Small grants promote access and outdoor education to underserved youth and their families

Portland Parks Foundation is pleased to announce the latest round of winners in our Small Grants Program, PDX Alliance for Self Care, Portland Free Play and Urban Nature Partners PDX. Established with funds from parks patron Nancy Hebb Freeman, the program provides -capacity-building support for organizations whose work aligns with PPF’s mission to ensure a thriving and accessible parks system.

At a time where COVID-19 has shifted learning to online, reduced social interaction and increased concerns about child obesity and depression, PPF is proud to partner with three organizations committed to increasing opportunities for Black, Indigenous and people of color, immigrant/refugee, disabled, low-income and all marginalized youth and their families in public parks and nature.

PDX Alliance for Self Care

PDX Alliance for Self Care is a volunteer-organization addressing underrepresentation of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPoC), LGBTQ2SIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Two Spirit, Intersex, Asexual, plus other non-hetero orientations or genders), immigrant/refugee, disabled, low-income and all marginalized youth and their families in public parks and nature. Founded on a belief that this work should be led by those most impacted, local BIPoC educators and community leaders provide summer nature and mindfulness camps in our public parks. The grant will enable the Alliance to expand their outreach, improve their organizational communications and marketing. PPF funds will be used to support hiring of a graphic designer to create a logo to brand their program as well as translating the information into more languages that can be distributed by educators, newspapers and culturally-specific websites allowing the Alliance to reach more marginalized youth and their families.

Portland Free Play

A self-proclaimed, “lean and scrappy volunteer-run organization,” Portland Free Play partners with Portland Parks & Recreation Free Lunch + Play program to deliver pop-up playground events to park and community sites where youth have less access to these experiences. Portland Free Play is currently working on a plan to expand to 12 different Lunch + Play sites in 2020, specifically focusing on East Portland where many youths live in parks deficient neighborhoods. PPF grants funds will be used to develop a fundraising strategy with a goal of raising enough funds to hire a part time position to administer and expand the program.

Urban Nature Partners PDX

Urban Nature Partners PDX fills a gap in outdoor programming for youth from diverse, low-income families residing in Cully, Lents, Portsmouth and outer NE Portland. Their mission is to increase historically marginalized Portland communities’ access to and opportunities for meaningful experiences in urban parks and outdoor programs. Through their partnerships with local BIPoC and immigrant/refugee organizations, they provide mentor-youth programs in public parks and natural areas led by and for BIPoC communities.  These pairings also engage each youth’s family with monthly family events in natural areas and offer free summer camp opportunities in public parks after the first year of mentorship. PPF funds will support direct costs to deliver Spanish speaking programming support and their expansion to partner with youth in outer NE Portland.

Black Lives Matter

We at the Portland Parks Foundation stand in solidarity with the protestors exercising their rights—often in our public parks—and proclaim with them the simple truth: Black Lives Matter. 
 
The murders of George Floyd, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Sean Reed, and so many others, have demonstrated with blunt horror the racism upon which our country is built. We mourn the loss of these Black men and women and are outraged by their deaths. The pain and oppression being visited on the Black communities must also be our pain, and we know we must do much more to fight the racism that infects this country.
 
As the last few months have shown, again and again, parks are essential to our health, our social resilience, and our democracy. And toward strengthening those values, Portland Parks Foundation will deepen our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.  On our board, committees, and public forums, and in our work building and enhancing parks, we will elevate Black voices along with those of others long denied a meaningful role in shaping our city. 
 
In parks we can fight for, but also measure, change. We will join with you to make more places where everyone feels safe and welcomed, where we can play and relax, and where we can speak . . . and, when needed, shout.

Update: SUN Schools Food Drive

Hannah donated and sent us a wonderful, hand-written note too!

The Portland Parks Foundation thanks the many donors and partners who helped us get boxes of nourishing food to the families of the SUN Community Schools program. But let’s give a special shout-out to 8-year-old Hannah Wells, who sent a $1 with a heart-warming note. 

With Hannah’s and others generosity, notably the $10,000 gift from the Ken & Mary Unkeles Family Fund of the Oregon Jewish Community Foundation, PPF raised over $34,000 which has provided food boxes to more than 100+ families with 170+ children each week since April 8. So far, over 9,000 meals have been served and thanks to many people's generosity, the meals will keep coming through June 15 when we hope federal and local funds can take over.
 
It takes a village to feed this village—first and foremost, the tireless efforts of the PP&R staffers like Rachael Dibble, Chelsea Kimura, and Kellie Torres who pivoted to feeding hungry SUN School families from normal-times duties like running after-school programs and raising sponsorships for summer concerts. With their leadership, lots of others were able to jump in.
 
