Email: Beny.Betancourt@ci.woodburn.or.us
Title: Destination Engagement Specialist
Organization: City of Woodburn
Community: Woodburn and North Marion County
Population: 26,000
County Served: Marion County

Meet Beny Penaloza-Betancourt (he/him):

Beny is a native Oregonian coming out of Springfield and completed his studies at the University of Oregon. Go Ducks! He is proud to be the son of two immigrant parents from Mexico. Beny feels fortunate to have his education paid for through scholarships like Pathways Oregon and Diversity Excellence Scholarship, and he hopes to give back to the community of Oregon through his service and his career path of working in the public sector. His family has found a magnitude of support through different programs in their community and Beny hopes to continue with similar work to help others who find themselves in need of support and care.

Beny studied Economics, Spanish, and City Planning during his time at the UO. He is eager to apply what he’s learned out in the world, and he is most excited to begin engaging with the community.

Community and Organization:

Woodburn is a culturally diverse community with nearly 26,000 residents. The Hispanic or Latine community make up 58% of the population. Other communities found in Woodburn include an Old Russian Believers community and older retirees. The City of Woodburn government is engaged in making their community prosper and grow. They host events like Fiesta Mexicana, Taste of Woodburn, and other community events. The Economic Development department is in the process of engaging their businesses by connecting North Marion County’s business service providers, developing a newsletter, and increasing their communication with their local businesses. Woodburn is definitely a community on the verge of becoming the place to be.

Projects:

Beny is working under the Economic Development Department on three over-arching projects, expanding the city’s efforts to support Woodburn’s community. The projects are focused on Economic Development, Tourism, and Downtown Development.

• Economic Development–Beny is providing support in developing a self-sustaining business service providers collaborative for the region of North Marion County. This includes promoting communication through Microsoft Teams for members of the collaboration to best help small businesses.
• Tourism–Beny is bringing capacity to the North Marion Tourism Collaborative by populating the new Explore North Marion website pages with content from different towns and businesses as well as adding more content to the Collaborative’s new traveling kiosk.
• Downtown Development–Beny is promoting and developing different attractions and events that the city hosts as well as catalyzing communication to make the downtown a safer and more inviting space.