2025’s PGE Parks Champion and Joey Pope Award for Parks Leadership nominees having some fun at the 2025 Friends & Allies Spring Summit.
PPF’s annual PGE Parks Champion Award recognizes individuals who provide outstanding volunteer service to a park, community center, natural area or community garden. The two honorees each receive the opportunity to direct a $1,500 grant from PPF to a community organization that aligns with our vision: to help Portland communities create more equitable access to nature, play, health, and places of connection.
This year, we received nominations for 21 people and groups across Portland, and you can see their impact across the city!
Some highlights include:
citizen scientists tracking annual data
urban gardeners and food providers
tree stewards
longstanding urban planning advocates
educators and collaborators with young people
hearty horticulturalists
Our 2025 PGE Parks Champions are:
Heidi Esbensen, Bridging Voices
Heidi has been a tireless advocate and leader for LGBTQ+ youth through her work with Bridging Voices, the largest queer-allied youth chorus in the Pacific Northwest. She is celebrated for advocating for inclusive gathering spaces, particularly creating a sense of home and belonging at the Community Music Center and the Multnomah Arts Center for the youth. Beyond the choir’s core programming, Heidi has driven community outreach, expanding Bridging Voices’ reach into public spaces, local festivals, and community events in parks. Under her leadership, the chorus has become a visible and celebrated part of Portland’s cultural landscape, from performances to opportunities for connection, belonging, and youth empowerment
Her award will be donated to support Bridging Voices. You can learn more and support work at Bridging Voices here:
Peter Condra, Green Lents
Peter Condra has been working as a green space advocate in Lents since 2020. Through his work organizing neighbors, Green Lents, Urban Forestry, PBOT, and Portland Parks & Recreation, they created 3,000 square feet of pollinator garden in the center of a traffic median, and added 9 street trees. The garden will provide valuable pollinator habitat and urban canopy, and will provide traffic calming to this blind corner that lacks sidewalks. In addition, through his volunteerism, he helped Green Lents rate as top contractor with the Yard Tree Giveaway program in 2024.
His award will be donated to Green Lents. You can learn more and support work with Green Lents here:
2025 PGE Parks Champion Nominees include:
Alan Scott, Lifelong Recreation, Metro Movers
Deven Kautza, Centennial Transition Center
Doris Beard, Hoyt Arboretum
Ginger Edwards, Arbor Lodge Neighborhood
Heidi Esbensen, Bridging Voices
Ida Galash, Portland Monarchs
Jesse Hunter, Lent Elementary
Jim Sjulin, 40-Mile Loop
Joel Kellner, Community Cycling Center
Kathleen Madden, Multnomah Arts Center
Leigh Nunez, Sellwood Community House
Lori Willis, Spring Garden Park
Madeline Forsyth & Bob Lounibos, International Rose Test Garden
Mark Triebwasser, Leach Botanical Garden
Michael Eugene Wade (posthumous), Friends of Portland Community Gardens
Parks Committee Volunteers, The Pearl District Neighborhood Association
Peter Condra, Green Lents
Robert Bonner, Walpole Garden
Students of the Community Transition Project at Applegate School
Suzanne Briggs & Joe Bartholomew, Rose City Park Bluff
Tim Kasal, Hillsdale Dog Park
Read about the nominees
and their work here:
A special thanks to our 2024-25 program sponsor, Portland General Electric.
Thank you to Portland General Electric for partnering with us to recognize the individuals and organizations in our community who are passionate advocates for creating safe and welcoming parks and greenspaces. The PGE Parks Champion Awards are an extension of PGE’s commitment to empowering communities to create a cleaner, greener, more equitable Oregon. Through its Project Zero initiative, they are engaging youth and community members to learn, solve and take action through climate and clean energy education, environmental stewardship and access to green jobs. The PGE Parks Champion Awards embodies the very mission of Project Zero and reflects the significance that volunteerism plays in building strong, healthy communities.