SE Uplift Neighborhood Coalition Awards $26,021 in Neighborhood Small Grants to 11 Community Projects for 2017
Now in its 10th year, the Neighborhood Small Grants program funds small but powerful community efforts aimed at increasing the number and diversity of people engaged in the civic sphere, strengthening community capacity to create social change, and increasing community impact on public decisions and community life.
Funded projects range from Latino entrepreneurial leadership trainings to a streetscape mock-up, climate change forums to a community mural, community conversations on temporary housing to a theater performance exploring love and death, and much more.
A huge thank you to all 41 grant applicants we received and our Neighborhood Small Grants Review Committee – Dan Shramek, Kathy Oxborrow, Lizzie Houns, Salvador Mayoral IV, and Stephanie Auxier – for their careful consideration and funding recommendations.
Neighborhood Small Grants are made possible by the City of Portland’s Office of Neighborhood Involvement. Below is a complete list of funded projects.
“A Finished Heart” Community-Building Team, Building Community with Intimate Theater, Exploring Love and Death
Award Amount: $1,416.
This project inspires individuals to contemplate caregiving, dying and loss, and to feel the normalcy of LGBT relationships, and to protect gains in social equality by strengthening community respect for LGBT lives and marriages. With the support of the Dougy Center, Death Talk Project, Rogue Pack, and Clinton Street Theater, the project will produce a free performance and discussion of A Finished Heart, an autobiographical enactment of the end-of-life journey of a same-sex couple. The performance will be followed by a panel discussion with the author/performer, a local health professional with end-of-life care expertise, staff from Oregon’s Compassion and Choices, the founder of PDX Death Talk Project, and an activist during the campaign for same-gender marriage equality.
Design Week Portland, Taking it to the Streets: Imagining the Green Loop in SE Portland
Award Amount: $3,348.
As part of this year’s Design Week Portland Headquarters, the project will bring to life the proposed Green Loop concept through a temporary streetscape mock-up tailored to SE Portland. Taking it to the Streets is one component of a larger participatory design exhibition that will bring together the community to help co-design and develop the project. The exhibition will include multiple opportunities for participants to provide input on the streetscape, including tags to submit comments, questions, ideas and concerns. Feedback collected through the streetscape will be recorded in a final report and disseminated online, through neighborhood associations, and directly to Portland City Council. The project will also include docent-led tours of the exhibit for some of the most diverse local schools within SE Uplift’s boundaries.
Impact NW, Parent Leadership Project
Award Amount: $2,954.
Through this project underserved, marginalized families with children ages 0-5 in Multnomah County will be empowered with trainings and opportunities for deeper influence on Impact NW’s early childhood programming. The program aims to elevate the voices of racial/ethnic minority parents and engage families in lifelong advocacy.
Let’s Talk Climate, Let’s Talk Climate Speaker Series 2017
Award Amount: $500.
Let’s Talk Climate speaker series 2017 aims to provide a public forum to discuss emerging local and regional climate issues with policy and advocacy leaders. The objective is to create lively forums that will raise citizen awareness and encourage political engagement in relation to climate change. Grant funds will cover costs for two forums, April-May, 2017.
OPAL Environmental Justice Oregon, Youth Activist Community Training
Award Amount: $2,275.
Youth Activist Community Training aims to equip high school students the skills and knowledge to become leaders in their communities. OPAL will recruit and develop youth trainers to facilitate a youth-led series of social and environmental justice workshops that teach students analytical, public speaking, and community organizing skills. Student trainers go through a 2 week intensive “Train-the-trainer” curriculum, and then lead a 6 week workshop series for their peers at Franklin High School.
Portland Lives on Film, Portland Queer Lives on Film
Award Amount: $3,634.
Through partnerships with cultural specific community organizations like Latino Network, Portland Lives on Film will host community conversations and film documentary interviews highlighting the challenges of being considered multiple minorities at once while living in Portland. The project will also include a film showing event in partnership with the Q Center where community members will discuss ways to work with local organizations and policy makers to ensure the safety and respect of LGBTQ+ minority community members in Portland.
Portland Street Art Alliance, Keep on the Sunnyside Mural Project
Award Amount: $2,945.
The Keep on the Sunnyside Mural Project is a neighborhood documentation and mural painting event, where the community will work together to record and depict its history using archival research, community outreach, and oral histories. Community members will be invited to submit mural ideas, stories, and old neighborhood photos through a dedicated project website. Portland Street Art Alliance will also create an interactive photo component on the website, where visitors can hover over a panoramic image of the completed mural and interactive pop-ups with further information and historic photos will appear as they move around the image.
ROSE Community Development, ROSE On-Site Community Gardens
Award Amount: $2,745.
ROSE Community Development will expand and improve community gardening opportunities for low-income families in the Brentwood Darlington, Foster Powell, and Mt Scott-Arleta neighborhoods by building 12 new raised beds for vegetable gardening at affordable housing sites. ROSE will work with residents living in affordable housing and students from Portland YouthBuilders to complete the project and expand on-site community gardening opportunities.
Taborspace, Redux Annex Project
Award Amount: $1,500.
Taborspace cultivates connected community space that fills a vital role in embracing under-served populations in SE Portland. Through a partnership with local non-profit Public Annex, grant funds will be used to build an integrated team of neighborhood, church and disabled volunteers who will remodel a highly-utilized community space. Key outcomes include providing job training and work experience to disabled volunteers, deepening community volunteer engagement, and improving a valuable community resource.
Village Coalition, Neighborhood Visions on Housing the Houseless
Award Amount: $1,289.
The Village Coalition will facilitate 1-2 community forums in which housed and unhoused neighbors will share in a guided visioning process to develop operational transitional housing concepts reflecting each neighborhood’s unique histories, experiences, challenges, and successes in meeting the diverse needs of unhoused neighbors. They hope to manifest engagement and productive ownership among housed and unhoused neighbors in building real, community-based housing solutions that address immediate housing needs.
Voz Hispana Cambio Comunitario, Social Entrepreneurial Leadership Training
Award Amount: $3,415.
In partnership with Prima Comm, Inc., Voz Hispana Cambio Comunitario will provide a free 5 week social entrepreneurial leadership training and one-on-one support to 20-25 Latino entrepreneurs starting and developing businesses in the Portland Metro Area. The trainings will support participants overcoming the linguistic and cultural barriers to success and teach them how to implement environmentally sustainable and socially just practices. The project aims to give the students the knowledge and confidence they need to channel their dreams into successful social enterprise ventures and build a network of empowered community leaders.