Greetings and welcome to Friday!

 

As a reminder, the Youth Entrepreneurship Program pitch event (the third year!) will be on May 13th at Hatfield (the Gladys Valley auditorium). The link to the free tickets is below in the report – if you can, please make plans to attend to cheer on tomorrow’s Lincoln County business owners!

 

The next few weeks will be busy for the EDALC team. Next week, Leslie will be presenting at both the National Association of Development Organizations and the Regards to Rural (R2R) conferences in Bend (the conferences are in the same venue and intentionally overlap). Stacie will be attending the R2R conference as well (paid for by ROI). The week after, Paul will trek to Klamath Falls to give a KlamathIDEA Talk (like a TEDx presentation) on his adventures starting up and running Magic Lantern Playware (this event was rescheduled from February).

 

On the more fun side, Paul and Susan will be trekking to an AirBnB in Tierra del Mar for Susan’s 60th birthday (Paul will be making hand-made goat cheese and spinach ravioli with tomato-bacon butter for the birthday feast!). Stacie will be trekking with Andrew to Pendleton the week after for the League of Oregon Cities spring conference.

 

Here’s our weekly team update:

 

    • Partner Support/Community Support 
      • Art, Oysters & Brews – On Wednesday Stacie, Sarah and Paul led a productive meeting with the core partners at Toledo City Hall. Our early start on planning plus the addition of the Toledo Chamber of Commerce to the effort have us feeling optimistic about this year’s event. The list of near-term tasks includes finalizing vendor recruiting content, a save the date, and providing the chamber with a list of expectations for Main St. businesses and volunteers. Sarah made an AOB webpage on the EDALC site, updated the ART Toledo website, and edited and uploaded the 2026 promo video. Paul has nearly locked in the musical acts, including amazing headliners The Strange Tones (https://strangetones.com/) and the Ludicrous Speed Ska Review.
  • CCFW – Sarah met with Jim King and Leslie Roache about Leslie joining the board!
  • Economic Development Practitioners Luncheon – Stacie artfully avoided the luncheon. Paul, Sarah and Allyson suffered through the Regional Economic Developers Practitioners Lunch in Corvallis on Tuesday. Good conversations were had, but the “suffering” part is best described over a pint sometime.
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Core Economic Development Services
      • Oregon Prospector – Sarah updated listings on Oregon Prospector and added new ones.
  • Community Connecting
  • Juntos en Colaboración – This was a full week of supporting JeC network events, including the first gathering of the Spring 2026 Tacíta de Café series with Conexión Fenix and the City of Newport, the Caminos de Bienstar health fair with over 25 service organizations in Lincoln City, and tonight’s invite-only Family Night at the Aquarium, celebrating this year’s bilingual High School interns with presentations and experiences at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. Cheers to all the lead and partner organizations, staff, volunteers, and community members who continue to make these events a success. 
      • TFFF Check In – Paul and Leslie met with Max Gimbel of the Ford Family Foundation for a grant progress check in and a short discussion on future potential funding. It looks probable that EDALC can secure additional Community Connector funding in 2026 and Max even discussed the possibility of expanded EDALC funding for 2027 – funding that would reach beyond community connecting work and into economic development (likely through their GRO program).
  • Organizational Management
  • Marketing & Communication
  • Newsletter – The team, with coordination from Stacie, finalized content for the newsletter which will go out on April 14th.
  • Q1-Q3 EDALC Report – Paul started work updating the report, taking into account many of the suggestions from the last Board of Directors meeting. The team also brainstormed together on ways to capture additional supporting quotes and testimonials.
        • Stacie managed social media.
  • Project Work
        • Stacie visited Myril for annual meeting planning purposes on Saturday evening, and confirmed space availability in June. Paul is working to finalize the date with EDALC and YBEF Directors (tentative: June 24th). Stacie updated project plans and worked on her Leadership Lincoln team presentation after receiving some guidance/inspiration from Sarah’s past work for her cohort.
  • Admin
      • Stacie finished the post-summit office cleanup. 

 

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)