Paseo: A Weekend of Music, Food, Art, and Community

What do 100 artists, vendors, community groups, grassroots outdoor organizations, and health groups create on the South Parks Blocks over a gorgeous July weekend: Paseo! Created with an amazing array of advisors, sponsors, and creative minds to celebrate community resilience, PFF’s first festival brought our oldest parks to new life.

PPF was proud to present Paseo, a new festival and community gathering, which took place July 15-17, 2022. Paseo featured music, dance, spoken word, drag, and other creative forms, along with yoga and healthful, family activities in the heart of downtown at the South Park Blocks and Director Park. 

Inspired by the Spanish custom of the evening stroll that reawakens the city, Paseo was conceived and curated by a steering committee of BIPOC social justice and arts leaders. Together, we tapped creators of all ages to offer a wide-angle view of Portland's creative breadth.

Click on the picture above to watch the video and see a quick showcase of the liveliness of Paseo!

Pasoe saw all-ages acts like Teeth and Chainsaw Girl tearing up the DIY scene and mixing music and activism. For more mature fare, there was the legendary Aaron Nigel Smith. Shemanski Plaza was devoted entirely to Indigenous performers and vendors, from the storytelling of Shoshone-Bannock elder Ed Edmo to the multimedia work of the queer, disabled Taino artist AC Ramirez. Director Park featured all-ages DJ's Opal and Anjali. Dance companies like Papi Ada and the Kiki House of Ada and Hula Halau’ Ohana Holo’oko’a elevated movement art to the next level.

Photos by Celeste Noche.

Thanks to our presenting sponsor, PGE, and major sponsorship from the City of Portland and The Standard.

And a special callout to our producers, Vida en Color's Michelle Comer and Carolina Soto Nascimento, Amanda Stubits for organizing the Daa-nu'-yash space, the youth sound engineers of Friends of Noise, and the many volunteers who made Paseo happen!

PPF reimagined Paseo and created a unique Mutual Aid Challenge

The Portland Parks Foundation and a steering committee of BIPOC arts and social justice leaders worked for months to create Paseo, a 2-day August community gathering of artists to support 13 mutual aid groups helping our community. Over 40 sponsors joined us in this unprecedented effort to bring bold new creative life to downtown and celebrate PPF's 20th anniversary. With the support of PGE and Moda we even created a beautiful passport for the in person event.

Then came the Delta Variant’s surge.

Plan B: Pivot! The artists want to perform. The mutual aid groups still deserve our help. We still wanted to celebrate 20 years of helping people help parks. So we created a video showcase of 21 extraordinary, culturally diverse Portland artists and the Paseo Mutual Aid Challenge!

Watch the artists, learn about the aid groups, and help us multiply the $4,000 challenge made by the Parks Foundation and Paseo’s lead sponsor, PGE. Any gift, no matter how small, enters you into our drawing for: two bicycles, a family membership to the Oregon Zoo, gift certificates to Fred Meyer, and the Foundation’s 20th anniversary posters.

You can visit all the videos at paseopdx.org/challenge.

Check out all the videos and learn about local mutual aid organizations! Click on the picture to watch the video!

Isabeau supporting Lift Urban Portland

Alex Addy supporting Congo Peace Project

Arietta Ward Supporting Don't Shoot PDX

Wavy Josef supporting Blanchet House

Frankie Simone supporting PDX Queer Front

Machado supporting Lift Urban Portland

Yawa supporting Snack Bloc

PETE supporting Blanchet House

Feliz Songolo supporting the Paseo Mutual Aid Fund

PsychoTropika supporting Portland Fruit Tree Project

Beautiful Street supporting P:ear

Demian Dinéyazhi' supporting Peacekeeper Society

Jessica Mehta supporting Peacekeeper Society

Youth Poets supporting Don't Shoot PDX

Joe Kye supporting Gather:Make:Shelter

Viva La Free supporting Our Streets PDX

Mic Capes supporting Equitable Giving Circle

PHAME supporting Moms United 4 Black Lives

Noah Simpson supporting Gather:Make:Shelter

Shaun Keylock supporting P:ear

Rainezra supporting the Paseo Mutual Aid Fund

The value of community involvement in local parks

"Even if you don’t go to a park every day, you can still recognize the value that it has." - Gary Maffei

Our board chair, Julie Vigeland, recently sat down with Charles Jordan Circle member Gary Maffei to learn why he supports public parks. 

Tell us about your upbringing and how it’s influenced your relationship with parks.
Well, I’m a native Portlander—I grew up in Southeast Portland—and our closest park was Mount Scott. I used to spend all summer there. As a child, I remember that the parks system was a center for the neighborhood. We couldn’t afford to go to the beach or to the mountains or on vacation, but we could walk over to the park and have a picnic or play on the playground. I also used to do Little League in Lents Park. My brother did the Babe Ruth league for high school and my dad was a coach.

