SE Uplift Neighborhood Coalition Awards $27,165.00 in Community & Civic Engagement Small Grants to 16 Community Projects for 2020.
Now in its 13th year, the Community & Civic Engagement Small Grants program funds small but powerful community efforts aimed at increasing the number and diversity of people engaged in the community, strengthening community capacity to create social change, and increasing community impact on public decisions and community life.
A huge thank you to all 37 grant applicants and our Small Grants Review Committee – Amy Bader, Lindsey Johnson, Nancy Oberschmidt, Jamie Nash, Dan Shramek and Kari Koch– for their careful consideration and funding recommendations.
Community & Civic Engagement Small Grants are made possible by the City of Portland’s Office of Community & Civic Life. Below is a complete list of funded projects.
| Organization | Project | Amount | Description |
| Hygiene4All | Fostering Ally-ship, Hospitality, and Disrupting Harm on the Streets | $4,000 | Cahoots (Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets) will partner with and train H4A’s houseless attendants in de-escalation, and disrupting racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ, neuro-diversity intolerant harm. This will prepare attendants to offer peers dignity and health-enhancing bathrooms, showers, trash drop-off, and first aid on the Central Eastside. Trainings will open job and advocacy opportunities to historically excluded & unsheltered Portlanders; model resilience and health-enhancing harm mitigation; and, through neighborly education and collaboration, reduce first-responder calls, interactions, referrals, fines, and incarceration. |
| Campus Compact of Oregon | Nature & Mindfulness Youth Camp | $2,500 | The Nature Camp will be open to all marginalized youth, especially BIPOC, immigrant/refugee, LGBTQ and disabled communities. The camp offers mindfulness and self-care activities in nature(Mt Tabor Park) because both mindfulness and nature benefit youths’ overall wellness, which is essential for their growth as individuals and community members. They will also lead culturally competent nature education programs in response to the under-representation of Black and brown communities in Portland’s parklands. |
| Ethos | Pass the Mic | $2,500 | This will be Pass the Mic’s third annual week-long free music camp for 25 youth at Franklin High School. Youth can come in with no musical experience and will be paired with teachers and by Friday, they’ll perform their songs at a free community concert. Youth will build strong relationships with their peers and instructors, and gain the confidence and skills to express themselves. Key partners include PPS and Morrison Child & Family Services. |
| PDX Through A LatinX Lens | PDX Through A LatinX Lens | $2,465 | The primary goals of Portland through a Latinx Lens are to create opportunities that bring folks from diverse backgrounds together to learn about the intricacies of being Latinx in Portland. PDX Through A LatinX Lens aims to engage, connect and empower Latinx folks in our community. These mediums will serve as a conduit to amplify the voice of the Latinx people in Portland — highlighting their lives, challenges, joy, passions, and grit. |
| Friends of Noise | Youth Power PDX | $2,000 | Youth PowerPDX is a youth planned and curated Ted Talk styled event where 3 to 5 featured youth speakers will share their stories and truths alongside representatives from 20 tabling nonprofits. Each nonprofit will be given 3 minutes to pitch why people should know about them. We will have 3 youth musical/poetry acts. Friends of Noise and City Repair are providing mentorship, resources, and support to the youth planning committee. This event will connect youth that are passionate about social change to other peers and nonprofits so they can build relationships and partnerships. |
| Black Food Sovereignty Council | Black Futures Farm | $2,000 | Black Futures Farm in collaboration with OSU, MudBone Grown Farms, and Black Food Sovereignty Council is a culturally responsive garden project for Black people located at 6745 SE 60th avenue in Portland. Community Members grow herbs, foods, and flowers for teaching and healing; this includes on-site workshops, demonstrations, meals, and Farmers Market pop-ups. These funds will be used to cover the expense of events, workshops, stipends for workshop leaders and conduct outreach to the broader community. |
| Roots and Beats Project | Culturally Responsive Music Technology Youth STEAM Programming | $2,000 | Roots and Beats is addressing the under-representation LatinX, Native and Black youth in the Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics fields. Through a series of workshops and panels, youth will be provided with training in 21st-century skills that are important to keep them engaged in schools and the broader community. Topics will include awareness of cultural identity, art, and heritage, provide access to digital media programming, and expose youth to inspirational community mentors and career pathways in arts, culture and technology fields. |
