Education Articles

Over the course of ten years, Yoncalla School District leaders and community members, especially parents of young children, have walked side-by-side reinventing the elementary school’s approach to family and child support.

Nestled on the western slopes of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, east of the ridge that separates Highway 203 from North Powder, five students and two local ranchers plot their morning’s work.

In the wake of 2020’s devastating Slater Fire, a group of leaders in Happy Camp, California and the Karuk Tribe rallied to fill a critical void in their community: child care.

Each June, a group of Central Oregon elementary students start their summer with a colorful book bag stuffed full of new books, puzzles and games.

With the blessing of founding members, the Ford Scholar Alumni Association dissolved as an independent nonprofit in 2021 and moved under the umbrella of The Ford Family Foundation.

Jayden Asumendi spent most of the last school year away from his peers, doing his schoolwork at his home in the Roseburg area. And, like many of his peers, Jayden struggled in the new learning atmosphere.

In March of 1995, 20-year-old single mom Amy Van Wey was in debt and alone, living with her newborn son in a school bus in the Little Applegate Valley. “It was not a great combination,” she says.

It was summertime, but one room at Yoncalla Elementary School was alive with the sounds of children — young children. They were in the Family Room, a space where parents and their children can gather, socialize, volunteer and learn.

Welcome to the issue archive for Community Vitality, a storytelling publication published by The Ford Family Foundation from 2000 through 2021.