For our first round of deliveries, Tom and Anne Barwick, owners of the beloved local Sheridan Fruit Market, worked tirelessly to source the food, much of which they donated or sold at cost. Then the brilliant logistics team at Hood to Coast Productions (yes, that’s the relay folks) grabbed the baton, turning a vacant Safeway into a food-packed distribution center from which the Portland Police Bureau’s Sunshine Division are delivering food boxes to SUN School families and all kinds of other folks across the city. (And unlike surgical masks, the cost of these boxes, in HTC’s able hands, keeps going down!)
 
So, thank you again, Hannah, for your generosity and compassion. Like any successful campaign this one touched many hearts. But Hannah touched our hearts back.

Thank You to those who made this campaign a success:

David Abbott & Barbara Gazeley
Debbie Adams
Anonymous
Paul Agrimis
Jeff Anderson & Joan Vallejo
Don Arancibia
Eileen Argentina
Stephanie Arnold
Carol Baumann
Donna Belle
Mark Bello
David Berger
Richard Bills
Audrey & Morton Bishop
Rebecca Bodonyi
Christine Bourdette
Jonathan Brinckman
Richard Louis Brown
Jim Brunke
Denise Bynoe
Mary Anne Cassin & Ken Meyer
Cynthia Castro
Nancy Chapman
Misty Chatterley
Tracy Connelly
John Coon
Desiree Costello
Allison Crocker
William Cunninghame
Mariah Currey
Vicky Davies
Stephen Davis
Kathryn Dibble
Ralph Dinola
Matthew DiVeronica
Caroline Donelan
Judith Eda
Virginia Edwards
John Eichenauer
Kate Elliott

Susan Endecott
Megan Fairbank
Kenneth Fairfax
Judith Farmer
Maureen Farran
Jeffrey Feiffer
Matthew Feldman
Sarah Ferguson
Roberta Ferrero
Elizabeth Field
Jean Fogarty
Jeannie Frederick
Mary-Beth Frerichs
Amanda Fritz
Patricia Forbes & Richard Smith
Robert Gandolfi & Ron Bloodworth
Roger Geller
Corinne Gentner
Judy J. Graves
Alicia Hammock
Jamey Hampton & Ashley Roland
Alicia Harding
Mark Hartford
Barbara Haynes
Ted and Andrea Heid
Jane Henderson
Sydney Herbert
Sharon Hoffert
Joan Hoffman
Susan Hoffman
Diane Hollister
Valerie Ilsley
Janine and Hiroshi Iwaya
Heather Jarrow
Brad Johnson
Karen Johnson
Kathleen Jones
Rich & Jean Josephson
Ariel Kaplan

Chris Karlin
Catherine and Timothy Keith
David Kennedy
Nate Kettlewell
Mary King
Kathleen Kirkpatrick
Cherry Kolbenschlag
Ann Kopel
Tony Lamb
Melody Lang
Steve Levy
Muriel Lezak
Susan Lucke
Carter and Jenny MacNichol
Kathleen Madden
Jim and Jenny Mark
Nancy Matthews
Rebecca McCarthy
Kate Mcllwain
Debra McMillen
Edward McNamara & Andrea Vargo
Alice Meyer
Kyle Meyer
Thomas T. Meyer
Cate Millar
Adam Mishcon
Suzann Murphy
John Naito
Alex Naito
Anne Nelson
My Nguyen
Julie Nittler
Chet Orloff
Jim Owens
Stacy Parker
Jason Peck
Renee Rank
Margaret Rikert
Robert Rineer
Tyler Robinson
Deborah Rossi
Charlotte Rubin

Mary & Craig Ruble
Holly Sancomb
Janet G. Sanderson
Zahra Santner & John Kelly
Meredith Savery
Karen Schneider
Wendy Schreiber
Leigh Schwarz
Ann Schwarz
Sarah Scott
William Scott
Art Shapiro
Kathryn Sheibley
David Sloan
Dianna Smiley
Susan Songer
Ellen Stearns
Charlie and Darcie Swindells
Jim Tai
Ken and Mary Unkeles
JoAnn Vrilakas
Dale Walker
Karin Waller
Michael Walsh & Julie Glover-Walsh
Susan Watson
Howard Weinstein
Allison Wells
Hannah Wells
Elizabeth & Todd Whalen
David Wheeler
Stacie White
Bill Will
Karen Willoughby
Daryl Wilson
Diane Winn
Annie Winn
Robert Wolf
Joann Wolfe
Dave Wolfe
Martha Wyrsch

Watch our campaign videos here:

What do city council candidates have to say about our parks?

