Cody Slater, chair of the Leadership Butler County class, tours the Butler Eagle with the rest of the 2023 class on Friday, Dec. 9. Shane Potter/Butler Eagle

The 30th Leadership Butler County class is well on its way, as it plans to take on three projects for the first time in the history of the program.

Each class is defined by its class project, and for the 2023 class, the primary project includes a partnership with the Moraine Preservation Fund to raise funds and renovate an existing multipurpose room at Pavilion 7 at Moraine State Park into a park environmental programming classroom.

For the secondary project, the leadership class will raise money for Robin’s Home in Butler to assist the organization in the construction of a privacy room where the residents of the home can have medical and other professional appointments.

“The reason we went about it the way we did was because we saw Moraine as a long-term potential,” said Cody Slater, class chair, who works for Alliance for Nonprofit Resources. “Something we could get our hands dirty with. With the capital we saw they had, we thought we could easily get over the top of that.

“We could take any additional funds that we raised we could give to Robin’s Home. Two birds, one stone to help the community.”

Robin’s Home provides care for homeless, unstably housed and low-income female veterans and their children.

The final project will involve supply drives at various community events where the class will collect clothing items for youth within the community in partnership with Inspired Hearts and Hands.

“Inspired Hearts and Hands is very much focused on schoolchildren,” Slater said. “There are things often overlooked like socks, underwear and shoes.”

Supply drives will take place during Butler County Chamber of Commerce organized events, such as the second annual Santa @ Preston Park on Saturday, Dec. 10, to have free photos taken with Santa for children and families.

Slater explained all projects are just getting underway, and more fundraising ideas will follow.

“We have various fundraising ideas,” Slater said. “We haven’t nailed down any at this point. Hopefully after we meet today we will have a more solid idea.”

On Friday, the Leadership class visited the Butler Eagle production facility to listen to a panel discussion by local government officials and to receive a tour of the facility from Eagle employees.

Mark Buchek and Autumn Patterson, both board members of Leadership Butler County, said the visit to the Butler Eagle is something each class does regularly.

Buchek explained the demand to get into Leadership Butler County has risen over the years, especially since his time with the program when he graduated in 2015.

“Our role of being on the board is to make sure they choose the right projects for the program and that we are here to help them with the projects because we were members of the class at one point,” Buchek said.

The Leadership board has to approve the projects the class wants to pursue, but the class does come up with its own ideas through a deliberation process.

“All of the people that want to do projects do applications originally then they present to the class,” Patterson said. “Then the class picks from there.”

This year’s class has 29 members from all different types of industries.

With everyone having different work schedules, the class meets in person to discuss projects only once or twice a month, with a majority of the work done remotely.

“It’s not necessarily a weekly type thing,” Buchek said. “We try to at least have a program once a month. A lot of it takes place via email, phone calls, Zoom meetings and whatever.”