Heart of Oregon youth helping Sisters

Youth participating in Central Oregon's Heart of Oregon Corps program have been helping the Sisters School District manage 160 acres the district acquired in a land swap with the U.S. Forest Service and Deschutes County.

The property, a conservation area situated west of the Sisters High School campus, is known as the Trout Creek Conservation easement. The Deschutes Basin Land Trust (DBLT) holds the conservation easement on the parcel.

Heart of Oregon has been providing fuels reduction on the 160 acre plot. Sisters High School counselor Dan Saraceno, who oversees the project, remarked that the school district was without the funds to manage the property, and through grant funds it receives Heart of Oregon was able to step in and help.

Recently, DBLT has been thinning the parcel to protect the habitat of a wildflower called Peck's penstemon that is unique to Central Oregon, to reduce fire hazard and to return the 160 acres to its historic, open, park-like condition. Heart of Oregon Corps has worked for months on the fuels reduction component of this project.

Heart of Oregon Corps is a regional Central Oregon program that is part of the statewide Oregon Youth Conservation Corps. For more information about the Oregon Youth Conservation Corps go to www. oycctrust.org.

Heart of Oregon services about 25 at-risk youth in its year-around program and about 150 youth in its summer program. The summer program is for both regular high school students as well as at-risk young people (see related article, page 27).

In its year-around program, the non-profit organization offers an alternative education program for youth who are unable to assimilate into a regular school environment. According to Saraceno, Heart of Oregon uses the Sisters School District to help manage the program. Saraceno added that the reason the program exists in Central Oregon is "because there is a need for it."

Sisters High School Principal Bob Macauley remarked that much of the program's success can be attributed to Saraceno saying, "He (Saraceno) is personally engaged."

For additional information about Heart of Oregon visit http://www.heartoforegon.net.

The concept for the year-round program is that if an out-of-school youth will agree to go back to school to work towards attaining a GED or work on a high school diploma, then Heart of Oregon will give the student a job. The youth are paid minimum wage.

"We give them special attention over here and they get to work at the same time, so they get a paycheck and they like doing that also," said Tom Cantelmo, head crew leader for Heart of Oregon.

The program is funded through fees it receives for services rendered. Heart of Oregon has contracts with Deschutes County and other agencies. Cantelmo explained that the students work at the Deschutes County Landfill clearing and cleaning the site.

They stack appliances; they clear plastic out of areas of trash disposal; and they provide fire reduction services. They also help with unloading on the free tire, free appliance and free yard debris days. Heart of Oregon also runs a wood yard during the winter.

Cantelmo said, "We've sold right now about 170 cords of wood."

The organization additionally has contracts for services with Deschutes River Ranch and Ranch of the Canyons.

Grants from organizations such as the National Fire Plan and the National Forest Foundation also provide operating capital.

"It's like running any business, you have to be on top of it, just trying to find the dollars where they're at," Saraceno said.

The program provides, in addition to regular classroom instruction, training in work ethics and personal responsibility. Students develop effective job skills and learn how to be safe in the workplace. In general, challenged youth are taught necessary skills to fit back into both the social and work environment. "These kids need to be somewhere. The don't fit into the regular school environment; therefore, they need a program to plug into," Saraceno commented. Mentioning that research has shown that maturity is the one thing that turns kids around, Saraceno added, "This program provides an opportunity for that to happen."

Sisters School Board member Jeff Smith summarized the benefits of the program:

"The successes that I see are individual kids who are headed in the wrong direction," he said. "You grab a hold of them, and they come out of your program better citizens, more likely to contribute to the rest of the community for the rest of their lives."