Re-imagining Portland: Parks, Public Space, Memory, Creativity, and Spatial Justice

Re-imagining Portland: Parks, Public Space, Memory, Creativity, and Spatial Justice

Lectures and Ongoing Programs

In the last year, Portland’s downtown and other urban districts have faced growing challenges. The pandemic has hurt and shuttered businesses leaving the city’s normally bustling street life muted or gone. The humanitarian crisis of houselessness has left many of our most vulnerable Portlanders on the streets. Many public buildings, institutions, arts organizations, and private businesses have been damaged or vandalized.  

At the same time, the city has become an epicenter for protests against Portland’s, Oregon’s, and America’s deeply rooted racism. Monuments have been toppled or officially removed for reconsideration. Marches, street theater, and murals have transformed our parks and public spaces into stages and canvases filled with urgent and creative calls for meaningful change.[1] 

Portland’s once-nationally celebrated 50-year legacy of downtown and neighborhood revitalization has come to a pause, a disruption, and a collective opportunity to ask fundamental questions:

• How can we heal a history of exclusion?

• Who and what are our public spaces for?

• Who and what should we commemorate? 

• Can we foster more inclusive forms of commerce and creativity?

The Portland Parks Foundation, Regional Arts & Culture Council, the Portland Art Museum, and Converge 45 would like to bring Portland’s most creative minds together to begin to debate and discover possibilities.

Our organizations, along with many other community partners, will start this exploration with talks by two of the nation’s leading voices on spatial justice and public memory. We will follow these with convenings, collaborations, and actions to foster new thinking and outcomes in public space, memory, commerce, and creativity.

Liz Ogbu, Studio O, designer, urbanist, racial and spatial justice activist

In conversation with Manuel Padilla, Oregon Solutions

Wednesday, March 17, 2021 at 5 pm on Zoom

Admission is free, but donations are accepted

A designer, urbanist, and spatial justice activist, Liz is an expert on engaging and transforming unjust urban environments, "looking at what it means to examine the spatial and emotional wounds of the places we inhabit and how we might move towards repair." Her multidisciplinary design and innovation practice, Studio O, works on a wide array of initiatives from designing shelters for immigrant day laborers to developing a Social Impact Protocol for housing initiatives in 44 states.

“I design the space that helps support people to live their best stories,” Liz said in a recent talk, Design in the Apocalypse. “Justice has a geography. The equitable distribution of access, services, and opportunities is a basic human right.”

Liz Ogbu’s lecture is co-sponsored by the University of Oregon’s Urbanism Next Institute.

Read more about Liz Ogbu here:

She served in the inaugural class of Innovators-in-Residence at IDEO.org, IDEO’s nonprofit dedicated to fostering global poverty reduction and as Design Director at Public Architecture, a national nonprofit mobilizing designers to improve communities through design. Her 2013 TED Talk and 2017 TED Talk have been viewed over a million times. She is an alum of Wellesley College and the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

Manuel Padilla has worked in peace building, conflict reconciliation, restorative justice, and conducting public dialogue toward culture change. He is a project manager with Oregon Solutions, which brings business, government, and nonprofits to the table to address community needs.

Cleanse: A Dialogue on Art and Public Space with Paul Farber and Michelle Angela Ortiz

Facilitated by Jaleesa Johnston, Portland Art Museum

Photo provided by Mural Arts Philadelphia.

Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 12 pm on Zoom

Admission is free, but donations are accepted

Paul Farber is Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab, a public art and history studio based in Philadelphia that cultivates and facilitates critical conversations around the past, present, and future of monuments. The Lab works with artists, students, educators, activists, municipal agencies, and cultural institutions on participatory approaches to public engagement and collective memory and to make generational change in the ways art and history live in public. Farber is author of A Wall of Our Own: An American History of the Berlin Wall and co-editor of Monument Lab: Creative Speculations for Philadelphia. He also currently serves as Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Public Art & Space at the University of Pennsylvania Weitzman School of Design. Read more about Paul Farber here.

