Youth Legacy Project

Even at 150, Oregon should be forever young. We’re offering projects specifically for our youth – you know, those who don’t need coffee to feel energetic. Young leaders will gather to plan our future, rehabilitate underutilized public parks, and learn about Oregon using select curricula and college campus activities. Our past is full of unique voices. Let’s nurture new ones for the future.

Legacy Parks

Oregon 150 and the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD) are gearing up to celebrate this remarkable state―its history, the outdoor recreation it affords us, and the natural resources we are entrusted with. Oregon’s system of public parks system is the envy of the nation, and it is one of the most important legacies Oregon gives its citizens.

That’s why OPRD and Oregon 150 teamed up to help reconnect kids with nature. OPRD created a special allocation of $202,450 in OPRD Lottery-funded grants for five Oregon 150 Youth Legacy Parks projects.

These grants are dedicated to getting children out into nature, and will also have a sesquicentennial commemorative aspect. The five are:

City of Grass Valley City Park

City of Hood River, Waterfront Park

City of Lebanon, Cheadle Lake Park

City of Creswell, Garden Lake Park

City of Seaside, Broadway Park

All projects are scheduled to be completed before July 1, 2009.

Youth Symposium

The concept is to approach the state’s high school age youth and to have them consider a series of statewide issues that should have currency in 2059, the Oregon Bicentennial year, and to gather and debate and concur on positions on those issues at a summit to be held in the summer of 2009.

DemocracyLab, an online think tank created to facilitate collaboration and consensus-building around values held by citizens, has been contracted to assist in the information gathering. DemocracyLab is currently creating a custom online platform for the Symposium project that will be the basis for all input and analysis from youth throughout the survey process.

Input from youth will be gathered while school is in session – anticipated winter of 2008 or spring of 2009. Public and private schools and youth organizations will be provided a lesson plan and asked to hold a class led by a faculty member or youth advisor. At the end of the process, each participating school or youth organization will be asked to choose up to two students as delegates to the symposium.

Oregon150