What has your relationship with parks been like as an adult?
For 20 years of my career, I lived near Council Crest, and I’d go for walks there. We’d take the dog out for runs because there were beautiful hills for playing fetch—the ball would just keep going and so would the dog! In my career years, I was on the City League for tennis, so we played in all the city parks: in North Portland at Peninsula Park, at Grant Park, up at the Rose Garden tennis courts… It was lots of fun.

In your view, what makes parks important for cities?
It’s a gathering place for the neighborhood, especially the parks that have community centers. The community center at Mount Scott had a roller rink in the basement that we used in the winter, and of course the pool opened in the summer for all the kids. The park near where we live now has the farmer’s market and movie nights in the summer—they have a man-made hill where people put their blankets out, and a big screen so everyone can watch the movie.

How can we make parks more accessible for Portlanders in every neighborhood?
I think it’s important to promote the use of existing parks, and also maintain the existing parks so that people want to use them. Maintenance isn’t as exciting as big new projects, but it’s necessary so that parks and sports facilities don’t fall into disrepair. The Parks Foundation has a unique position where you can really advocate for maintenance within the parks, or even for a bond measure to make improvements.

Do you know of any parks advocates who are doing inspiring work?
Any civic leaders that are in love with Portland are going to be in love with the parks—I mean, who isn’t? Even if you don’t go to a park every day, you can still recognize the value that it has. Anybody who’s donated to parks is supporting parks.

You’ve mentioned a number of parks. If you had to choose a favorite, which would it be?
I’d say Mount Scott. I grew up there—20 years of my life was spent in that park, whether that was hanging out with friends, swimming in the summer, or bicycling there. As an older person, my favorite has been Gabriel Park, because I play tennis there. I’ve spent so many evenings playing tennis there, with friends or in the League.

Parks Building Community

Som Nath Subedi, Parks for New Portlanders manager, accepting a 2015 Spirit of Portland award with Commissioner Amanda Fritz.

To find out more about how you can get involved, contact Som Nath Subedi at som.subedi@portlandoregon.gov or visit the program’s website.

According to a recent report by the City Budget Office, roughly 15% of Portlanders were born in countries other than the United States– that puts the Rose City right in line with about 50 other large U.S. cities. Unfortunately, for many of our newest Portland citizens, parks and community centers are literally a foreign concept.  That is where one of Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R)’s newest programs, Parks for New Portlanders, steps up to welcome immigrant and refugee families into our public park spaces and programs.

The Parks for New Portlanders program started about a year ago to help immigrant and refugee families engage with and to utilize their city’s parks and recreational programs via PP&R.  Since its inception, it has conducted soccer and basketball tournaments which cater to immigrants and refugees, along with culturally-specific community gatherings in Portland’s parks.  The program also hired seven Community Youth Ambassadors to help organize culturally-specific recreational activities for their communities.  In the Parks for New Portlanders Program’s first year, it attracted youth and families from around 40 countries and their disparate cultures, gaining important momentum for this year’s goals. The program made a welcome video in 10 different languages watched by 50,000 people last summer.

Why is culturally-specific programming in parks and recreation so important? Parks are one of a handful of places that belong to all citizens, and are one of the hallmarks of America’s democracy.

“Our community lives, eats and invests together. They are our valued partners, rather than just some needy population,” says Som Nath Subedi, PP&R Program Coordinator for Parks for New Portlanders.  “Parks for New Portlanders is a way for our city’s immigrant communities to connect to their new home. It shows them that even though they are newcomers, that the city and all it offers belongs to them.  City activities belong to them.  City resources belong to them.   We believe in recreation and access for ALL Portlanders. And PP&R is leading that effort.”

Regardless of economic status and backgrounds, people come to parks to be social and to meet neighbors, celebrate with family, to exercise and take needed respite from worries; to connect with nature.  However, if parks and recreational activities are an entirely new concept, it can be difficult to access or enjoy these public gathering spaces.

“Many refugee families come from very difficult and dangerous circumstances to start their new lives in Portland.  Parks can help with the healing process and show them that they are welcomed in their new home,” adds Subedi. “This program bridges the recreational gaps and provides opportunities for access to Portland Parks & Recreation services and activities.”

Subedi knows this experience first-hand. He immigrated to the U.S. in 2008 after living 20 years in a Bhutanese refugee camp in Nepal after being forced out of his native country of Bhutan. As he said in a recent Oregonian article, when he first came, “Daily life was very unpredictable. From using a bus to grocery shopping, and being unemployed and trying to find a job, made each day overwhelming for us. We would easily become lost on big crowded streets filled with cars and big buildings. Anxious and tired, we realized that we had no idea how complex living in America would be." Som hopes his work with PP&R will help new families integrate and flourish in Portland.

This coming year the Parks for New Portlanders program hopes to expand its programs to reach even more families.  The Portland Parks Foundation looks forward to following this program’s successes and supporting our local parks that are the center of our communities.  To find out more about how you can get involved, contact Som Nath Subedi at som.subedi@portlandoregon.gov or visit the program’s website.