Announcing PPF's 2026 PGE Parks Champions!

2026 PGE Parks Champions

The Parks Champion Awards honor individuals who make outstanding contributions or provide significant service to a Portland park, community center, natural area, community garden, or park-related or recreation program through direct volunteer service.

PPF is excited to announce our two 2026 awardees: Katherine Schroeder, for her work at the Community Music Center, and Patricia Frobes, for her work with Friends of Peninsula Park Rose Garden, Portland Parks Coalition, and even previously on PPF’s own board of directors! These two women exemplify that parks volunteerism can take many forms - from the rose bed to the board room, from balancing budgets, to getting students and teachers needed scholarships and supplies. All helps expand access to parks and recreation programing, and creates a deeper sense of ownership for our natural spaces and community. Thank you for your service!

Katherine Schroeder 

Katherine Schroeder is a behind-the-scenes star at the Community Music Center (CMC Inc.), where she has been on the board since 2011. CMC Inc. supports PP&R’s synonymous facility, which serves hundreds of students from 50 different zip codes around Portland offering affordable music lessons, classes, and ensembles. Katherine raises money for need-based scholarships and merit awards, helps acquire specialized equipment, and she stewards the non-profits’ financial resources and musical instrument collection. Kathy has helped CMC and PP&R negotiate several partnership contracts, build the non-profit’s website, maintain and insure its instrument collection, and procure professional services such as bookkeeping and legal advice. During the pandemic shutdown she helped CMC’s music lessons continue by helping the organization provide micro grants paid directly to music teachers providing remote learning. Together with the free and low-cost services CMC hosts, it provides equitable access to music making and music learning programs for thousands of Portlanders each year.

Patricia Frobes 

Patricia Frobes is a consistent advocate for Portland parks and a core leader in the founding and ongoing work of the Friends of Peninsula Park Rose Garden (FOPPRG) since 2012. Through her service on Parks Board, the Parks Foundation Board, and the Parks Alliance, and her longtime guidance of FOPPRG, Pat has always pushed for accountability, fairness, and for what’s best for the environment and the people of Portland. During the BLM marches, many of which began at Peninsula Park, Pat realized that the historical record of the rose garden and park were flawed: it omitting the important history of people of color in and around Peninsula Park. She then worked with a group of advocates and artists to create a public project featuring a diverse collection of community members, past and present. She has been an inspiration to hundreds of volunteers over the last 14 years, and continues to help mentor new Friends groups, boards, and board members. 

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2026 Nominees

• Bill Bannister - Forest Park, Marquam Nature Park, Ancient Forest Preserve

• Catherine Clark - Roseway Parkway

• Corin Wallace - Village Park

• Danae Hutson - Peninsula Elementary School

• Eric Mitchell - Hoyt Arboretum

• Jill Gaddis - Friends of April Hill Park

• Jo Durand - South Park Blocks

• Kara Shane Colley - Couch Park

• Karen Campbell - Trail Keepers of Oregon, Powell Butte Nature Park, Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge

• Katherine Schroeder - Community Music Center

• Lise Gervais - Mt. Tabor, Montavilla Park, Ventura Park, Forest Park, Leach Botanical Garden, Richmond Neighborhood, St. John’s Community Center, Lents

• Patricia Frobes - Friends of Peninsula Park Rose Garden, Portland Parks Foundation Board, Parks Board, Parks Alliance

• Peter Condra - Lents Neighborhood

Small Grants Recipients Read, Paddle and Repair

The Portland Parks Foundation is happy to announce our Fall 2020 grantees

PPF’s small grants program aims to support local organizations that steward public parks, park programs, community gardens and natural areas.  This fall our community-based review committee selected three organizations centering equity in their programming with proven adaptability during times of COVID-19 restrictions to continue bringing parks-related programming to marginalized communities in Portland.    

City Repair and Ecological Landscaping

The City Repair Project, $2,500

The City Repair Project facilitates “artistic, social justice and ecological placemaking through projects that honor the interconnection of human communities and the natural world.” City Repair manages village building programs for individuals experiencing houselessness, sponsors popular placemaking events such as Pickathon, and organizes Earth Day celebrations. Through their programming, they “aim to nuture public participation in parks, community gardens and natural areas.”

This small grant will build organizational capacity and directly support City Repair’s ecological landscaping and permaculture community trainings and online workshops, and their 21st annual Village Building Convergence. A portion of the funds will be used to offer paid opportunities for community members to guest teach workshops in their effort to prioritize Black, Indigenous People of Color and LGBTQ+ community members. 

