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BEND - The leader of an aggressive program to fight poverty in Central Oregon will speak at Oregon State University-Cascades Campus on Monday, June 2, as part of the First Monday Lecture Series.

Nancy Knoble, executive director of the Central Oregon Partnership, will present "Central Oregon Today: The Promise of Prosperity and the Reality of Poverty," at 7 p.m. in Hitchcock Auditorium on the Central Oregon Community College campus. It is free and open to the public.

The Central Oregon Partnership, a non-profit organization with funding support from the Northwest Area Foundation, has built a network of seven Community Action Teams that work to engage local citizens in addressing the root causes of poverty. Teams are at work in Bend, La Pine, Madras, Prineville and Crook County, Redmond, Sisters and Warm Springs.

"The sobering reality is that Central Oregon is both a place of great beauty and opportunity, and a place of poverty," Knoble said. "People need to understand the impact that poverty has on so many residents of our region, and consider the possible steps we could take to create a more prosperous future."

More than 18,000 people live in poverty in Central Oregon - if they were all in one place, it would form the second largest city in the region.

The partnership that Knoble directs does not directly provide public services, but works to mobilize resources and build collaborative projects with both the public and private sector.

Among the programs that are currently under way, for instance, are efforts to improve transportation for low-income residents of Jefferson County, develop a Volunteers in Medicine Clinic in Bend, and fund a mobile library, or bookmobile, in Crook County.

Knoble, a graduate of Syracuse University, has a 20-year career in both philanthropic work and the corporate sector.