TWST Blog

We woke up to more sunshine today in Redmond (ye-ah!). We arrived at Redmond Public Library a bit before 10am when they open, and there was already a crowd at the door waiting to get in. The librarian we spoke with said that's always the case. Wow! The library has really cool teen and kids areas (teen area pictured on the right).

We had folks from a variety of organizations in attendance at our Redmond TWST meeting -- Latino Community Association, Healthy Beginnings, Sparrow Club, Redmond Senior Center, and more. Also in attendance was Maggie Olstedt, Community Benefit Specialist at St. Charles Heath System serving central Oregon. St. Charles partners with local nonprofits like Heathy Beginnings to provide health screenings. Maggie mentioned that they're interested in more partnerships, and as several other groups represented at our meeting also conduct health screenings, folks took her contact information down.

One thing that came up during our time together was how to "get started" with MMT, especially for new staff members who may be unsure of their MMT grant history. We understand that staff transitions happen, and we encourage folks to contact us if they're unsure of their organization's grant history with MMT. We'd be happy to provide that information. We also talked about how it's great for grantees to communicate with their Program Officer between scheduled grant reports to share unexpected happy surprises or to let us know that things aren't going as planned -- we love to hear from grantees, and we hope they feel comfortable sharing successes and challenges.

...And yes, that is a unicorn jumping out of a book in the mural behind us. Nice!

We said goodbye to Deschutes County and headed to the county seat of Jefferson County, Madras (I had to be educated to pronounce it correctly as mad-dress). We had a good-sized group at Jefferson County Library District's Rodriguez Annex. You can kind of tell from the photo below, but the Annex is big -- a great space that's well-used for community movie nights, performances, the library's summer reading program for kids, and more.

Library Director DeRese Hall treated us to some habit-forming raspberry pillow cookies from Erikson's Thriftway (so good!), and folks from LINC Madras, Jefferson County Fair, Museum at Warm Springs, Jefferson County Commission on Children and Families, Warm Springs Community Action Team, and more introduced themselves. We learned that the community, like many others in Oregon, is tackling some serious issues -- poverty, lack of family-wage jobs, workforce training/development needs, and teen pregnancy. Our Two Way Street Tours are such a great way for us to learn about what issues communities are tackling. Thank you to all our Madras TWST attendees for sharing your community's priority needs with us.

We had dinner at Rio in Madras at the recommendation of Clinton Jacks (board member of the local Bean Foundation). The food was so good, it warrants two photos. We had table-made guacamole (it had mango in it!), the Relleno de Marisco (the presentation was beautiful), and the Enchiladas Rio. Rio's motto is "to create a friend before a client," and I felt that attitude described the service at Rio, as well as all of the people we met in Madras.

As we headed back to Portland, we stopped along Highway 26 at the Museum at Warm Springs, which received an MMT grant for its tribal exhibits in 1992 just prior to its opening. The Museum, a gorgeous building right across the road from Indian Head Casino, documents the history and culture of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs -- the Wasco, Paiute, and Warm Springs tribes. I especially enjoyed the exhibit on ceremonial wedding gift exchanges. Little tufts of cotton from the surrounding cottonwood trees were blowing all around us like snow, but it was sunny again as we headed back home.

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