Remembering our founding board chair, Josephine “Joey” Pope

"The bottom line is that we’re here to raise much-needed money for parks … There’s such a discrepancy between areas such as Cully and Grant Park. We need to reach for what seems impossible and think in the long term.”  

- Josephine “Joey” Pope, PPF founding board chair, July 2001,
on why Portland needs a parks foundation

The Portland Parks Foundation exists today thanks to the vision and dedication of our founding board members including our founding board chair, Josephine “Joey” Pope. Joey was instrumental in developing the concept of a city-wide parks nonprofit for Portland to help address the inequities in our parks and recreation system, and to ensure that we think strategically about advancing a thriving parks system for all.

Joey passed away on October 2, 2024. As her family shared with us in her obituary, “Joey dedicated her time and energy to Portland's parks and people.” For those of you who were lucky enough to work alongside Joey, you understand that the depth of her dedication had no boundaries.

She had big visions for parks and wasn’t afraid to advocate for them through real action and leadership. “We need to consider Portland in many ways – gardens, natural areas, as a green city, the ability to walk and hike everywhere – and look at the system as a whole and how it connects,” said Joey Pope in reference to the overall goal of PP&R’s 2020 Vision Plan and the creation of a Portland Parks Foundation. After contributing to the idea of a foundation, she went on to lead it in the following years -  building a coalition of businesses, community members and parks advocates who cared deeply about elevating the importance of parks and outdoor space. We continue to advance this goal today through PPF’s current playground replacement project, Friends & Allies summits, small grants and award programs, and our commitment to finding sustainable funding for our parks system.

Over the last few decades, Joey remained involved in PPF even after she was no longer on the board. A few years ago, she helped create an emerging leadership program with the Portland Parks Foundation to support future parks leaders. It is our honor to continue her legacy as a leader in Portland through our work at PPF, and more specifically, through our annual Joey Pope Award for Parks Leadership. 

Joey leaves us with a clear vision for the parks and the gift of an organization that advocates for access to public parks and recreation for all Portland residents. I look forward to continuing to join forces with you, the Portland community, to carry out her vision of an equitable parks system for all.

Photo collage: Left: Joey with wheelbarrow; Center: Joey Pope and Betsy Bergstein, May 2005; Right: Barbara Allen, Joey Pope (center), Emily Crumpacker in Washington Park circa 2008

City of Gardens: a secret you want to know about

As we wind down Portland’s first City of Gardens Month, what better time to enjoy a moment in one of our most storied—but to many Portlanders today, least known—public gardens: Elk Rock, or as it is sometimes called, “Bishop’s Close.”

First the historic. We welcome to our guide one of our most storied—but to Portlanders today, least known—public gardens: Elk Rock, or as it is sometimes called, “Bishop’s Close.” Located just off Highway 43, between Portland and Lake Oswego, it took shape on between the 1890s and the mid-1950s on the estate of Peter Kerr. Now owned by Oregon’s Episcopal Diocese, the garden is still open, quietly, to the public and is well worth searching out, particularly in the early morning light.

The garden wears the fingerprints of legendary park designer John C. Olmsted, Portland’s first parks superintendent Emmanuel Mische, and one Portland’s greatest garden designers Wallace K. Huntington. But the guiding hand for its decades-long development was its owner, Peter Kerr, a Scotsman who learned the craft of gardening from books, friends, and the great designers he worked with (whose recommendations he often ignored).

A businessman who made a fortune in grain after years of economic ups and downs, Kerr developed “what is possibly the oldest surviving private landscape garden in the Pacific Northwest,” according to historian Eileen Fitzsimons. “In his six decades at Elk Rock, he grafted memories of his youth in southwestern Scotland onto an initially unfamiliar landscape. He grew to understand the physical limitations of the property and his garden changed: he experimented, made compromises and sought professional advice. His property at the end of Military Lane was a private domain, a refuge from a business world that was stressful and unpredictable.”

