St. Helens Recreation Program Awarded Multiple Grants to Expand Learning and Bilingual Opportunities for Youth

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

February 23, 2021

St. Helens, Ore. – The City of St. Helens has been awarded grants from the Gray Family Foundation and Northwest Early Learning Hub to foster outdoor learning activities and bilingual programming for community youth. The St. Helens Recreation Program will use the funding to create an Afterschool Adventure Club, support its Nature Buddies program, and hire a Spanish-speaking program coordinator.

The City’s Recreation Program was awarded a $20,000 grant from the Gray Family Foundation’s Environmental Education Grant Program. The City will use the money to create an Afterschool Adventure Club so that St. Helens youth can engage in outdoor learning opportunities in a school-based setting. The goal of the new program is to encourage youth to explore the outdoors while learning with adult and peer support. The program will have built-in flexibility to allow for either in-person or virtual and kit-based activities as COVID-19 safety guidelines allow. Adding outdoor learning spaces in multiple community parks will increase program accessibility. Part of the grant funds will also be used to hire a bilingual staff member to support Spanish-speaking participants.

The City was also awarded a $3,000 mini-grant from Northwest Early Learning Hub to support the City’s Nature Buddies program. This program is a partnership between the St. Helens Recreation Program and St. Helens Public Library. Nature Buddies is a weekly activity that promotes children being active or thinking actively outdoors. The goal is to build skills and the ability to play without the need for parental or adult control. It emphasizes child-led play while caregivers supervise from a distance, although the program is structured to allow adults to actively participate while children lead playtime. Outdoor activities include stories, songs, stretching, and nature-based STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) activities and walks.

The Gray Family Foundation’s Environmental Education program seeks to support programs that stimulate or promote the teaching of environmental education in K-12 environments and increases outdoor experiences for youth. The Gray Family Foundation is founded on the belief that fostering an understanding and appreciation of our natural world is a crucial part of a child’s education. The Foundation, a supporting organization of the Oregon Community Foundation, continues the philanthropic legacy of John and Betty Gray by sustaining a permanent organization based on faith in the human spirit and a vision of Oregon as a vibrant, inclusive, and civic-minded society. Their mission is to engage people in Oregon as active stewards of our communities and natural environment.

Northwest Early Learning Hub finds new and innovate ways to partner across communities to support families and create more opportunities for children to be kindergarten ready. They work collaboratively with community partners to coordinate resources and strategies focused on children and families in Clatsop, Columbia, and Tillamook counties. They serve over 7,200 children ages 0-6 across 13 school districts.

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For further information regarding the Recreation Program’s recent grant awards, please contact Communications Officer Crystal King at crystalf@ci.st-helens.or.us.