Michelle Angela Ortiz is a visual artist, muralist, community arts educator, and filmmaker who uses her art to represent individuals and communities whose histories are often lost or co-opted. For 20 years, she had created community engagement methods that take into account the issues of responsibility, accountability, and ethics within the field of social practice and community arts. From murals to temporary large-scale installations, her public artworks share stories using richly crafted and emotive imagery to claim and transform spaces into a visual affirmation that reveals the strength and spirit of the community. Read more about Michelle here.

Jaleesa Johnston is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and arts administrator. She holds a BA from Vassar College and an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. She has been the recipient of the AICAD Post-Graduate Teaching Fellowship and Centrum’s Emerging Artist Residency. In addition to her role at the Portland Art Museum as Programs Lead in the Learning and Community Partnerships Department, Johnston also teaches in Foundation, Photography and Video + Sound at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.

Meet Our Newest Board Members

In 2020, PPF added four dynamic new board members. Here’s a look at who they are, what they hope to accomplish, and if they could actually be a park, which one would each choose to be.

Martina Bialek

Martina Bialek currently works at Latino Network, a Portland nonprofit serving the Latinx community in the region. She is the force behind all marketing and communications strategies to educate the public and raise awareness on the issues that affect the lives of Latinos in the region. Storytelling is Martina’s true passion, and as she says, “there is a great difference between a messenger and a storyteller.” When Martina isn’t drafting press releases and blog posts, she is spending time with her husband Richard, a native Oregonian, and her dogs Marley and Chicha.

Why this board?

Growing up in South America during a time of extreme economic instability, I seldom had opportunities to recreate in public spaces safely. Living in Portland taught me how Oregonians find pride and joy in their public spaces, recreate in them regularly and respect the connection between the city and the nature around it. I fell in love with the way people interact with parks and I wanted to have a more active role in reminding people why parks are awesome!

If you could be a Portland park, which one would you be and why?

My husband and I got engaged at the Rose garden, so if I had to choose a Portland park, it would be Washington Park. I have countless experiences there, be it my engagement or the many hikes with friends and my pets. It’s always an inviting place that offers stillness and quietness just minutes from Portland's hustle and bustle.

What do you hope to accomplish while serving?

I hope to be a bridge between PPF and other communities, bring neighbors together and share the beauty that Portland parks have to offer, not only to the people who have historically enjoyed them regularly, but also to those who are still trying to find their place within public spaces.

Maja Viklands Harris

Maja Viklands Harris is a writer, policy analyst and facilitator. A native Swede who immigrated to the United States in 2003, Maja is journalist by trade who nowadays spends most of her time in the political and philanthropic arenas. She is a director of the Hormel Harris Foundation, whose initiatives include support for affordable housing, criminal justice reform, food security, mental health and substance abuse treatment and services. She is also an active member of the philanthropic organization ninety-nine girlfriends in Portland and SW Washington. In her previous community of Lincoln, NE, Maja served as a planning commissioner and board chair of both the library and the zoo and has been involved in mayoral, city council, and state legislative races. Ongoing consulting and advisory engagements include initiatives to democratize the public input process and to draft and implement equitable, people-centered urban planning policy.

Why this board?

Few public investments can deliver as much bang for the buck as parks. The public health and environmental benefits of parks, along with parks’ contributions to livability, urban design and general quality of life, are hard to beat. Jane Jacobs, the mother of modern urban planning, said that people must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other. To me, parks are perfect examples of all of us taking that responsibility to care for each other and our shared environment, and then directly experiencing the positive results of that collective impact as we enjoy all that parks have to offer.

If you could be a Portland Park, which one would you be and why?

Right now I would choose Peninsula Park because it’s my children’s favorite, and I wish I could bottle up the joy that they experience there.

What do you hope to accomplish while serving?

Both maintaining and improving access to the parks system are priorities for me. As a parent of elementary school children I am very interested in the importance of play to children’s development, and parks have a huge role to play in offering those benefits to all children equally.

Subashini Ganesan

Subashini Ganesan is an artist, arts administrator, and the Creative Laureate of Portland. Ganesan choreographs and performs potent and universally relevant expressions drawn from her foundation in Bharatanatyam. Her original works have been presented by PICA, Conduit, Performance Works NW, Ten Tiny Dances, Portland Center Stage, Third Angle New Music, and Risk/Reward. In 2010, Ganesan founded New Expressive Works (N.E.W.), a vibrant performing arts venue in Portland that celebrates multicultural independent performing artists who teach, are in residency, and create bold new works. She serves on the Board of Directors for the James F. & Marion L. Miller Foundation and the Portland Parks Foundation. 