Summer Free For All Bookmobile Camp

The Bookmobile Babe, $2,500

The Bookmobile Babe’s mobile libraries address the critical importance of childhood literacy and the reading gap that often occurs every summer. This grant will directly fund free books and free literacy programs for children ages 0-18, in addition to supporting the program’s dedicated volunteers. For the last three years, Bookmobile Babe has partnered with Summer Free for All’s Free Lunch + Play programming in Lents and Creston Parks. Free Lunch + Play sites provide free lunches and play opportunities at sites throughout the city where the need for nutritious meals is most critical. The Bookmobile Babe’s partnership provides additional opportunities for these families to engage in summer reading.

The Bookmobile Babe operates on a small but impactful scale, and has done so successfully for three years, including this past summer with COVID-19 precautions in place. This grant will enhance their successful program so that even more children may have access to literacy support in the summer when they need it most. 

Columbia Slough Bilingual Paddle Leaders

Columbia Slough Watershed Council, $2,473

The Columbia Slough Watershed Council (CSWC) maintains and advocates for a healthy watershed for all Portlanders. They recognize the many physical and emotional benefits that outdoor recreation offers. Furthermore, “engaging with local natural areas and parks motivates Portland community members to protect these areas.” Historically, immigrant communities have lacked access and awareness to the outdoor recreation opportunities Portland offers. To address this inequity, CSWC has partnered with Slavic and Latinx communities to develop a bilingual paddle program which provides an opportunity to learn kayak and canoe skills while also teaching about the history and ecology of the watershed. An integral component of this program is recruiting and training bilingual paddle leaders from the Latinx and Slavic communities. Funds from PPF’s small grant will be used to grow the program through training sessions where existing paddle leaders will come together to train new ones as well as provide information sessions on additional environmental topics of interest to these two communities. 

For more information and to read about past grantees, check out our Small Grants Program page.

Contact Jessica Green at jgreen@portlandpf.org with any questions.

Major Bank of America Grant Enhances PP&R's Mobile Lunch + Play Program

The Portland Parks Foundation and Portland Parks & Recreation are pleased to announce that they have received a $200k Neighborhood Builders grant from Bank of America. The two-year grant ($100,000 each year) will significantly expand free summertime lunch and recreation activities in east Portland, the region of the city most in need of those services.

Portland Parks Foundation and Portland Parks & Recreation staff, including PPF Executive Director Randy Gragg (black sweater), PP&R Director Adena Long (center) accepted the grant with Parks Commissioner Nick Fish (checkered shirt). The Bank of America grant will allow the Bureau's Mobile Lunch + Play program to expand significantly.

The BofA grant will greatly expand Portland Parks & Recreation’s (PP&R) Summer Free For All Mobile Lunch + Play program. In partnership with Meals on Wheels People, Mobile Lunch + Play brings free summertime lunch, sports, arts, crafts, and games to apartment complexes and sites in Portland where parks are currently scarce. Meals on Wheels People was the recipient of the Neighborhood Builders grant last year. 

“Thanks to Bank of America, thousands more Portland children will receive a free, healthy meal,” says Portland Parks Commissioner Nick Fish. “The Neighborhood Builders grant strengthens our longstanding partnership with Bank of America. Thanks to our philanthropic partner – the Portland Parks Foundation, and to Roger Hinshaw and Monique Barton at Bank of America for their commitment to Portland families.” 

“We recognize the critical role that local nonprofits play to build pathways to economic progress in the Portland community. Through Neighborhood Builders, we connect nonprofits like Financial Beginnings Oregon and the Portland Parks Foundation to the funding and leadership development resources they need to further scale their impact,” said Roger Hinshaw, Bank of America’s Market President in Oregon and Southwest Washington. “Both of these nonprofits do extraordinary work, so I am pleased we are able to bring forward this additional support at a particularly strategic time for them.” 

Nearly forty percent of east Portland households still lack a park within a half mile of their homes. Density continues to grow in east Portland with an estimated 25,000 more housing units coming by 2035. Bank of America’s support will allow PP&R and PPF to expand the Mobile Lunch + Play program to reach more kids and families in need, and bring fun and games to areas without easy park access. 

A Mobile Lunch + Play event brings smiles to kids at an east Portland apartment complex. The Portland Parks & Recreation program brings free lunches and the summertime park experience - games, sports, arts and crafts - to areas which don't yet have ready access to parks.

“The Bank of America Neighborhood Builders grant will allow us to bring a lot of the fun of a park directly to the kids,” says Randy Gragg, PPF’s Executive Director. “With our city growing so quickly, Mobile Play + Lunch is a fast, effective way to better serve more of our city’s kids.” 

“We are so thankful to Bank of America,” says Portland Parks & Recreation Director Adena Long. “The grant helps our Free Lunch + Play program grow in size and scope; to deliver the summertime experience every Portland child deserves.” 

For more information on Portland Parks & Recreation’s Mobile Lunch + Play and other Summer Free For All programs, please click here. 

For more information on Bank Of America’s Neighborhood Builders grant, click here.