| Sensory Integration Festival | Sensory Integration Festival | $2,000 | The Sensory Integration Festival (SIF) is an immersive, one-night event celebrating human neurodiversity. It’s a cross between an art exhibition, science fair, and multisensory playhouse for adults. Created by a disabled artist with a lifelong visual processing disorder, SIF uses interactive installation art to explore how our unique brains and bodies may process the same stimuli in different ways. Taking place this year in the Ford Building. |
| Passion Impact | Volunteer Event Program | $1,500 | The Volunteer Event Program (VEP) has three purposes at Franklin High School (FHS): to create a sense of community around service through engaging marginalized students in equitable and accessible volunteer events; to connect nonprofits and community professionals to students at these volunteer events to help students explore educational and career pathways; to give the student leaders who envision, plan, implement, and evaluate all monthly volunteer events the chance to build relationships, skills, and enhance their experience toward reaching passionate careers. |
| VOZ Workers Rights | Day Laborer Community Leaders | $1,000 | This project will develop a new training program and sustainable model for day laborer leadership development at Voz to ensure that decisions about future strategy, vision, programs, and activities remain relevant, accessible, and impactful for all-day laborers. The new DLC structure will emphasize 1:1 mentorship to build the individual capacity of each leader, and thus the collective power of the DLC. |
| Impact NW | Anti-Bias Education Project | $1,000 | INW will engage historically marginalized parents, community partners, and Home Visitors to co-create an innovative Anti-Bias Education curriculum. Participants will engage in trainings, listening sessions, and participate in an Anti-Bias Steering Committee that will inform the curriculum. This project increases opportunities for families who have been systematically excluded from leadership roles and empowers them to advocate for their children’s needs, and for others with similar experience. |
| Yale Union Contemporary | 2nd Annual Yale Union Powwow | $1,000 | Yale Union(YU) will host the second annual Yale Union powwow in April of 2020, to be held in YU’s 10,000 sq. ft. exhibition hall. It will take place over several hours on one day and include dancing, singing, drums, socializing and honoring Native American culture and history. By hosting a powwow, YU hopes to positively impact both Native and non-Native communities by offering space, time and resources to Native people for their cultural heritage. |
| Ethnic Art Designs | Teaching With Love Initiative | $1,000 | The purpose of “Teach with Love Initiative” is to create art on learning tools for activities that motivate and inspire African-American children to learn how to read. The goal of the initiative is to increase the number of African-American children who want to read. The plan is to create teaching tools with positive images of African-American children that will build self-esteem and for 2nd-grade teachers to use to connect with reading lessons that allow children to see positive images of themselves in their reading material. |
| Queer Lives Archive | Portland Queer Lives on Audio | $1,000 | This project aims to archive life-stories in audio format in order to bring attention to the experiences of queer persons in Portland. Individuals who participate will be given a prompt to write about or spontaneously tell a story about how identity has formed them. This will be recorded in audio form, followed by a conversation with each individual about the meaning the story has in their life. These recordings will be available to the community through an online platform. |
| City Repair | Village Building Convergence | $700 | Village Building Convergence (VBC) is City Repair’s flagship 10-day event featuring over 30 community-built projects based in SE and also happens all over Portland. Projects are typically street paintings, community gardens, or natural buildings. Additionally, the VBC hosts a series of evening events featuring speakers and local musicians focusing on the intersection of placemaking and diversity, equity, and inclusion or Place Justice. The funds will be used to pay stipends to the speakers at the VBC evening events. |
| Congo Peace Project | Monthly Work Parties | $500 | Youth host monthly work parties in SE Portland where SE PDX youth and adults from the Portland metro area can volunteer and enjoy free food. These monthly work parties are hosted from August to October collecting and distributing supplies for educational advancement; from November to May the work parties collect supplies for menstrual hygiene.
These work parties aim to educate Portlanders young and old about the importance of global citizenship and involvement, through service as well as provide youth the opportunity to learn about community organizing, event planning, and fundraising. They are currently planning to use the funds to finance six work parties. |