We shape our city council, and afterwards our city council shapes us.

In May Portlanders will cast their first votes to reshape City Hall. With three open spots on
City Council, there’s a lot at stake. The Portland Parks Foundation wanted to provide a forum for Portlanders to learn our candidates’ views on parks, open space and urban design. With so many candidates, we needed a way to narrow the field, so we asked each candidate to submit responses to a series of questions. A jury of Parks Foundation and Portland Parks Board members scored the answers—with the candidate names hidden.

We invited the top eight scorers to participate in our e-forum on April 20, 2020. Watch a recording of the forum below. Thank you to the candidates for participating in both the Q&A and the e-forum.

Although we couldn’t include all of the candidates in the e-forum on April 20, we are able to provide their full responses to the series of questions we asked each of them.

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. 

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.

Portland Parks Foundation welcomes new Executive Director Randy Gragg

Portland Parks Foundation (PPF) welcomes Randy Gragg as the new Executive Director. Gragg succeeds Jeff Anderson who recently retired from the role. Bringing a dynamic background in journalism, urban planning, and advocacy, Gragg will lead the organization that serves as the chief philanthropic partner for the City of Portland’s Parks & Recreation.

For nearly 30 years, Gragg has helped to shape conversations about the city of Portland’s spaces and culture. His leadership and advocacy has helped champion a number of public parks projects, including Eastbank Esplanade, Pioneer Courthouse Square, and Lawrence Halprin’s Portland Open Space Sequence, also known as Lovejoy Fountain, Pettyrove Park, and Keller Fountain.

“The Portland Parks Foundation is proud of the impacts we've made on Portland’s Parks system, most recently the Barbara Walker Footbridge over Burnside, opening next summer,” said Mary Ruble, the foundation’s Board Chair. ”With Randy Gragg at the helm of the Foundation, our goal is to increase our visibility and expand our range of public/private partnerships to build a stronger and more vibrant parks and recreation system throughout Portland. We are honored to have Randy join us, and look to his vision and experience to take us to new heights.“

As a journalist, Gragg served as Editor-in-Chief at Portland Monthly Magazine from 2009-2013 and as a columnist and reporter at the Oregonian for 17 years. More recently he has developed exhibitions and public programs with Design Week Portland. From 2013-2017, Gragg was the Executive Director of the University of Oregon’s John Yeon Center for Architecture and the Landscape where he developed a major 2017 retrospective for the Portland Art Museum on the seminal Oregon architect and landscape designer John Yeon.

“Portland is entering an exciting era,” Gragg said. “The city is growing dramatically, not just in numbers, but with deepening cultural diversity, creativity, and awareness. With the Parks Foundation’s 16-year legacy of good work to build on, we’re ready to partner with Portland’s wide-ranging communities to create new parks and programs, refresh those we have, even rethink what a park is and where it can be.”

Gragg was a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design and an inaugural National Arts Journalism Fellow at Columbia University. His volunteer affiliations include roles as a board member with Pioneer Courthouse Square and the Alumni Council Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University. As board chair of the Halprin Landscape Conservancy, he co-led the development of an innovative $4.5-million public/private partnership to restore Halprin’s world-renowned fountain plazas.

Portland Parks & Recreation recently came under the leadership of City Commissioner Nick Fish, who will also be the Foundation’s City Council liaison. “Randy is a respected community leader and will bring a strong vision during this time of growth for the Portland Parks Foundation,” said Portland Parks Commissioner Nick Fish. “I look forward to building on our longstanding partnership and expanding Portland’s world-class parks and recreation system.”

About Portland Parks Foundation

The Portland Parks Foundation is devoted to building a thriving and accessible parks system for a healthy, sustainable, and creative Portland. We are the chief philanthropic partner for Portland Parks & Recreation. Through leadership, partnership, and philanthropy, we advance the City of Portland’s commitment to excellence, equity, inclusion, and good stewardship of our public parks. PPF will soon complete the Barbara Walker Footbridge over Burnside.  We have played key roles in the creation of Cully Park, Director Park, the Bill Naito Legacy Fountain, the Gateway Green Master Plan, and the Dawson Park interactive fountain. PPF also provides technical assistance and financial support to parks affiliates and friends groups.

Photo courtesy of Sabina Poole.

PPF's newest board member's lasting impact on Portland parks

PPF Board Member Mary Anne Cassin. Her legacy to Portland parks includes 22 years with Portland Parks & Recreation and a planned gift through Portland Parks Foundation.