Early in Kerr’s ownership, he hired John C. Olmsted (nephew and adopted son of Frederick Law Olmsted) to develop a site plan for the steep, hillside side overlooking the Willamette River. He later hired Mische, an engineer in Olmsted’s Boston office who later moved to Portland to become parks superintendent, to further evolve the design to integrate a new home. Though Kerr took both designers’ plans more as suggestions than maps, the Olmstedian bones remain clear, particularly in the picturesque composition of the stone walls and trees and captured views of Mount Hood, Elk Rock Island, and the river. The plantings, a mix of sturdy old natives and long-adapted exotics have changed over the decades. But historian/designer Wallace K. Huntington, who worked on the garden for a decade, left his mark, too, with his typically light nudging of the natural landscape into formality.

There’s nothing quite like Elk Rock in the region. Kerr’s heirs left to the Diocese under the condition the garden be open to the public. A small endowment Kerr left helps pay for upkeep, organized by a volunteer group. It’s well worth a visit—but a quiet, contemplative one. And don’t forget to leave a donation!

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.

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!

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.

Protests Then and Now: Keller Fountain at 50

Watch the video of opening day at Keller Fountain, June 23, 1970

The last time fed-up, determined, energized protesters roiled Portland for days, the Portland’s Parks Commissioner called in the police’s riot squad. Thirty-four people ended up in the hospital. And it happened just days before the ribbon-cutting of Portland’s most globally renowned public park. The year: 1970.

Today that park—Keller Fountain—turns 50 years old. Heralded in the New York Times as “the most important urban space since the Renaissance,” its resplendent waterfalls are turned off due to the pandemic. (For more information on the anniversary, go to halprinconservancy.org) But given our own moment of turmoil and change, the anniversary offers a good moment to ponder its importance and the central roles public parks and squares play in Portland’s civic life.

The recent days’ protests in support of Black Lives Matter have often begun and ended in parks. In Pioneer Courthouse Square, Indigenous people have gathered to dance and sing, and frontline health care workers in scrubs and masks have taken a knee in solidarity. Meantime, for weeks, parks have offered fresh air, nature, and the distance to see our neighbors to safely sooth the stresses of the pandemic. But as spring turned to summer in 1970, the city’s oldest park became a vicious battleground, while its newest—Keller—offered a splashing celebration of the power of new public space.

Forecourt Fountain (Keller Fountain’s first name) opened in 1970 to international renown. Ada Louise Huxtable writing in the New York Times described it as “new kind of people’s plaza” and likened to to Rome’s Trevi Fountain and Piazza Navona but with a “geologic naturalism” befitting the Pacific Northwest. But the month before the ribbon-cutting, a very different scene had unfolded in on of Portland’s oldest parks just four blocks away in response to the National Guard gunning down four Kent State University students protesting American war on Vietnam.

The Oregonian’s Douglas Perry recently recapped what became known as “Battle of the Park Blocks,” when students from Portland State University, Reed College, and Lewis & Clark College and others built nine barricades around South Park Blocks. As elsewhere across the country, the Kent State killings were the trigger. The transport of nerve gas through Oregon and the imprisonment of Black Panther Bobby Seals were others. The result: a three-park-block “liberated zone.”

As tense occupation unfolded, Mayor Terry Shrunk turned down Gov. Tom McCall’s offer to send the National Guard. But after five days, Shrunk’s protest point man, Frank Ivancie, then the Parks Commissioner, had had enough. He sent in Portland Police Bureau’s riot squad armed with clubs who quickly, brutally cleared the area. Thirty students and four police officers ended the evening in the hospital.

The next day, 3,500 people marched on City Hall—and not just students. “I want to cry,” an elderly woman protester told a film crew. “Sure, we know there are radicals  . . . but, my God all mighty, when are we going to step forward and start helping?”

As tensions ebbed in days following, amazingly, strangely even, city officials proceeded with the long-planned opening of Forecourt Fountain.

The new city park was the last of four connected fountain plazas designed by Lawrence Halprin and Associates, then arguably the most renowned landscape architecture firm in the world. Inspired by natural landscapes, the first two—Lovejoy Fountain and Pettygrove Park—completed in 1966, opened Portlanders’ eyes to what public space in the middle of an otherwise pretty dreary downtown could be. Lovejoy earned a three-page pictorial in Life, “Mid-city Mountain Stream,” then, one of the nation’s preeminent magazines, circulation 13-million.