Why this board?

Parks fulfill a promise that public and nature-filled spaces are important for urban dwellers. Portland is blessed with everything from Forest Park, where we can almost forget that we live in a city, to Peninsula Park, which is a solid urban park that provides gathering spaces for families, swimming lessons for youth, and everything in between. I have joined this Board to increase park resources and access to parts of our city that have historically been under-served. Public spaces have always had and will continue to have a deeply significant role in how our pluralistic community builds relationships across cultures and socio-economic status. PPF has been steadily building pathways and leading the way in this role. 

If you could be a Portland park, which one would you be and why?

Ahh so hard. Mount Tabor, I think. First Off, I can walk to it and the sunset views are magnificent. Secondly, how can I pass up being one of four extinct volcanoes within a City boundary? And, of course, let's not forget that every summer (not including 2020...) it becomes the hub for the Portland Adult Soapbox Derby! 

What do you hope to accomplish while serving?

I am interested in how PPF continues building relationships that lead to trusting collaboration across multicultural communities in our city. We have built a great rapport with many organizations through our Small Grants Program. How can we now take the next step to build authentic, long-lasting relationships that honor our parks communities which are represented by humans from a diversity of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, class, disability status, and age? I am also really committed to continuing the work of conceptualizing and taking action on where park spaces are located, what amenities they provide, how arts & culture can thrive in these spaces, and how "safe" they feel for a diverse (as opposed to a homogenous) community. 

Vicky Schwoeffermann

Vicky Schwoeffermann, born and raised in Boston, MA, earned her BA in Criminal Justice and her Masters in Human Services from Northeastern University. She believes her purpose in life is to be a voice for the community and advocate for those who need critical support to overcome cultural, educational, and economic barriers. She brings over 15 years of experience in supporting leadership training programs, fundraising, management, events, and strategy. She currently supports several organizations including Harvard University, Oregon Food Bank, and HOLLA. In her spare time, she enjoys running and hiking with her husband, Tamu, her 7-year-old son, Kenzo, and her 5-year-old daughter, Simra.

Why this board?

The mission of Portland Parks Foundation—to strengthen communities and provide a sense of belonging for everyone in Portland—makes it crucial for me to be in this space at this time. I think our parks are uniquely divine—the green spaces here connect us all and are a crucial part of our city's identity. 

Unfortunately, COVID has revealed additional inequities that exist with different populations, specifically African Americans and other people of color. What is unique about Portland Parks Foundation is that we are going about making parks better in an equitable way. We are trying to listen to the community and elicit voices about what things are missing in our parks. How can we make them better, how can we adapt and be agile given the times? How can we grow support for more parks in different areas?

What do you hope to accomplish while serving?

Growing up I used to spend most of my summer days in the parks of Boston swinging a tennis racket and running around the court. I used to play tennis in the park for probably about eight hours a day with friends and family. I was even afforded the opportunity to play tennis with Venus and Serena Williams through a sponsorship program called Tenacity Summer Tennis Reading Program. The community rallied around and brought their arms around the kids of the community. That is what I want to do for others because it was a place of so much joy for me. I want to provide this joy for the community.

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.

Portland Parks Foundation Holiday Cheer Photo Contest

Hey Portland Park Friends! No holiday travel? No problem: Do it in a park!

The next time you stretch your legs at a park, snap a holiday photo for a chance to win a $100 donation to a non-profit parks organization of your choice!

How to enter: Post your photo video on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram , tag the Portland Parks Foundation, and use the hashtag #pdxparkholiday.

Deadline: Monday, December 21, 2020

How to win: Get the most likes on either Facebook, Twitter or Instagram!

We all know 2020 has been full of challenges, but as we close out this year, we should remember all we have to be thankful for. We are looking for some fun, inspirational, and caring reminders of how much we love our parks.  Wear your favorite holiday sweater, bring seasonal decorations and spread some cheer at your favorite Portland park (socially distanced, of course)!

Remember to wear your mask and leave no trace!

