Updates from Looking Glass
The annual Looking Glass board meeting was held Wednesday, November 3rd at the Graduate Hotel in Eugene with a small gathering of in-person guests and board members. The event included a keynote speech by Fariborz Pakseresht, the Director of the Oregon Department of Human Services, and also a presentation of the Community Leadership award from Looking Glass CEO Craig Opperman to longtime supporter Senator James Manning.
The 3rd annual Socktoberfest sock drive was once again a tremendous success, generating thousands of pairs of new and gently used socks for homeless youth at New Roads. Donation locations around Lane County included Bi-Mart, Macy’s at Valley River Center, Windermere Real Estate offices, Columbia Bank branches, and PeaceHealth.
VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR !
The Wilson family has been supporting Looking Glass in a myriad of ways since their son, Scott, began working there in 2019. They kept hearing the stories Scott would share from his experiences in the various programs he has worked in during his time there including residential treatment programs and the homeless youth program and wanted to find ways to brighten the days of the youth.
“The more we learned about these kids, the more we wanted to help,” explained Wendy Wilson. “We just know that even something simple like donating ice cream or other treats to the programs can make someone’s day a little better.”
Kelly & Bryan Ranstad of Eugene (owners of Hybrid Real Estate Agency) recently purchased and renovated a house near UO campus for the purposes of renting each of the 9 units to youth clients from Looking Glass’ Transitional Housing Program which helps find housing and pay rent for formerly unhoused youth in Lane County for up to 2 years. Finding property managers and owners who are able and willing to rent to this population had proven quite challenging, so having an entire apartment complex to fill up was welcomed news to Looking Glass staff.
Looking Glass President & CEO Craig Opperman presented the 2021 Community Leadership Award to Representative Nancy Nathanson at a recent Looking Glass board meeting for her stellar and steadfast support for our community’s youth and families in need. Nathanson has pushed for increased financial support for Looking Glass and other social service organizations including helping Looking Glass to receive new funds to help make needed capitol improvements to Looking Glass homeless youth programs.
The 4th Annual Hike for Hope fundraiser event for Looking Glass held at the North Trailhead parking lot of Mt Pisgah was a huge success again this year, despite challenges including spiking local Covid cases and concerns over smoke from regional wildfires. The event, sponsored again by Hearing Associates as well as US Bank, Oregon Community Credit Union and Summit Bank, raised nearly $5,000 for at-risk youth programs and brought together roughly 40 hikers on a beautiful Saturday morning for the socially distant group hike. Guest speaker Nick Hammond shared his experiences as a former homeless youth, inspiring the hikers and reinforcing the importance of supporting programs like Looking Glass.
This past May and June, Girl Scout Troop #24761 hosted a donation drive to collect toiletry items for Homeless Youth.
Their leader, Amy Mahady reached out to Looking Glass to learn more about the services offered so that the girls’ could learn more about how homelessness impacts youth in our community.
Looking Glass Development Coordinator, Amanda Zacharda, joined on a Zoom call during one of their meetings and was able to educate the Troop about all of the services provided at Looking Glass, especially the Homeless Youth Services.
The girls were able to come up with over 30 bags of toiletry items to donate, along with $350+ donations from multiple businesses in our community.
This past month, we asked our community to help accrue more yarn for the Pathways Girl Program, who have been crocheting as a form of therapy. We are so thrilled that many of our donors and local community members came together to help us obtain over 10+ boxes and bags full of yarn. This will allow the girls to continue to master their crochet techniques as well as helping them with their recovery during their stay at the Pathways Program.
Lane Transit District’s Transportation Options Marketing Specialist Julia Woolley helped coordinate a week long series of free bike tune ups provided to Looking Glass staff members as a way to give back to social service workers affected by the pandemic.
The annual Looking Forward, Giving Back auction gala fundraiser was held virtually this year, due to the pandemic, of course, but was a huge success despite the fact that we could not gather physically with supporters. On Saturday, April 10th, Looking Glass fundraising staff members turned the large conference room at administrative offices into a production studio and interacted with over 100 supporters via Zoom and an online auction platform that made for some very competitive and last minute bidding. In the end, donors helped to raise more than $130,000 for Looking Glass youth & family programs (and post-event cleanup was much easier).
See videos shared at the event in this post!
Despite the pandemic and challenges surrounding this year’s annual Giving Tree program (or maybe because of them), Looking Glass programs received an amazing amount of support and donations - enough to ensure every youth who requested them a gift covering their needs and wishes. Covid-19 may have closed a lot of the businesses that would have normally hosted physical trees and ornaments but it didn’t close the hearts of our donors. In addition to the physical gifts picked up at Valley River Center, Oakway Centre, Umpqua Bank, McKenzie Commercial and other amazing business supporters, we received thousands of dollars in restricted cash donations and dozens of Amazon wish list items.
In October the local bike donation nonprofit Free Bikes 4 Kidz delivered 20 bikes to Looking Glass for various program use and direct youth client access. The bikes were delivered to Looking Glass residential programs as well as Riverfront’s Independent Living and Job Training Program clients and also the Looking Glass New Roads homeless youth program.
