Unwilling to let what had become a vital youth program dissolve, RiverStars leadership created a full day of programming to take place on Fridays, as the RiverStars Family Engagement Program, giving students and homeschoolers alike an option for filling their “5th” school day with meaningful arts education. The program shifted locations to Jubilee Park, to Healthy U, and finally landed at the Takilma Community Building, which provides spacious wood floors and accommodates 40 plus students. Having a longer day of programming also allowed for adding a morning class of intergenerational community dance. With connections forged in weekly movement practice, mothers began dreaming up how we could effect positive change in our community and keep RiverStars and youth programs we care about sustainable – and The Motherline was born. For the next couple years, The Motherline received fiscal sponsorship from the Cave Junction Farmers Market and also continued working collaboratively with the Cultivate Kids Program. 

In February of 2025 The Motherline registered for nonprofit status, and was granted approval by the IRS as a 501c3 nonprofit organization and public charity in October 2025. While we are a ‘new’ organization, our programs have been around for many years, fiscally sponsored through collaborating organizations.

Present Day: The Motherline centers culture, relationship, and creativity as drivers of long-term community wellbeing. Our work is grounded in weekly community dance practice, which serves as a consistent and accessible community-builder that bolsters trust, belonging, and intergenerational connection. From this foundation, we advance a range of interconnected, community-designed efforts—including youth arts and agriculture programs, intergenerational mentor webs, skills and literacy education, and the creation of community environmental pathways. Collectively, we refer to these efforts as PATH(s)—Purposeful Actions To Heal. 

While much of our focus is on Youth engagement through our programs RiverStars, Mentorwebs, Planet Dance, and the collaboration with Cultivate Kids, another important focus is The Clean Sweep project. Initially envisioned with the singular goal of picking up all of the trash on the public lands in the Illinois River watershed, the Clean Sweep consists of two distinct phases: cleaning up of the existing trash in our local forests, and outreach work to prevent future illegal dumping.  After  hundreds of volunteers picking up thousands of pounds of trash per volunteer, we have realized that the cleanup was only a starting point.  Nobody wants to face this level of trash cleanup again, and we are committed to following the trash cleanup with an unprecedented outreach campaign toward prevention of future trash. Since our PATH(s) are all connected, much like a web, our education outreach for Clean Sweep includes pairing RiverStars performance opportunities at community events with impactful content to educate our community around preserving our watershed and illegal dumping . It also includes our intergenerational Mentorweb program hiking in the cleaned up woods, on trails they themselves helped to transform back to natural beauty. Through our PATH(s), The Motherline strives to create a climate of care, education, connection, sustainability and youth leadership in our community.