The plazas’ history is complicated. On the one hand, they were the central features of Portland’s first urban renewal area for which a 55-block, largely Jewish and Italian immigrant neighborhood was cleared. Some residents and business-owners fumed at the city. Others welcomed the opportunity to move out the district’s many decrepit firetrap apartments into some of the city’s first publicly built affordable housing. On the other hand, Lovejoy Fountain instantly swarmed with people becoming a kind of downtown swimming hole. In the months following, a grassroots movement began to turn Portland’s riverside highway into what became Tom McCall Waterfront Park. The Portland Planning Commission rejected a full-block, 12-story parking garage and called for a new park instead—what years later became Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Halprin and his wife, Anna Halprin, often collaborators, were charismatic counter-culturists. He designed everything from fountains to regional plans across the world. She choreographed the earliest “postmodern” dance, protests for free speech, and a then-groundbreaking series Black/white encounter groups to deal with racial tensions. Halprin’s lead designer on the project, Angela Danadjieva began her career designing avant garde film sets. Halprin designed the Portland plazas to be stages for a new kind of nature and theater in middle of the city. And with its 30-foot cascade of 30,000-gallons of water per minute, Forecourt was like nothing any city had built before—at least not since the Renaissance.

As officials gathered for the June 23 opening, so did a lot of students. Still tense from May’s clash, the cops looked warily on. Ironically, a dance group in bright blue tights twirled batons. Officials proudly spoke, and then the architect, Lawrence Halprin, took the microphone. “These very straight people somehow understand can be all about,” said Halprin—“straight” being the counter-culture’s label for establishment power. “So as you play in this garden, please try to remember, we’re all in this together . . . I hope this will help us live together as a community both here and all over this planet Earth.”

Halprin jumped into the fountain. So did most everyone else. People joined hands and danced.   

As with the Halprin fountains, many of our parks have complicated histories. Consider Kelley Point Park:  an important traditional gathering place for Indigenous people at the confluence of our two major rivers, but it’s named for a deranged early Oregon promoter who visited the state once and tried to market the site as a future lower Manhattan. Heron Lakes Golf Course and Delta Park, also grounds important to Indigenous people, were first developed as Vanport—a city housing thousands of black shipyard workers—washed away by a 1948 flood.  Every June since 1970 (though canceled this year due to COVID-19), it has hosted the Delta Park Powwow, one of the region’s largest gathering of tribes.  

As Portlanders lurch through history, parks change with us. And, as recent weeks—and June 23, 1970—have shown, our parks can be places for us, together, to change our city.

"as you play in this garden, please try to remember that we're all in this together" - Lawrence Halprin at the dedication of Forecourt Fountain

New grants projects connect underserved communities with local parks and programs

Portland Parks Foundation is pleased to announce the new grantees from our Small Grants Program, which provides capacity building support for organizations whose work aligns with PPF’s mission to ensure a thriving and accessible parks system for a healthy Portland. “We are excited to work with our new grantees, Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization (IRCO)  and Ecology in Classrooms and Outdoors (ECO). These projects directly address PPF’s priority for supporting underserved communities that have barriers to accessing the benefits of local parks and programs,” said Jessica Green, PPF’s Operations Officer.

IRCO’s Slavic Youth and Families Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) Community School Program at Gilbert Park Elementary.

IRCO is nationally and locally recognized as a culturally and linguistically specific community-based organization with a deep understanding of the diverse communities residing in Oregon. Their proposed project supports Portland’s Slavic Community, Oregon’s largest refugee-based community, which includes diverse ethnicities such as Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian, and Czech. “After experiencing religious and political persecution, conflict, and corruption, Slavs are often isolated and reticent to mainstream systems. Almost one in three Slavic children live in poverty, twice the rate of White children. One in five Slavs speak English less than well. These disparities represent significant obstacles for Slavic families seeking resources through PP&R,” IRCO wrote. Through this project, IRCO will provide opportunities to engage Slavic community members with Portland parks spaces and programs through information sharing and events. IRCO hopes to not only increase Slavs’ access to parks, but also help “provide the sense of belonging that Portland’s public spaces, and by extension the city itself, is ‘for them.’”

Students participating in an ECO program at Kingsley D. Bundy Park in SE Portland.

