lane County as we once did. And that's been on the decline as well. So there's lots of sociological trends that could be turned around. I think the important thing to remember with Clear Lake and with any other assets that we have, we still maintain them as assets within the school district. And so we still have those that could be turned around if we needed to turn them around to be able to house schools again. The other thing about the approach for neighborhood schools, one of the really interesting things in Bethel, from where my district office is, I can walk, I can be quicker walking to five different schools around because we are so geographically tight. So from Clear Lake to Dana Bow is four blocks. So when we're talking, Bethel is an interesting place because we have a really tight geographic center. And then we have a community up by Irving and Irvington up in that area on that side of the railroad tracks. It's a little sliver that is the Bethel School District as well. But most of Bethel is really tight. So we can still maintain a community school, a neighborhood school focus by being able to make the decision that we did. Oh, this is perfect, actually, with the next guess. But I do also want to say that the area that Bethel has for growth, that doesn't require growth in the urban growth boundary, is the land up to Clear Lake Road? Is right now farming land? It's, you know, or unzoned. I'm not sure. But that is the city's plan for long-term planning.

for housing developments to be there. Clear Lake Elementary would not be a good fit for those new, hopefully future communities. So the Bethel School District, I believe, does have some other property out in some of those areas that would be better suited for to keep that community school feeling. So I do really love the future of Bethel. even though right now we're still stuck in this time period of lower enrollment. I do see a bright future if the city's planning can hopefully pan out within my lifetime. which I think we're all aware of how long it takes to get planning and permitting and new developments to be built but yeah so there I do believe that there is a future where we will need another some more growth in the school district but clearly I don't think would be would have been a fit for that growth and future Fabio Andrari City Club member congratulations on opening the community center I followed some of that process so is Great to see it becoming a reality. Recently, parents in the friendly neighborhood were surprised when the school district that serves that area removed the playground. And no one knew about that, and people were not asking to help or support with maintenance or think about solutions. Looks like Bethel had a different approach. Can you talk a little bit more about community engagement and how all residents are... being involved in the process of planning for the future of the district. Thanks, Fabio. It's good to see you. Shelley, do you want to talk a little bit about participating on the visioning team? Absolutely. Well, one thing, being a longtime Bethel resident myself, I always feel like it's easy to be able to be known and be part of your neighborhood school. Again, just going back to that question, I live right next to Meadowview School. I know my neighbors, my kids go to that same school, and I love that feel. And I know that for other parents, they choose to opt into other schools in the 4J district and whatnot. But for me, being part of a tight-knit community was, it was valuable, and it's part of my kids' lived experience now. So I find that it's accessible. There's a lot of parents who are able to walk their kids into schools. I know my teachers. I have access to our superintendent if we need to call a meeting. There's something that there's. there's value there. So I felt like when we went through this process of being asked to be part of the division committee, I knew a lot of the players already at the table, whether it just be from my own personal neighborhood connections or part of my expanded role professionally as well. So it was neat to see people come together to dream a little bit, like what could be the case? What input do you have? We even asked the YMCA like,

What did it look like to go and build this big building? What did you learn in the process? What would you do differently? So I thought it was neat to see how we could ask people like, what would you have done differently if you could go back part of this process? So another part of it is that we were able to produce a survey to say, what does the community need? What do we dream? What do we want in this area of town? And so we're able to take that feedback and whittle it down a little bit. What's attainable? It wants to be shelved for a little while. So I find that if you want to be involved and you want to have a voice, it is accessible in that way. Yeah, I 100% agree with what she said there. But there is a problem with trying to engage the community in a place like Bethel. Though we do have a lot of large retired population, and we do have a lot of people in our area. Generally speaking, the people that are my age that are living in Bethel, they are very hardworking. They generally have very different schedules than say you're just your typical nine to five, more blue color than white collar for sure. And engaging those people, I have found since trying to do this myself with ABC, I have found that to be very difficult because these people are honestly exhausted at the end of the day, getting them to come to a community meeting to. find either child care or bring their kids and try to find something for their kids to do while the boring adults talk. It is a serious problem to try to engage our entire community of 25,000 people. That's why one of the best ways I found for engagement is Lynn's wonderful newsletter that she puts out through email. But, you know, honestly, the best community engagement things that I've seen. So far have involved free food at community center. Bring your kids. There's going to be a bounce house or a slide. That's when people come out. And honestly, that all takes a lot of funding. And I'm not sure how we can really do that. But the good news is we have a very nice. large enough community center that we can actually have as a center for this engagement. So that's what I would like to say. So just as a plug as well for Fabio and the work that the city has been doing to create a neighborhood plan in the Bethel community. So there's been many, many listening sessions with folks who live in Bethel to be able to talk about and dream into place what would a viable Bethel neighborhood look like. The thing that I love about the community center is this is an action step towards that creation.

