Notes From The Road
By Travis Huntington, Project 2059
Continued from last weeks post for Project 2059
We left Portland on a picture-perfect, sunny Saturday afternoon in mid-May, armed with a camera and a wellspring of excitement to start hearing and sharing what Oregon’s youth have to say about Oregon and our future. For the first leg of the journey, we covered 1,050 miles—ten towns in four days. The weather was incredible and the tour of the rural, eastern part of the state was educational for this native son of Oregon. The young people that I talked to had a lot to say about what’s important to them in their communities and in Oregon as a whole. Most students pointed to the economy as an area of great concern, with the lack of available jobs being pointed to as the biggest problem. Gangs have also been highlighted as a problem. Other youth celebrated the many outdoor pursuits that are possible in Oregon, a state that is so full of diverse terrain–mountains, deserts, ocean, forests, rivers, and so on– but lamented environmental problems such as deforestation and pollution.
The next leg of the journey led Project 2059 from Portland to St Helens to Astoria, Oregon, and carried us all the way down the coast to Brookings. From there we cut inland, cheating a little and winding through the redwoods of Northern California on the easterly highway, and making our way back to the I-5 corridor to Ashland, and on up through Grants Pass, Medford, Eugene, Corvallis, and Salem. Yes, that’s a lot. That’s 18 towns in three days!
The following leg spanned 879 miles on (mostly) Oregon ground. This leg of the trip revealed more insight on the part of the bright and vibrant youth that live in this great state. Community engagement continued to be a concern, with many young people either praising the opportunities for engagement that exist in their communities, or stressing that more opportunities were needed.
Given that Oregon is made up mostly of many smaller towns, community was an important element to almost every person we talked to. People know each other, support each other, and hold each other accountable, and many of the young people that we talked to cited their close-knit communities as the very thing that helped them to stay on a “good” track and become the engaged people that they are today.
The final leg of the journey led us back to the greater Portland area, where Project 2059 visited schools in Arlington, The Dalles, Hillsboro, Forest Grove, and, lastly, Portland itself. Things of importance to Oregon’s youth continued to reflect a concern for the economy and the environment, and community engagement and strong community programs were stressed. While many of the youth said that the educational system in Oregon is great or “phenomenal,” some expressed worry at the seemingly never-ending budget cuts and the subsequent cutting of what some considered to be essential programs.
From the arid side of Oregon to the green and rainy coastal areas, young people in Oregon love the weather. They love the mountains, they love the desert, they love the ocean, they love the sunshine and the rain. They worry about the economy and wish there were more jobs out there for their struggling family members. They plan to go to college, and most of those asked expressed that they would be taking the more economically feasible route and go to community college before transferring to a four-year university.
The youth are the future. Young people know that what happens today affects the reality of tomorrow, and most of them think that their voice should be heard (save two home-schooled girls from near Medford, Oregon who believed that their voice should matter when they became old enough to vote).
Therefore, in an attempt to build something sustainable, Project 2059 will seek to facilitate a new community of statewide youth focused on understanding the trade offs of change, active and more importantly vocal in their communities and finally, engaged in crafting elements to help Oregon continue its proud legacy of resource stewardship, emerging industries and provocative culture.
About: Travis is the key program architect for Project 2059.His roles in Project 2059 include:Core Team Orientation & Planning & Steering, Strategic Communications planning and execution, Peer Community Development, Earned media, Youth facilitator, Media mentor, Executive media producer, Media spokesperson.
Photo Caption: Travis interviewing a student about the future of Oregon on his trip across the state.