With a mission to reconnect kids with nature, ECO shared that their work “is rooted in the understanding that when kids enjoy and understand the natural world, they grow into adults who take value and take care of it.” Eighty percent of the students ECO serves qualify for free or reduced lunch and 63% identify as minority. City parks that ECO students engage with include Powell Butte Natural Area, Springwater Corridor, and Kingsley D. Bundy Park. The proposed project is to provide diversity, equity, and inclusion training for ECO’s staff and board, with the goal of increasing capacity for the organization to deliver equitable and culturally responsive ecology programs. With increased capacity, ECO sees the impact of this program as helping to build “a more inclusive and diverse next generation of Portland residents who value and support access to thriving parks and natural areas.”

Congratulations to IRCO and ECO!

If you’re with a public park friends group or another community partner, be sure to keep in touch with the PPF throughout the year. You can learn more about our Small Grants Program here. Our next round of applications will be open beginning March 1, with a deadline of March 30, 2019. In addition to small grants, we also offer seasonal technical assistance workshops. Past programs have focused on fundraising strategies, equity and inclusion, grant writing, and building your board.

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.

Fund our Parks: A Message from PPF's Executive Director

Thank you to everyone who came out to support Portland's parks at the Community Budget Forums on April 3rd and April 17th along with those who submitted written testimony.  On April 3rd PPF's Executive Director, Jeff Anderson, had the opportunity to testify on behalf of the Foundation. Below is the text of the testimony he read from. You can also access the video version of the testimony here (Jeff's testimony begins at 1hr47min).

Community Budget Forum - April 3, 2018
Statement to City Council
Jeff Anderson, Executive Director

Good evening, Mayor Wheeler and members of the Council.  Thank you for the opportunity to speak about the proposed 2018-19 city budget.

My name is Jeff Anderson.  I’m Executive Director of the Portland Parks Foundation.  The mission of the Portland Parks Foundation is to mobilize financial and popular support to ensure a thriving and accessible parks system for a healthy Portland.  The Foundation was created by the city in 2001 as Portland’s chief private fundraising partner for parks.

The Portland Parks Foundation is extremely concerned about the ongoing general fund cuts for PP&R in the proposed 2018-19 budget. 

Public parks are very likely our most popular city service.  86% of Portlanders rate their parks as good or excellent.  More than 9 out of 10 residents use our parks.  Parks advance community wealth, community health, and community culture.  They are not an expendable amenity.  They are as essential as any other service supported by city budget dollars.  Yet the City Budget Office’s proposed cuts to parks are disproportionately high.  In fact, it appears that 40% of ALL the recommended ongoing cuts target our parks.   

Parks are integral to our core character as a city.  Parks host major music festivals, diverse cultural events and holiday celebrations, and a variety of events promoting local businesses.  A recent study estimates the economic impact of local parks in Oregon at $1.9 billion dollars and over 17,000 jobs.  Portland’s a big slice of that pie.

Portlanders routinely give some 470,000 hours per year to volunteering in the parks—an annual value of $5.5 million or more.  The City of Portland’s budget should signal appreciation for that contribution and should reinforce—not undermine—the efforts of volunteers.  In fact, the city should be looking for every additional opportunity to leverage the good will and private resources that have already contributed so much to iconic parks all over Portland.  

We already have a backlog of $430 million in deferred major maintenance for parks.  The proposed budget cuts accelerate a downward spiral that the City Council has started with its cuts to general fund support for parks over the past decade.  Other cities have found to their sorrow that massive disinvestment in parks is nearly impossible to make right.  It’s also a huge deterrent to success in the Parks Foundation’s own work to encourage private contributions to our public parks.

This year the city is projected to have record tax revenues.  This is not the time to put parks’ ongoing general fund support on the chopping block.  As PP&R’s Budget Advisory Committee letter to you observes, “After multiple years of reductions, the cuts now dig deep into core PP&R services and values, have significant service-level impacts for the public, and further erode employee morale.”  

In closing, I urge you to support the public parks the way Portland’s public wants you to.  Invest in what makes Portland not only livable, but exceptional.  The Portland Parks Foundation stands ready to help.  Thank you for your attention.

Enjoying the Parks in the Rain - The Value of Community Centers

By Julia Benford

Here at the Portland Parks Foundation, we love to see people enjoying their neighborhood parks as often as possible. But we also understand that in the winter, Portland’s rainy, wet weather can make outdoor activities seem a bit less than ideal. One great way to avoid the rain while still taking advantage of Portland’s parks: visit your local community center! PP&R’s community centers offer tons of different amenities, from fitness classes to swimming to kids’ activities. Here, we break down what makes some of Portland’s community centers awesome.

