By Morgan Armitage 
Staff Writer

People look outside the ELC building towards the pond below. Photo by Carter Nall.

You may have missed the cake, but it’s not too late to celebrate 50 years with Clackamas Community Colleges Environmental Learning Center.

The ELC is an area of CCC which provides opportunities for hands-on experience for anyone from preschoolers to professionals. This includes an observatory and some wetland habitats.

On May 21, friends and contributors to the ELC wished it a big happy birthday with a gathering and a talk from Gerald Herrmann, a man who was essential in the program’s birth.

Speakers giving a presentation at the ELC event. Photo by Carter Nall.

Herrmann was a student at CCC in 1974. Despite having no background in interior design or operating a non-profit, he was determined to take an industrial site and re-center the space on nature.

He, of course, wasn’t alone. Herrmann had a group of about 12 peers who shared in his goal, students he met in a class called Learning about the Environment.

He and his team went to the college president at the time, John Hakanson, and asked him for support.

“I remember when we went to see Dr. Hakanson about this, 12 students in a community ed class, and we said to him, ‘We need money, sir,’” said Herrmann.

But while he could provide support, Hakanson couldn’t help much with the money. So they had to figure it out for themselves.

There was a lot of labor, and a lot of people involved in the process.

“We had 4,000 corrections people work off fines and hours, over the period I was here, about 1975 until 1995. And then we had several thousand Oregon state corrections inmates work here too,” Herrmann said.

Even the National Guard got involved, providing their hefty equipment and labor.

Then, in 2017, the ELC was refurbished.

“The art students wanted to redo this space so they would have an outdoor classroom,” said Heidi Blackwell, the current ELC program director. “May 1975 is when they first started, and then in May 2017 they did a big restoration.”

The former director, Renee Harber, led the restoration using money from a grant and donations. This included adding new signage, planting native plants, and clearing trails.

But this event wasn’t just a celebration. It was a way to show that the center is open to all.

The crowd listens to a presenter at the Environmental Learning Center. Photo by Kodiak Schoolcraft.

“It was definitely an opportunity to invite people; open our doors and let people know they’re welcome to come,” Blackwell said.

The whole thing was built off of donations and volunteers, and Blackwell celebrates this people-forward approach.