Photo Rules:

• Photo must be in a Portland Park 

• Appropriate Content/Material in line with PPF Values 

• You will be responsible for cleanup of all materials used in park 

• Videos are allowed, and encouraged!

• Photoshop and Photo Editing Tools are allowed 

Photo Theme Suggestions: 

• Family/Friends Ugliest Christmas Sweater Group Photo 

• Friends Group Social Distance Fun 

• Holiday Lights/Tree Decoration in a Park 

• Holiday Throwback (a photo from the past) 

• Acts of Kindness with Strangers in the Park 

• Cutest Couple in the Park 

• BLM to Santa 

• Puppies! 

Email Lucy Pawliczek at lpawliczek@portlandpf.org with questions.

We help people help parks.

The Portland Parks Foundation fosters leadership, creates partnerships, and raises funds to advance equity, excellence, accessibility, and good stewardship in our parks. We are the philanthropic partner of Portland Parks & Recreation and work with many other friends and ally organizations to make Portland's parks and open spaces healthy, safe, and inviting to everyone.

Sign up for our monthly newsletter!

Green Dreams: Radical Love: How nature can shape a more equitable city

A happy hour conversation with Vivek Shandas, PSU Professor, Chair of Portland’s Urban Forestry Commission

Vivek Shandas knows how cities shape the environment; and, in turn, how that environment shapes cities and the people who live there. Historically in America-and specifically in Portland-where the trees are tells you a lot: wealthy neighborhoods have many big, old leafy trees; economically disinvested neighborhoods, not so much.

In the latest of Portland Parks Foundation’s “Green Dreams” conversations, Shandas will offer his bold thinking of how “radical love” between the city and nature can change this dichotomy. 

5:30-6:30 pm, Monday, December 7, on Zoom. 

Registration: sliding scale, free-$20. Proceeds benefit the Portland Parks Foundation

Hosted by Randy Gragg, Executive Director, Portland Parks Foundation

Watch an early replay here.

Growing up in Bangalore, Shandas learned the benefits trees can foster up close, beginning with how the mango tree outside his window offered not just a respite from the bustling city surrounding him, but a whole world to explore. After moving to the US as a child, and finishing a couple of decades of environmental research, his more recent ground-breaking insights proved that historic redlining of neighborhoods have not just systematically denied people of color similar childhood experiences with trees, but continue to threaten their health and survival today. 

Shandas argues that developing a more equitable future for historically disinvested communities requires bold acts of “radical love,” exploring the contours of the challenges we face and finding promising ways forward.

In a Green Dreams happy-hour conversation, Shandas will share how Bangalore, Vandana Shiva, Frances Moore Lappe, and Oregon's Outdoor School shaped his career and research, and his belief that Portland can lead the nation with environmental and climate justice. 

Dr. Shandas serves as the research director for PSU’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions, where he supports cross-disciplinary efforts to address pressing challenges facing communities around the world. As the Founder and Director of the Sustaining Urban Places Research (SUPR), he evaluates environmental stresses on human health, developing indicators and tools to improve decision making, and constructs frameworks to guide the growth of urban regions. Over the past several years, research from the SUPR Lab has appeared in the Smithsonian Magazine, National Public Radio, Washington Post, Minnesota Public Broadcasting, NY Times, Qatar Times, and several other national and international media.

The Portland Parks Foundation’s “Green Dreams” series offers a virtual stage for thought leaders to share insights, provocations, and ideas about the past, present, and future of Portland’s parks and public spaces. 

Measure 26-213 Passes

As Portlanders, we love our parks. When our parks needed help, we answered the call. On November 3, 2020 we overwhelmingly passed Measure 26-213—the Portland parks levy!

This levy is a lifesaver for the future of our parks system and a critical step toward a more stable Parks Bureau that will better serve all Portlanders.

With this additional funding, Portland Parks & Recreation will be able to:

Restore Recreation by opening public pools and community centers, and restoring programs, including fitness classes, arts, senior programs, youth programs, and environmental education just when local families need them most. 

Boost Maintenance which will increase litter removal, restroom cleaning, playground inspections and repairs.

Protect Nature by maintaining trails, protecting the 8,000 acres of natural areas, better caring for the 1.2 million trees in our park system, and planting more trees in Parks-owned lands in parts of the city that currently lack them.