Mary Anne Cassin was with Portland Parks & Recreation for 22 years. At the end of her time there, she managed the implementation of the successful 2014 campaign to pass a bond measure that would raise up to $68 million for parks. We’re now at the halfway point of the implementation of that money. It is making vital repairs and improvements citywide and it has prevented many playground facility closures. Read about it here. Mary Anne has joined the Portland Parks Foundation board and we’re so delighted. We sat down with her in September, just before her first board meeting.

Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! What’s your favorite neighborhood park?

I had a hard time choosing just one, so I’ve narrowed it down to two. My own neighborhood park, Gabriel Park, is such an amazing urban amenity. At 90 acres, it has a stream, a forest, a community garden; it has everything; and yet it can still be a place to be quiet and contemplative. I’ve absolutely loved living near it for the past 30 years. When we built Southwest Community in the late 90s it has become an incredible resource for the city since the community center was built.

You said you had another one, what is it?

Tanner Creek Springs, because I worked on it, and because it’s such an unusual and wonderful one square block amenity. It does so much in so little space. It manages to make you feel like you’re off somewhere in a wetland somewhere with the still water, and the stream, but at the same time it still fits so much into its highly crafted space in an artsy neighborhood. I just think it’s great.

What is your favorite thing to do in a park?

That’s easy, walking in a park, you see people, you see plants, birds, it’s just a wonderful way to go through life. It’s so much better than walking anywhere else because you’re away from cars and you’re in a little bit of nature.

Do you have a moment or memory that encapsulates this?

I remember walking up the stairs at Washington Park Rose Garden one time, it hit me really hard that I was in this amazingly gorgeous place with all these roses and all this beautiful art and sculpture, and that it belonged to the people. This was no one’s private garden, it belonged to all of us.

What inspired you to join the board?

I know some of the people quite well, having worked at Parks for so long. It’s full of people I admire and miss working with, so that will be nice. The mission also inspired me. It’s close to my heart. What the Portland Parks Foundations has been able to do in its short existence is phenomenal. Public funds will not always cover, what in an ideal world they should cover. The fact that the foundation is there to help bridge that divide is wonderful.

You’ve put Portland Parks Foundation into your will - what inspired you to make this kind of commitment?

My career is so tied into Portland parks and when you think about legacy, you tend to think about what will continue to have value to people, not just people but also to habitat. That’s what kept me at Parks all those years. The benefits are so universal, no matter what kind of person you are, what kind of animal you are, even the water — everything benefits from parks. It’s hard to find any kind of nonprofit that rings all the bells that way. You can address hunger, you can get people books, but it all felt like a tiny little slice. Portland Parks & Recreation has done such a good job of being responsive to people. I know enough about park history to know that it is responsive to the culture and the needs of the time. It’s not just this static thing, it will continue to grow and evolve with what it needs to do. Parks seemed like a really good place to leave things for.

What would you tell someone considering a legacy gift but not sure of what the next step is?

Just go do it. The Portland Parks Foundation makes it so easy. They will sit down with you, answer any questions you have without pressure. You can just have an exploratory conversation. The fact that it’s a younger organization makes it more user friendly. I did a couple legacy meetings in my exploration stage, and I felt welcoming arms from the Portland Parks Foundation, more so than I did from bigger, more corporate organizations.

Do you have anything else to add?

It takes a while for any organization like the Portland Parks Foundation to find out who they are and hit their stride. I really think they’ve found it now. It’s an exciting time to be a part of it. I have the context to see that!

We’re so excited to welcome Mary Anne to our board. To learn more about legacy gifts click here.

Community Connections through new PPF Board Leadership

Meet JR Lilly, PPF's newest member of the Board of Directors. JR brings with him a deep connection to the Native community as well as a true love of parks and respect for the value that they bring to life in an urban setting. PPF is honored to welcome JR to our team. 

JR Lilly
Civic Engagement Coordinator, Native American Youth & Family Center (NAYA)

What is your favorite neighborhood park? My favorite park is Peninsula Park which is always worth the drive across town no matter where I live. I just moved and my neighborhood park is going to be Thomas Cully Park (opening Jun 30).

What is your favorite thing to do in a park? Growing up I was in all the sports, so anything active is great. Some of my best memories are with friends playing kickball on a nice sunny day. Our parks are always great for a simple walk or to toss the football with family.

What inspired you to join the Portland Parks Foundation's board? I love our parks! And I want to make sure that everyone in Portland has access to a place that is safe, fun, and welcome. The Portland Parks Foundation does great work and I look forward to supporting those efforts.