Good afternoon and welcome to the first Friday of October!

 

Thanks to all who made the trek to the Central Coast Food Web for our October in-person Board of Directors meeting yesterday. We know it’s logistically challenging to get us all together face-to-face, but let’s keep trying – sometimes there is just no substitute for real face time.

 

We had a very lively discussion on updating our vision statement – reviewing feedback from when Kelly Nonprofit Consulting (now called “Kelly & Co”) facilitated our brainstorming a few months back,  their draft statements, some alternative drafts from the staff and key points to emphasize. We came away with a potentially amazing draft statement, and staff was tasked with some word smithing and editing, and we’ll bring it back to the full Board during our November meeting.

 

Jason also let us know that the Oregon Coast Jazz Party (happening this weekend at the PAC) is 100% sold out for all performances – a first since before Covid. Wah hoo!

 

Paul, Sarah and Gregory will be trekking to Roseburg next Tuesday through Thursday for The Ford Family Foundation’s GRO Gathering. This is an invite-only convening of several rural communities who are involved in TFFF’s GRO program, plus three top ROI communities (we fall into that group). They’ve already given us some homework to do. We’ll report back on the event next week.

 

Here’s our weekly team update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
      • Dock Walk – Sarah led a dock walk Monday afternoon for attendees of ScienceWriters26, an annual conference for science journalists and science communications professionals held this year at OSU.
      • OCCC – Paul and Marshall attended the Oregon Community College Association’s quarterly Board meeting (Marshall in person, Paul via Zoom). One vital information item was an overview of the federal lawsuit filed against Oregon, the HECC and most of Oregon’s community colleges (though not OCCC), seeking to prevent tuition support for undocumented students. So far, 22 of these lawsuits have been filed against states from the federal government.
  • Economic Mobility
  • City of Newport Co-Design Team Sprint 2 – This week, Leslie met with three of four of her team member check-ins to learn themes from their Sprint 2 interviews and gather feedback on the Co-Design process itself.
      • City of Newport, OSU, and Latino Founders Business Trainings in Spanish – This week the team continued marketing outreach for Victor Villegas’ October 6th “Inteligencia Artificial para Crecimiento de Pequeños Negocios” free training. Leslie shared the information with the Juntos en Colaboración audience, and will print information about the SBDC’s business series to distribute at Tuesday’s training. Click here for the Spanish flier, and please share with your Spanish-speaking business owner (or aspiring business owner) networks. Leslie also met with the Economic Mobility Team and Latino Founders reps to plan their November training in Newport. Marketing resources for that session to come soon, after the presenter confirms their participation details. 
  • Entrepreneurship
      • ROI – This week, EDALC submitted our interim report to Business Oregon on our Rural Opportunity Initiative work. Stacie prepared the report and interim budget, and met with Paul to dial in some details. Acceptance of the report triggers the release of our second round of grant funding. Midweek, Paul attended an ROI peer learning Zoom – learning about the Regional Rural Mainstreet Program. Paul, Sarah and Stacie met on Tuesday to talk through the remaining ROI deliverables, including scheduling and prioritization (this ROI cycle ends June 30, 2027).
      • OEN 10/14/26 PubTalk @ Primaltones – Stacie followed up with an unresponsive entrepreneur.
      • Fail Fest 11/12 @ Primaltones – Stacie created the eventbrite registration page and graphics for the event. We will begin marketing the event in our newsletter and on social media the week of October 12th. (ROI project)
  • GRO Conference – Sarah put together some information on EDALC’s entrepreneurial ecosystem building efforts in preparation for the Ford Family Foundation’s GRO conference she and Paul (and Gregory) are attending next week.
  • Samaritan Test Kitchen – Sarah reached out to Amy at the Samaritan Center for Health education about potentially creating a marketing plan for their test kitchen. (ROI project)
  • Core Economic Development Services
  • Community and Economic Development Grant Program – Stacie updated the application management spreadsheet and templates for this cycle and confirmed receipt of the first application.
  • Oregon Prospector – Sarah updated Oregon Prospector listings.
  • Community Connecting
  • RCBC at Oregon Resilience Summit – The Collective is preparing to attend and present on an RCBC panel (with TFFF funding support) at this fall’s Oregon Resiliency Summit. The Summit is now sold out, and over the next weeks Leslie will be working on her bio, slides, and collaborative presentation with Lindsey Jones of IVCanDO in Illinois Valley.
  • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication – Stacie managed social media and began working on the Fall 2026 newsletter.
  • Admin – Stacie, Sarah, and Paul prepped for the in-person BoD meeting. Stacie reached out to OCCC for the October classroom calendars.

 

That’s it for this week – thanks for ALL that you are doing out there. Keep us posted if you have anything you want us to share – we love hearing from you! Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Cheers,

 

-The EDALC Team (Paul, Sarah, Leslie and Stacie)