The Jefferson Nature Center has received three hefty grants and expects to complete infrastructure and renovation for a mid-summer public opening.
The center, which is taking shape in a 50-year old farmhouse at the Medford Sports and Community Park, has just won an $11,000 grant from the Cow Creek Umpqua Indian Foundation in Roseburg.
It will go for nature education programs in Title I schools in Phoenix, Talent and Medford, said director Susan Cross.
The center also in recent months got $13,000 from the Oregon Community Foundation in Portland and $30,000 from the Small Communities Incentive Fund, part of the state government. The center is a nonprofit operating for the past few years on grants, volunteer labor and community donations.
The city of Medford will put in $115,000 worth of access roads, parking and electrical, water, power and phone service, said Merlin McDaniel, design and construction manager for Medford Parks and Recreation.
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The creation of the nature center, modeled after the highly successful North Mountain Nature Park in Ashland and the High Desert Museum near Bend, will serve as a centrally located interpretive center for the biology, botany and geology of the Klamath-Siskiyou region, said Cross.
"It will be teeny-tiny, compared to the High Desert Museum. We plan to start small and see what we can sustain, just like they did," said Cross. "The grants will pay mostly for field instructors, to replenish consumables (supplies) and to preserve our specimens. We accumulate a lot of those."
The empty farmhouse has been repeatedly vandalized, but is getting a caretaker who will live in a trailer — and police have stepped up enforcement, said McDaniel.
The center will focus most of its science inquiry field programs outdoors in the 70 acres of riparian wetlands area that is part of the 132-acre sports park under development. It will eventually create displays and meeting rooms in the farmhouse, Cross said.
It's located between Highway 99 and Interstate 5 just north of South Stage Road and shares the site with the new Harry & David ball field. The riparian zone is on Bear Creek's 100-year flood plain, where development is not allowed. The farmhouse is above the flood zone.
The Center puts on classes in schools, dealing with local mammals, reptiles and uses of local plants, using Bear Creek (at the park site) and Blue Heron Park in Phoenix. The Center serves Title I schools, meaning those with more than half the students poor enough to qualify for the school lunch program, she noted.
With the new grant money, the Center will create two new programs on local invertebrates, including insects and molluscs.
The city has applied for a $150,000 grant from the Oregon Watershed Enhancement Board to enhance and restore the riparian area of the park and build swales to prevent harmful runoff into Bear Creek, said Center board member Craig Harper, who works at Rogue Valley Council of Governments.
"That stretch of Bear Creek is in good shape and our emphasis is on conservation," said Harper. "The park will help people become more aware of its natural values. There will be a lot of visitors to the ball games — and families will be able to also wander off and explore nature."
Nature centers have done well all over the state, he added, "and getting off the ground and going is the hard part."
John Darling is a freelance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at jdarling@jeffnet.org. On the Web: www.jeffersonnaturecenter.org