It's not a plan that's just submitted somewhere and adopted by a council somewhere and then sits in a notebook. This is an ability to say, so our people in Bethel talked about walkable neighborhoods. Are people in Bethel talked about neighborhood safety and security? Are people in Bethel talked about having to be able to have some connective tissue between each other? They talked about having a viable commercial center because if you haven't been to Bethel, we don't have a downtown. So we don't have that place that that gathers people together. So I think what this plan does and the way that it's worked a bit, and this is just the start, but the way it's starting to work is it gives us something to say, we don't have to just talk about hypothetical. We have this asset. What can we do with this to solve the real world problems that our folks are happening right now? And just to call out, I would feel remiss if I didn't. knowing that with the federal government shutdown and the lack of food security that's going to come with the reduction or the suspension of SNAP benefits, that's where you really see how we can step up for each other. We have large populations that are going to experience food insecurity. They've been experiencing it for a long time, but it's going to become a really big issue here soon, even more so. So a place like Food for Lane County and a place where folks can come and we can reach out to neighbors and support each other through this becomes vitally important. as resources that we've had in the past that have been federally funded, has been, have been reduced. So I think that's the proof in the pudding a little bit is how we support each other during times of strife when we really, really need each other. And I think we're at one of those times right now. I'm going to turn the last question over to Thomas, who then also has to close us out. Thank you, Thomas Hura. My question is for Shelley Kay Ivey, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club of Emerald Valley, but it might apply as well to Superintendent Sproles and Director Hind. We often worry about youth today having a sense of community, feeling included, maybe... getting together in person and having opportunities to just have camaraderie with one another. So I wanted to ask in the work that you do, can you talk about a moment where you felt like you really connected with a kid and really lit that kid up and made it feel like the work you do is worthwhile? Sure. One thing, it's interesting to think about is that kids spends a majority of their time out of school. than in school. So if you think about the after school setting, anytime after 2.30 till the time you go to bed, and then you think about all summer long, there's such an opportunity there for us as adults to help create some of those spaces. And so what I find so beautiful about what the Boys and Girls Club does is that it gives kids a physical space like a second home, a place where they can be seen, where they can be heard, they can feel loved, but they can actually choose how they spend their time and explore their options. And so when I think of the opportunity,

is that we get to have, we have amazing community partners who come alongside us say, well, what would it be like if, what if, what if we were to bust all the kids to a University of Oregon football game? What do you think? I'm like, let's do it. Why not? Sounds crazy, but let's do it. So I haven't. amazing staff who say, well, let's figure out the logistics, what that will look like. And so we recently were able to take over about 100 kids, bust them down to the University of Oregon, take them to Moschowski Center, give them pizza, give them snacks, give them access to be able to high-five all these football players to kind of dream big. And for many kids, it might have, it was their first time stepping onto the University of Oregon property and then seeing Austin Stadium in all of its glory. And so getting to have that experience together as a staff, but also. giving those kids that really that opportunity that will last a lifetime. Those are core memories that my team get to make with our kids. And so that's just one recent highlight, but it's neat as a nonprofit that we can be the force that pulls people together that really do want better outcomes and to help kids thrive. And we can be the vehicle for that, whether it be through expanding access through the arts, through creative expression. bringing kids down to football games to expand their horizons or developing their character and leadership through our torch clubs. So it's neat to see these kids grow. And that's the one thing that I've seen over the years. Once I joined the organization in 2020, and I had some of my littlest, my first graders having to do Zoom school, and I'd pull them into my office to help them stay focused because trying to put on headphones and stay connected to their teachers as a first grader was really hard. And these young girls who... who were sat in my office and I give them little extra snacks to really encourage them a motivated stay connected school are now sixth and seventh graders who still have a safe place to call home in our club and will continue to hold on to those friendships and relationships and hopefully we'll be there for their graduation as well. So it's it's an honor to see these kids grow and be part of their journey and that's what the Boys and Girls Club is there for. One of the things that I've experienced as a father in the Bethel school district is that this is something that I personally don't remember experiencing as a kid or having available to me. When the kids go to school, it's no longer that they're just there to learn and then that's it. They just get sent home and whatever happens to them after they leave school, nobody cares. That's kind of how I felt when I was a kid growing up in Georgia. What I saw and what I see every day that I take my kids to school or drop them off at the school bus or whatever, I see that my kids are loved, they are welcomed, they're encouraged, and they are a part of a community when they go to school. And I think that's something that maybe wasn't always a part of public education, but I think it is an essential part of both public education, but also of community and raising kids that grow into adults that believe in community and feel loved and feel welcomed within their neighborhood and their neighbors. So I do want to give all the credit to...

all the passport members and Craig as well to really making that a reality for my kids. Thank you. That's all the time we have for today. Please join me in thanking Brian Jim Himes, Shelley Kay Ivey, and Craig Sproles. This has been our October 24th, 2025 conversation at the City Club of Eugene. Thank you all. Have a great weekend. We'll see you next time at City Club of Eugene. If you enjoyed this presentation by the City Club of Eugene, explore more of our programs by visiting our website at City Club of Eugene.org or our YouTube channel and social media pages.