A nod to nonprofits: Connected Lane County

From

KLCC Studios, this is

Oregon on

the Record.

I'm Michael Dunn. Lane County has a lot of nonprofits. Some say the county might even be oversaturated with these organizations. The thinking goes that when you have an overabundance of service organizations, you can dilute resources and talent. That's why recent action by a few local nonprofits to merge certain services is drawing attention. Today on the show, you'll hear from the leadership of Connected Lane County about their program to combine services with two other nonprofits to create a much-needed youth hub. The three organizations, Connected Lane County, Ophelia's Place, and A Family for Every Child, says they're partnering to bring together education and career opportunities, mental health and wellness resources, paid work experiences, and basic needs support in one welcoming location. The story of this collaboration and merging of resources is next on Oregon on the Record. Bye. Becky Jo Samples, Marketing Director, and Jesse Nelson, the Executive Director of Connected Lane County. Welcome to you both. Thanks so much for coming in.

Thanks so much for having us.

We're excited to be with you. Thanks for

having us.

Jesse, I'm going to start with you because you're fairly new in the role. Why don't you talk about what you've been doing at Connected Lane County? Tell the audience sort of where you came from and what your role is.

Oh, you bet. Thank you. So I have been at Connected Lane County for about a year and a half now. And just came basically from across the street, if you will. So I was at the University of Oregon and working with undergraduate students, largely on their transition period. So it's transitioning to the university. How do you help them be successful when they get there? If they're declaring a new major, how do you help them in that process so that they can have success as they're pursuing their dreams and their goals academically? So in many ways, the transition to Connecticut County was not a huge leap in terms of service delivery. So we had the same kind of perspective is how do we help young people as they're thinking about these transition points in their life? And maybe it's from high school on or maybe they're coming into high school. And how do we help them find pathways that are going to really be fruitful for them and being able to achieve some of the goals and the life dreams that they have?

So, Becky Jo, if you could kind of explain to the audience what is Connected Lane County, what you do?

Connected Lane County is a nonprofit organization serving young people in Lane County since 2014. We provide opportunities for young people to build professional, technical, and life skills and really help them prepare for what's next.

Okay. Okay. You've made an interesting announcement, kind of a merger of sorts. So, Jesse, I'm going to go to you. First, explain these organizations that you're partnering with and remind folks what is Aphelios Place and A Family for Every Child. What do they do?

Yeah, so this is an exciting enterprise that we have pulled community partners together. And the piece that you're talking about, the project you're talking about, is an activity or a