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Mayor gives troubled agency $25,000 Ashland's DeBoer also will head a fund-raising drive for Community Works By JONEL ALECCIA Mail Tribune In a vote of confidence for a troubled agency, Ashland Mayor Alan DeBoer has donated $25,000 to Community Works of Medford and agreed to lead a $90,000 fund-raising drive. DeBoer said the move, announced today, reflects his conviction that the Rogue Valley's largest social service agency will persevere and flourish - despite a year that has included criminal legal problems, a program closure and the death of a boy in the agency's care. "You're going to have problems with the type of work they're doing, but the good so far outshines the bad. I just felt like they needed support," DeBoer said. DeBoer and his wife, Rebecca, donated the $25,000 on behalf of their business, Town & County Chevrolet Oldsmobile, with the stipulation that it be used to support Dunn House, a shelter for battered women and children, and The Grove, an Ashland youth and family center. The donation is one of the largest contributions to Community Works, said Ed Roussell, the agency's development director. It will kick off the agency's inaugural "Community Friends Campaign 2002," aimed at raising $90,000 by April. DeBoer will serve as chairman of that effort. Executive Director Arnie Green said DeBoer's gesture is the latest of several gifts from the longtime agency supporter. "Alan's the greatest," he said. "You may remember that I endorsed him wholeheartedly for mayor because I believe that he is a man who can get things done, who cares deeply about issues of concern to me and our agency: disadvantaged youth, abused youth and certainly the women at Dunn House." The move comes after a year that included criminal charges of sex abuse against two former supervisors at a Community Works youth shelter. One former staff member was sentenced to more than four years in prison, another is awaiting trial and the shelter program was taken over by Jackson County. The agency also faces a potential civil lawsuit by parents of a boy who drowned in March while on a field trip led by a Community Works program. And Oregon State Police last month began investigating whether workers at Dunn House hid a young mother from officers with an arrest warrant. Such problems come with the territory of providing social service programs for vulnerable people, DeBoer said. "Sure, they might do some things wrong, but what they do as a whole is so valuable," he said. The vision that formed Community Works in 1996 as a merger of three smaller agencies remains valid - and viable - DeBoer said. "It was a good idea then and it's a good idea now," he said. "We have a tendency to forget that they have a lot of agencies beneath them." With a $4.5 million budget and 150 staff members, Community Works serves one in six Jackson County residents. An entity of that size and scope requires public support, DeBoer said. "I think they're still trying to figure out how to make the concept successful." Reach reporter JoNel Aleccia at 776-4465, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.