Create Access for All by reducing PP&R’s reliance on fees, making equity and affordability the primary goals for delivering recreation opportunities for communities of color, refugees and immigrants, and families experiencing poverty. 

Invest In Working Families by restoring jobs lost due to COVID-19 and preventing further job cuts for our critically important frontline parks workers. 

All Portlanders deserve safe, well-maintained parks and affordable access to recreation facilities and programs. As we move forward together, we hope you will engage in the community conversation Portland Parks & Recreation will convene to determine priorities for this gift you, the voters, have given our parks system. 

Thank you to those who built the coalition that passed Measure 26-213.

Led by the Portlanders for Parks campaign in partnership with the Portland Parks Foundation, we built strong alliances across our community:

• Non-profit organizations doing critical work with BIPOC communities, such as APANO, Brown Hope, and Latino Network; 

• Labor leaders like LiUNA Local 483, representing many of the workers at PP&R, with strong support from labor allies including Portland Association of Teachers, Portland Firefighters, IBEW, SEIU, and AFSCME;

• Parks friends and allies across the city—Friends of Noise, Pittock Mansion, Brown Folks Fishing, Pioneer Courthouse Square, Sport Oregon, Forest Park Conservancy, Hoyt Arboretum, Portland Farmers Market, East Portland Parks Coalition, NW Trail Alliance, Friends of Peninsula Park, the Halprin Landscape Conservancy, Southwest Neighborhoods, Human Access Project, the Intertwine Alliance, and so many others who advocate for our parks year-round, and stepped up to raise money and spread word about the levy to every corner of Portland;

• Climate leaders and environmental groups like the Trust for Public Land and The Nature Conservancy who stepped up with early funding for the critically important early polling that guided us and the Oregon League of Conservative Voters, 1000 Friends of Oregon, Sunrise PDX, and Audubon who offered broad outreach;

• Large businesses like Nike, business organizations like the Portland Business Alliance and the Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland, and small companies like Unfold Yoga to Push x Pull Coffee all contributed to our voter outreach work;

• Community supporters like Charles and Darci Swindells who made the first campaign contribution along with more than 175 other loyal parks supporters like Christine and David Vernier, Al Solheim, Patricia Frobes, Steve Naito, and Erin Zollenkopf, along with new Portlanders like Maja Harris and recent returnee Adam Wilson.

• Parkies! Thank you for volunteering on your own time. 

Finally, a thank you to the campaign team who brought so much skill and passion to the effort: Amy Ruiz and her team at Strategies 360, campaign manager Inna Levin, communications director T.J. McHugh, financial team Madi Mordaunt and Elizabeth Wilson, volunteer coordinator Ted Bryan, and super volunteers Andre Middleton, Colin Herring, Juntu Oberg, Jules Bailey, Karen Kervin, Kia Selley, and the entire Portland Parks Foundation Board of Directors. And special, special thanks to LiUNA Local 483’s Tom Collett and Nike’s Julia Brim-Edwards for their wisdom, horsepower, and acutely timed financial lifts.

Join us October 7 for a Parks Levy House Party!

Join Commissioner-elect Carmen Rubio on Wednesday, Oct. 7 from 5:00-5:45 pm for a virtual party to support parks!

Register today!

Commissioner-elect Carmen Rubio believes in our parks system. Zari Santner served as director of Portland Parks & Recreation from 2003-11. Join both of these incredible leaders for a virtual house party to learn about the proposed parks levy.

We'll have prizes and auction items (and we promise to be done before the vice-presidential debate).

Parks need our help. Help us to pass the parks levy.

Join Carmen and Zari and our rapidly growing crowd of supporters, large and small, and from across the parks and political spectrum to pass a five-year, $48-million/year levy to restore recreation programs and maintain and preserve our parks and natural areas.

Contribute to the campaign today!

Here are just a few who've signed on: Friends of Brooklyn Park, Tryon Creek Watershed Council, League of Women Voters, Portland Business Alliance, Brown Folks Fishing, Intertwine Alliance, Portland City United Soccer Club, Leach Botanical Garden, Verde, Oregon League of Conservation Voters, 1000 Friends of Oregon, APANO, Rosewood Initiative, Friends of Peninsula Park, Portland Audubon, Pioneer Courthouse Square, all five of our living former Parks Commissioners, Mayor Ted Wheeler and mayoral candidate Sarah Iannarone!

