August 04, 2026
What Our Kids Did With Their Summer
School let out in Imbler, Union, and La Grande in May. Our Friends kept showing up anyway. Here's what our youth did with their summer, and who in Union County helped make it happen.
Summer here means our youth are out of school, but our paid, professional mentors (Friends) show up all the same. That's the whole promise. 12+ years, no matter what, and summer counts.
June and July have been full. Fishing. Bug hunting. A lot of time in the pool. Afternoons outside, animals up close, books at the Clubhouse, and more than a few trips to Perky's Play Cafe.
Our youth also spent a good part of the summer out in La Grande, alongside people who live and work here.
They walked the Stock Show Parade, and they had backup
Our youth walked the Stock Show Parade this year. The Eastern Oregon University football team walked the route with them, along with players from the softball and volleyball teams. They kept the group together and had a hand ready when the crowd got loud.
For a five-year-old, a parade crowd is a lot. It gets easier when a college athlete is walking beside you.
Thank you to EOU football, volleyball, and softball for helping us wrangle the littles.
A morning of slime and tree rings
The Greater Oregon STEM Hub spent a morning at the Clubhouse and split our youth into two groups. One group stayed at the tables making slime. The other listened to a story about trees, then went outside to measure them and count rings.
Each child made their own set of tree rings, one ring for every year they've been alive. Then everybody went on a nature walk.
GO STEM provides this programming free of charge across seven Eastern Oregon counties, ours included. We're grateful for the morning.
Reading, twice a week, all summer
Tutors from the Eastern Oregon University Reading Clinic came to the Clubhouse twice a week to read with our youth. They're graduate students working toward their master's in education, every one of them headed for a classroom of their own.
Our youth are five, six, and seven. This is the age when reading takes hold, and it's a lot easier to take the risk of reading out loud in a room where you already know everybody.
The places that kept their doors open
Our Clubhouse sits on the second floor of First Presbyterian Church on Washington Avenue, and it has been the center of the summer. Cook Memorial Library gave our youth somewhere to go every week and books to bring back. Perky's Play Cafe stayed a favorite all season.
None of this is complicated. Kids do better when the people around them decide they matter. In Union County this summer, a lot of people decided that.
Thank you to our board, to the donors who funded these weeks, and to the neighbors who keep asking how they can help.
And thank you to our Friends, who did the driving, the packing, the sunscreen, and the showing up.
One more thing
One of our newest kids got asked how things were going with her mentor.
She thought about it for a second. Then she said, "I think she's gonna be my best friend forever."
That's it. That's the whole thing.
Back to School Supply Drive
School starts August 26. We're asking Union County to help our youth walk in ready.
Here's how it works: pick up a backpack, fill it with school supplies, and drop it off at the Clubhouse at 1308 Washington Ave. in La Grande. That's it.
Drop-off: Tuesday - Thursday, 9 AM to Noon. Last day: August 21st.
Help us fund the next one
Summer takes pool passes, craft supplies for the Clubhouse, and gas in the car to get kids where they're going. Our partners give us their time. Your giving covers the rest.
$250 covers a special outing for our full cohort, the kind of day these kids will still be talking about in October.
Because we're a brand-new chapter, gifts from right here in Union County go a long way toward building a strong foundation.
On August 26, our youth head back to classrooms in Imbler, Union, and La Grande, and a second cohort of Union County kids starts their first year with a Friend. Thank you for being part of it early.