Over 3,000 youth walk through Connected Lane County’s doors annually. Each youth has a unique goal, whether it’s finding career guidance, gaining hands-on STEM experience, or navigating housing and food assistance. Connected Lane County strives to meet youth where they are through various programs, events, and experiences.
Connected Lane County focuses on supporting historically underrepresented youth ages 14-24, including BIPOC youth, low-income youth, LGBTQIA+ youth, unhoused youth, and more. Our services span Lane County, with Spark locations in Eugene and Springfield. Our key programs include Elevate (career-connected learning), Spark (hands-on STEM opportunities), Navigate (resource navigation and support), and Excelerators (paid career training).
Elevate connects youth with career opportunities through Industry Tours, Job Shadows, Summer Internships, and events like our Career Expo and Hiring Fair. Spark offers hands-on STEM experiences, including Invention Lab, Invention Club, and the Agency. Navigate provides one-on-one support, guiding youth in accessing local resources. Excelerators offer paid training in our facilities, followed by paid internships in the community in high-wage, high-demand fields. Our programs support youth based on their interests and goals.
All of our key programs offer free participation, while a few provide compensation for youth participation. With paid learning opportunities, we aim to make it easy for youth to participate without choosing between paid work and career preparation. Many youth engage with multiple programs at different stages of their journey with us.
Over the past decade, our team has grown from one member in 2014 to over 30 staff members heading into 2025. This growth has enabled us to expand our programs and support services, adding sub-programs and services like BIPOC Blueprint, Pride Nights, Drop-In Services, Direct Cash Transfers, and Youth Support Specialist Trainings. Direct Cash Transfers is an especially exciting service implemented this year. We have been able to offer financial support to youth facing housing, medical, and other critical expenses. We have distributed over $148,000 directly to youth this year and are excited to continue this service into 2025.
Collaboration has been key to our success. We’ve built strong community partnerships that allow us to expand opportunities to match youth with their specialized interests. These partnerships power initiatives like Work-Based Learning, Industry Tours, summer and Excelerator internship placements, Career Expos, and more! We cover youth wages for paid experiences and collaborate with industry partners on training and placement.
Our work is supported through various grants, contracts, and funds that help cover youth wages, expand support services, and create new team positions. We received a $2.5 million subcontract from the University of Oregon to support youth with disabilities in our Excelerator program over five years.
This year, Connected Lane County was honored with the National Youth Workforce Program of the Year award by the National Association of Workforce Development Professionals and ranked eighth among mid-sized nonprofits in the 100 Best Nonprofits to Work for in Oregon by Oregon Business. These accolades are a testament to our team’s hard work and dedication to the youth in our programs.
Our work centers around the youth we support, and we’re deeply grateful for the opportunity to work alongside them. This holiday season, we wrapped up our programming before winter break with our annual Giving Tree, which provides gifts to youth in our Navigate program. These gifts were distributed to 93 young people at our holiday party and monthly Wonder Wednesday life-skills workshop.
We’re excited to continue supporting local youth in 2025 and encourage the community to join us in this important work.
Eva Camacho is the communications assistant for Connected Lane County and wrote this column for The Chronicle.