Gymnastics at Montavilla Community Center. Photo courtesy of Portland Parks & Recreation.

Montavilla Community Center: 8219 NE Glisan Street
If you’re a teen (or have one in your household), Montavilla Community Center is the place to go. The center offers unique and interesting classes specifically for tweens and teenagers, including spoken word poetry, weightlifting, and gymnastics. If your teen has a busy schedule or just wants more flexibility, there are also drop-in classes (breakdancing, anyone?), movie nights, and homework help. Best of all, every class for teens is FREE thanks to Portland Parks & Recreation’s TeenForce program, which helps teens get involved with their local parks.

Matt Dishman Community Center: 77 NE Knott Street
The Matt Dishman Community Center truly offers something for everyone, from empowerment programs for young women to van trips for seniors—including a coffee and chocolate tasting tour that’s perfect for Valentine’s Day! The center also offers a wide variety of affordable, inclusive classes for people with disabilities or special needs, including dance classes, winter crafts, and button making. It’s the perfect place for all your loved ones to socialize.

Peninsula Park Community Center: 700 N Rosa Parks Way
Located in beautiful Peninsula Park, this North Portland community center has lots of fun activities for both kids and adults. Parents can enjoy adult/child dance, music, and gymnastics classes together with little ones. Or if your 4-6 year old loves the circus, they might enjoy the center’s circus arts class, where they can learn improvisation, clowning, and juggling! For adults, it’s never too late to learn a new skill—you can learn to play guitar, piano, ukulele, or violin with private music lessons.

Charles Jordan Community Center: 9009 N Foss Avenue
Are you an older adult looking to get more involved in your community? Charles Jordan Community Center has plenty of options just for you, with classes for ages 55 and up. From inclusive fitness options like Yoga in Chairs to floral design classes to van trips to the coast, there’s something for every interest. For the younger set, the center offers before and after school care and birthday party rentals—you can even rent a bouncy castle for extra fun!

Woodstock Community Center: 5905 SE 43rd Avenue
Woodstock Community Center offers some of the most unique classes of any community center in Portland. If you’re a senior interested in recording your family history, the center offers genealogy and memoir writing courses, which let you share your history with younger generations! For people of all ages who want to pick up a new skill, there are classes for calligraphy and antique clock repair. Finally, adults ages 60+ who want a relaxing fitness class can give hula dancing a try for a unique workout.

Swimming for all ages at the East Portland Community Center. Photo courtesy of PP&R.

East Portland Community Center: 740 SE 106th Avenue
For fitness buffs and people looking to keep up their New Year’s resolutions, East Portland Community Center is ideal. They offer exercise classes for all ages and activity levels, as well as family fitness classes perfect for keeping the whole family healthy.  Take a break and enjoy swimming in the pool—swimming lessons and water fitness classes are also available! And finally, for those with homeschooled kids looking to socialize, the East Portland Community Center offers sports and art classes specifically for homeschoolers. It’s a great place to branch out and try something new.

Sellwood Community Center: 1436 SE Spokane Street
Feeling crafty? Sellwood Community Center might be the place for you. They’ve teamed up with the Portland Lace Society to offer low-cost lacemaking and crochet classes—try it out and you might discover a new hobby! Little ones can also discover their creative sides with baby and toddler art classes for children 10 months and up. If you have school-aged children, check out the Sellwood Community Center’s Grow after-school program, which helps children build gardening and cooking skills and find physical activities they enjoy.

Don't miss Daddy Daughter Night at the Southwest Community Center. Photo courtesy of PP&R.

Southwest Community Center: 6820 SW 45th Avenue
If you have a child who’s looking for a new hobby and some new friends, the Southwest Community Center is a great place to go! They offer some amazing classes that will build lifelong skills, including cooking, rock climbing and skateboarding classes. Adults can find unique ways to get active too—take advantage of the community center’s rock wall, or try out a barre class. Finally, if you’re the father of a daughter, consider taking her to the center’s Daddy Daughter Night on February 24th or 25th! The $20 cost includes pizza, salad, frozen yogurt, and plenty of fun bonding time.