08/19/2026
At Village of Hope this week, a crew of CARECorps students from Isaac’s Room rolled up their sleeves to help make our outdoor spaces safer and more inviting for our guests and neighbors. Over their three-week service-learning camp, these high schoolers learn core ideas around service, leadership, and community impact, then spend time on sites like ours putting those lessons into practice.
Guided by their team leader Jade, the group focused first on the shared yard that’s part of the new Village of Hope expansion next to the Bike Barn—moving gravel, building up compost, and leveling the ground so guests using canes, walkers, and wheelchairs (and their pets) can actually gather, walk, and play there instead of just passing through. On a separate project two blocks down the street, they continued a “legacy” native planting on a city-owned riverbank property, returning for a second year to add w**d inhibitors, plant in a guild system, and ring each planting with nearby river rocks so future teams can easily see where plants should and shouldn’t be. The result is a densely planted, pocket-forest style space filled with native trees, Oregon iris, California poppies, strawberries, and other pollinator-friendly species that will grow into habitat for years to come.
We’re grateful for their partnership and the way they’re helping our Village of Hope micro-shelter community show up as good neighbors in central Salem. The skills, confidence, and experience they carry forward from CARECorps will ripple out through Salem for years—and the spaces they shaped will be used daily by the 80+ adults who call Village of Hope home.
If you’d like to hear directly from the students about the Village of Hope yard, the riverbank planting, and other projects across the city, join CARECorps Presentation Night on July 23, 2026, from 6:30–8:00 pm at the IKE Box, 299 Cottage St NE, Salem, OR 97301.
