HOOD RIVER — Thrive has a pair of new executive directors.
The wife and wife team of Tara and Brittney Mills took on the role of executive directors June 15. And while they are new to the area, they are not new to the organization.
“Grandma Kate was one of the original founders of the Hood River Valley Residents Committee, as it was formerly known,” said Tara of her grandmother, Kate Mills. “And she started this group — it wasn’t a nonprofit at the time; it was a group of people who cared about the area and wanted to use the land use laws to help protect it for generations into the future.”
She remembers going to Residents Committee picnics in the mid to late 1990s, although back then, her attention was more on swimming in the pool and the food than the presentations, she joked.
Besides Tara’s long history with the group, the two also have worked in environmental education — they met at a nature center in Baltimore, where they both taught.
“Tara has a long history in this area and our careers have been through environmental education, and I have studied nonprofit administration as well,” Brittney said. “… In March, they approached us because of our history of volunteering and because of Tara’s history with this organization.”
The two have been volunteering with Thrive since moving back to Oregon in the fall of 2019. Because of the pandemic, things didn’t go quite as planned — Brittney worked as a director of an organization in Vancouver, Tara as a preschool teacher in Portland. But now that they’ve moved “back home,” they are embracing their joint role.
“We knew it was weird — it’s unconventional,” Brittney said of a married couple taking on the position together. “But we view it as, this is a family project to care for the place that we love and that we will call home for the rest of our lives.”
“How the job share works is that we very much view it as a family and community thing, and we want everyone to be involved — as family, as community — all working towards common goals for the space that we all love and we know how special it is,” Tara said. “It’s a space everyone wants to be in, we totally understand why — because it’s a very special place.”
Brittney said that what sets Oregon apart from other states is Senate Bill 100, celebrating its 50th anniversary this year; the bill standardized land use laws statewide. “It’s really why Oregon is so special, because we haven’t sprawled the way the rest of the country has,” she said. “Oregon got ahead of the game, and we’ve been able to have smarter, higher-sense areas while being able to protect our farmland.”
“It’s a unique system in that it does really focus on citizen involvement as well, so it’s not just a top-down code,” said Tara.
Thrive is currently focused on the county’s process to incorporate Parkdale (now underway) and Odell (which will start after Parkdale is finished). They see themselves as a partner of the county’s, helping increase citizen involvement and awareness in the process.
“We know housing is such an issue in Hood River County, and everybody’s on the same page: We have to come up with solutions,” Brittney said. “So we’re really looking forward to working with people, working with the county, to help solve some of those issues for livability here.”
Thrive is also focusing on protecting the northside of Mount Hood from development and is paying attention to a circuit court hearing (held after press deadline) dealing with the original land trade between Mt. Hood Meadows and the county.
Thrive has an active board and volunteer base; many board members have been with the organization for 10 or even 20 years. But they’re always looking to recruit new board members and are working towards a more diverse membership to better reflect the county.
“Everything we do is family friendly,” said Brittney. “Bring your kids. Bring your grandparents.”
"There’s been some board members who have had family that have been a part of it for a long time as well. Like, my dad is on the board now, so it went from my grandma to my dad to me,” said Tara. “The important thing for us is continuing on for generations to come.”
"We took this job, we said yes to this job because it has to be here a hundred years from now,” Brittney said. “And we are laser focused on working on an endowment plan and investing in the future of this organization and the future of the county — beyond our lifetime.”
They stress that everyone is welcome — even those who don’t necessarily agree with Thrive and its mission. “We want to make relationships with them, too, and have an understanding of why. Because we’re all neighbors here,” she said.
To contact the Mills, email mills@thrivehoodriver.org, or for more information about Thrive, visit thrivehoodriver.org.
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