Think Local Umpqua Director Virginia Elandt, 30, grew up in Wisconsin but knew by the time she was 9 she wanted to live in Oregon. She had no particular reason for it, just a certainty that she wanted to be here, she said. “I just always was a free spirit ... I find that my gut is the best indicator of what I need to be doing or where I need to be going,” she said. She may not have had a logical reason then, but at age 26 she found one. It was a University of Oregon-sponsored AmeriCorps program …




