The new Schlies Resource Center includes private meeting spaces, work stations, and walls painted with vibrant art and inspirational messages by SVdP shelter staff and clients.
St. Vincent de Paul of Lane County (SVdP), the area’s largest nonprofit human- services provider, announces the opening of a new hub that will bring together other area nonprofits and agencies to provide services for local residents in need, all in one convenient location. The Schlies Resource Center will formally open Friday, April 18, at 470 Hwy. 99N adjacent to the Eugene Service Station (ESS) — where SVdP has provided critical programs for the unhoused since the 1990s.
Named in honor of Marianne Schlies, SVdP’s longtime finance and contract manager, Schlies Resource Center will host agencies such as Senior and Disability Services, Lane County Behavioral Health, HIV Alliance, Community Outreach through Radical Empowerment (CORE), Goodwill Job Connections, Lane County SNAP Training & Employment Program (STEP), and Oregon Department of Human Services. These and other cooperating agencies in the future will have their own office spaces where staff can help clients reach their health and career goals while working toward stability. Having this resource center co-located with the ESS will ensure ease of access for residents who can have their needs met in one location managed by SVdP.
Agencies will have their own office space where staff can help clients reach their health and career goals while working toward stability. Having this resource center co-located with the ESS will ensure ease of access for residents who can have their needs met in one location managed by SVdP.
In preparation for the grand opening of the SRC, the SVdP team worked with volunteers and clients from the agency’s various shelter programs to renovate the interior and exterior of building. Clients have even painted welcoming murals of inspiration to greet the incoming providers and future users of the center.
Resources and respite
“Today, our Highway 99 programs are a refuge for our neighbors,” says SVdP Executive Director Bethany Cartledge. “They provide a place to heal from sickness and injury, to get support accessing housing, to seek respite through daytime and overnight shelter, to savor warm meals, find accessible restrooms and showers, do laundry and connect with community partner programs.
“But we know we need to grow to meet the needs of our neighbors experiencing homelessness and financial hardship,” she adds, and this new physical space will allow SVdP to facilitate greater service delivery for the community’s most vulnerable. “We are proud to be a community leader in this initiative to bring together partner agencies for the shared mission of caring for vulnerable populations.”
Having a network of services tailored to the unique yet varied population that SVdP serves will remove barriers to access for guests at ESS. For example, SVdP staff have noted a rise in elderly and disabled clients at ESS and the agency’s other day- and night-shelter programs. Having Senior and Disability Services available on site will connect clients seeking day services or shelter support with additional resources to meet their specific needs.
Rekindling compassion
As for Schlies herself, she says “I am honored that [SVdP Homeless & Shelter Services Director] Blaze Kenyon chose to champion my name on the Resource Center. To see our dreams come to fruition is exciting,” she says, noting that she and former program director Roxann O’Brien began discussions about this idea more than 15 years ago.
When asked to reflect on the meaning of her work and the humanitarian mission of SVdP embodied in the new resource center, Schlies refers to an inspirational passage written by the German philosopher and Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer: “Sometimes our inner light goes out, but it is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.”
“Rekindling inner light is the business SVdP is in,” Schlies adds, “and compassion is the glue of humanity.”
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