Well you wouldn’t know it from looking at our blog but RAPRD has been BUSY this year!  Allow me to catch you up!

In February, we found out we had been awarded $2,500 from BNSF Railway towards our Kids on Bikes program.  Kids on Bikes brings the national Safe Routes to Schools curriculum to local elementary schools, along with our fleet of kids’ bikes so that kids can learn the skills and safety knowledge they need to commute to and from school by themselves.  The program encourages independence and an active lifestyle.  Our fleet of bikes is older and made up of many different makes and models.  This means our maintenance partner, Trinity Bikes, has to special order and sometimes even invent the part we need to keep our bikes up and running for all the kids that need to use them every year. 

Our goal is to replace our fleet with 20 new bikes, all of one uniform make and model, to cut down on maintenance costs and reduce the amount of time bikes are down for repairs.  The BNSF grant will help us replace about eight of our bikes.  A generous contribution from Trinity Bikes will allow us replace eight more bikes so we will have sixteen new bikes to begin the 2019-20 school year.  To donate toward our goal of updating our fleet, you can give here and make sure you put “Kids on Bikes” as the reason for your gift.

For Easter, we had a great turnout for our Bunny Swim and Underwater Egg Hunt.  Kids of all ages participated and the egg hunt was followed by a recreation swim to burn off some of that sugar high!

Spring soccer, Youth Lacrosse, and Adult Softball seasons all kicked off this spring just as our free Wednesday after-school STEMQuest (science, technology, engineering, and math) program began to wind down for the year.  But don’t worry, there are still some great opportunities to get the kids outside, exploring and active this summer.  We received an Environmental Protection Agency grant administered through the Deschutes Children’s Forest to continue to offer a once a week afternoon free STEM program for ten weeks from mid-June to mid-August.  RiverQuest offers STEM exploration on river-themed topics like conservation, natural resource management, stewardship, biology, and ecology in Deschutes River Basin locations.

RAPRD celebrated STEM week May 6 – 12 with other organizations all over Oregon by hosting our second annual Touch a Truck event.  We filled the Redmond High School parking lot with all kinds of trucks and big rigs for kids to touch and climb on and ask questions about.  Kids could build Home Depot workshop kits with real tools or make auto parts jewelry.  Our first Quiet Hour for kids who preferred to enjoy the event without horns and sirens was both popular and appreciated and we got a lot of great feedback on it from parents and teachers so we will definitely offer it again next year.  We want to thank the City of Redmond, Redmond Police Department, Redmond Fire and Rescue, High Country Disposal, Central Oregon Truck Company, Knife River, Baker Equipment, Vernam Crane, and the Groesz Family for sharing their vehicles and drivers with us at this fun event.  We hope to see you all again next year!

We also participated in Historic Preservation Month in Central Oregon by displaying historic information about the Tetherow Homestead at the kickoff event at the Old Post Office in downtown Bend on May 3rd, and by hosting a Tetherow Pioneer Day at the homestead on May 18th.  Both events were well attended and we appreciate everyone who came out to learn more about this unique property. 

At Tetherow Pioneer Day, the Deschutes Public Library brought their oral histories of early Central Oregonians and their family genealogy information services.  Jake n Joe played banjo and guitar to set the mood, and the Deschutes Historic Museum donated some early 1900s décor for the interior of the house.  Kelly Madden of the Deschutes Land Trust and her fellow volunteers ran a pioneer general store with penny candy and Rachel Stemach of Stemach Design + Architecture (and our architect for the historic preservation of the homestead) oversaw the soap whittling (soap provided by Leslie Colvin of LeCol’s Soap Bar).  Thank you to all our volunteers and to everyone who came out to celebrate Historic Preservation Month with us!  For more information about the Tetherow Homestead or to arrange a private tour, please contact Margaret Maffai at margaret.maffai@raprd.org.  To make a donation toward the preservation of this unique part of Central Oregon history, visit our donation page and be sure to indicate the reason for your gift.

Keep an eye out soon for our wrap-up post for our 2019 Old Fashioned 4th of July event, which introduced new activities, new sponsors, and brought out more than 7,000 Central Oregonians to celebrate with us!