Sports-Park-plan.jpgIn 2005, Brian Sjothun initiated his vision to establish a non-profit charitable foundation to support the overall goals of a comprehensive master plan for parks and recreation facilities and programs. In doing so, the director of parks & recreation for the City of Medford created the Medford Parks & Recreation Foundation to help meet community needs in times of challenging fiscal constraints.
Sjothun’s experience with the Woodburn Together Foundation provided the groundwork. “As a foundation we can pursue grants that we are not eligible…
I consider myself to be a rich man. I have many nice things, very little debt and the means to be able to do most of the things that my family and I enjoy doing. Indeed, as I look back over the last decade of my life, I realize that I am living a more affluent life than I ever have before. But this is not the reason I consider myself to be a rich man. I consider myself to be rich because I have a beautiful wife and three young sons. I also feel truly rich because I have learned one of the secrets to experiencing a more meaningful and fulfilling life. The secret involves learning to value positive influence over affluence.
It’s one thing to know that the system of helps in a region isn’t able to assist certain people in need, but it’s another to willingly develop and implement a strategy intended to take up slack in the social services system. And that’s what Larry Kahn did when he invested himself in the Jackson County community and founded Help Now! Advocacy Center in 2004.
Through Help Now!, Executive Director Kahn and his group of 20 volunteers and 10 advocates provide professional services to the poor…
