By Steve Ritchie
The Fr. Bernard Youth Center in Mount Angel has reached two major milestones already in 2016: 10 years of hosting youth and young adult retreats and serving a total of 20,000 young people.
FBYC Director Don Robison said the center’s decade-long journey to provide a place for retreats, prayer, and personal and spiritual growth has been, at times, a struggle “against very long odds.
Dedicated on Jan. 17, 2006 by Archbishop Vlazny from the Portland Archdiocese, the mission of the Fr. Bernard Youth Center is “to provide a special place for prayer and personal growth, focused on assisting youth and their mentors in their spiritual development.”
To fulfill this mission FBYC maintains a 15,000 sq. ft. facility suitable for a variety of functions ranging from youth retreats and camps to business meetings and special events such as annual meetings, auctions, fundraising dinners and family celebrations.
FBYC provides an opportunity to step away from the daily distractions of life into a beautiful, serene and extremely well appointed space to focus on what is truly important.
The Fr. Bernard Youth Center will
hold its fifth annual dinner and auction –
Springtoberfest – at the Mount Angel Festhalle
on Saturday, March 12.
The event begins at 5:05 p.m. with a
silent auction, followed by a dinner
prepared by Zest Catering and an oral
auction with auctioneer Paul Schultz.
Tickets are $25 per person and may be
reserved by calling 503-845-4097.
FBYC Director Don Robison said the goal
for the benefit is to raise $70,000
for the center.
Robison added that the auction and the
center’s golf benefit generate one-third
of the center’s annual income. He added
the dinner and auction will be “a great time.”
To learn more about the Fr. Bernard Youth Center
in Mount Angel, visit www.fbyc.info.
Fr. Bernard was a Benedictine Monk for more than 60 years and known for engaging the religious and non-religious alike to do works beneficial to society. His leadership lead to many ministries and forms of outreach. Countless individuals credit him for their successes on a particular path in life.
Robison has personally witnessed the center’s growth, including the slow down due to the Great Recession.
“When I came to the center in November of 2007 we had 1,000 young people coming through a year,” Robison said.
At that time, the center’s staff was 5.2 full time employees. Then that decreased to 1.2 full time employees for a full year.
The center now has 3.4 full time employees and hosted 4,600 young people at the center in 2015.
“In our first 10 years, we served over 20,000 youth and now we’re on track to double that in the next 10 years,” Robison said.
Robison noted that in the Youth Center’s early years it was a major challenge to get the word out, and, without much of a marketing budget, it took awhile to make youth groups aware of what the center had to offer.
Then, just as the program was getting established, the recession hit in 2007-08 with a serious impact on the center’s business, as many organizations had to eliminate retreats from their operating budgets.
The drop in income led to the staff cuts and some lean years for the center, but Robison said, “We’re pretty stable and we are staffed up.”
The FBYC board and staff are especially excited about the recent acquisition of a house across from the youth center on South Main Street.
They are set to open it as the “Small Retreat House,” which will allow them to expand the number of groups the center can accommodate. The additional space is definitely needed, Robison said.
“We have the good news/bad news scenario. We only have four dates available in 2017 from September through May.”
Cirra (Halter) Geoff, 22, is one of the young people who has experienced some life-changing moments at the center as a high school student.
She visited FBYC with her St. Mary’s youth group for “Praise & Worship” nights and loved the opportunity for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
She returned several times with the Newman Center group from Portland State University, and later this year will bring the confirmation prep class she teaches at St. Mary’s in Corvallis to the FBYC.
“The facilities at the FBYC are really beautiful and distinctly Catholic,” Geoff said. “It really resonated with me. It is like a youth church.”
Lucy Drescher has also appreciated the chance to attend camps and to be part of retreats in what she calls a “beautiful and spiritual environment” at FBYC.
“I’ve definitely seen a big attitude change (with retreat participants),” Drescher said. “It’s about being there in the moment, and growing within yourself. It’s a wonderful place and young people can take the time to grow. It’s inspiring.”
The center also has been recognized for its Service Learning program, which is offered to organizations using the FBYC for their retreats.
The FBYC staff arranges for the young people on retreat to spend a few hours performing community service work at a local organizations like St. Joseph Shelter, Providence Benedictine Nursing Center, Mount Angel Towers and Mount Angel Development Programs.
“The young people tell us they feel they were the ones who were served,” Robison said with pride.
He said he has witnessed many “poignant moments” of young people assisting others and then sharing their experiences with the larger group or retreat participants.
“We encourage them to go back to their communities and find a similar opportunity there.”