Endorse the Levy

Don't be left out! Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R) is at a critical juncture. We need you to take fast action in support.

The levy will:

• Restore recreation, fitness, swim lessons, arts and other programs closed by the pandemic

• Better care for our city's parks, natural areas, tree, canopy, and watersheds

• Reduce PP&R’s reliance on fees, expanding recreation opportunities for communities of color and all families experiencing poverty

• Go to Portlanders for Parks for a deeper dive

We at the Portland Parks Foundation urge you and your organizations to support this effort, first and foremost, by endorsing the levy. We also welcome your help as volunteers, financial contributors, social-media supporters, and fellow fundraisers, whether making calls or hosting video house parties.

Volunteer for the Campaign

Never have our parks and recreation programs been so important. Never has your help been more needed.

Join Portlanders for Parks today.

Watch part of the 2020 Portland Parks Foundation Friends & Allies Summit

The magic superpowers of Portland’s parks system are the 200+ non-profit, volunteer, and grassroots groups devoted to stewarding and developing programs for and in individual parks, natural areas, community gardens and community centers. On September 26, 2020, PPF, in partnership with Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R), hosted members of these groups to join together for a day of inspiration, training, and engagement with each other.

If you attended the summit, we would love to hear from you! Please complete this short post-event survey.

If you missed the summit but would like access to some of the resources made available to attendees, check out the summit program.

If the summit’s featured a presentation by Dr. Alisha Moreland-Capuia inspired you to educate yourself further on the intersection between race and trauma-informed care, review her workshop’s accompanying toolkit and purchase her book, Training for Change: Transforming Systems to be Trauma-Informed, Culturally Responsive, and Neuroscientifically Focused.

The weekend following the summit, attendees put on their work boots and volunteered at various parks in East and North Portland. Thank you to all of our day of service participants!

George Park planting and mulching on October 3, 2020.

Lincoln Park ivy removal on October 3, 2020.

Volunteers at Luuwit View Park on October 3, 2020.

Portland Memory Garden weeding and mulching on October 3, 2020.

Thank you to our sponsors:

The Anderson Family Giving Fund

Watch our September 29th Candidate Forum with Mingus Mapps and Chloe Eudaly

PPF hosted our third and final City Council candidates forum on parks and recreation issues. Watch our conversation with Mingus Mapps and Chloe Eudaly here.

International Recognition for the Barbara Walker Crossing

The Barbara Walker Crossing earned recognition from two major organizations this week: Collaboration of Design + Art in Public Spaces (CODA), an international clearinghouse for connecting designers and artists, and The Portland Garden Club.

CODA's international jury gave the Crossing top honors in Transportation and the Crossing also won one of the three People’s Choice awards, selected from among hundreds of entries worldwide. Have a look at the amazing company we're keeping. This is the first time the CODAawards process has resulted in a double winner. 

The Portland Garden Club awarded the Portland Parks Foundation with the Garden Club of America Club Civic Improvement Commendation in recognition of the creation of the Barbara Walker Crossing, connecting and providing a safe and scenic passage on the Wildwood Trail between Portland’s Forest Park and Washington Park.

Completed last October, the Crossing was the Portland Parks Foundation's largest project to date and Portland's first "crowd-funded bridge."

An act of design activism, the Crossing was co-conceived by architect Andrew Wheeler and artist Ed Carpenter to elegantly solve a problem of the Wildwood Trail's dangerous, at-grade crossing of Burnside. Designed and shepherded by Carpenter for a decade, it ultimately was built by the Portland Parks Foundation in collaboration with Portland Parks & Recreation, Portland Bureau of Transportation, and Metro. Over 900 individual donors contributed, along with major pro bono work done by the design/construction team, led by KPFF, R&H Construction, Walker Macy, and SOJ. Oregon's Kitchen Table helped with the crowdfunding campaign. Thank you to everyone who voted to help us win the CODA People’s Choice award and thank you to the huge team that made the project a reality—especially the hundreds of Portlanders who donated to make this the first crowdfunded bridge in Portland!

Find out more about the project on our Barbara Walker Crossing projects page.