"Diversity, Harmony, Community - Together WE can make a difference!”

Neighborhood Connections: October 2011

SnowCap Charities Needs Your Excess Garden Produce to Help Fill Huge Funding Gap

SnowCap Community Charities needs your excess garden produce to the help fill a huge funding gap. Due to federal program cuts your donations are urgently needed to help feed low income neighbors in our area. Please share your garden harvest.  Donations can be made weekdays from 9AM to 3PM. Info here!
SnowCap volunteers prepare food boxes

Please, share your harvest

SnowCap Community Charities
17805 SE Stark St
(behind Rockwood United Methodist)
Donate: Weekdays, 9AM-3PM

Neighbors helping neighbors
SnowCap faces serious reductions in the food available to feed our neighbors in need. It’s a long story, but essentially the commodities donated by the federal government to the state and from the state to the Oregon Food Bank (OFB) and then to SnowCap have been cut by almost 50%. These commodities have a cash value of $235,000 so SnowCap can’t just buy enough food to make up for this loss. One way to mitigate the suffering this will create for our low income neighbors it to ask everyone to share the harvest from their gardens. Tell your friends. Share this request with everyone.

How to donate
If you have vegetables that you’d like to share, please bring them to 17788 SE Pine St on weekdays between 9AM & 3PM. Get Map!

Bringing it home
Fact: The 2011 State of Oregon school report cards, published on the Oregonian newspaper website, showed Wilkes Elementary School served free or reduced price lunches to 85.9% of the schools 405 students last year. Enrollment at Wilkes Elementary School is almost entirely made-up of children who reside in the Wilkes East Neighborhood.

Neighborhood Connections: September 2011

City of Gresham: Neighborhood Connections, August 2011. Find Out What's Happening in and Around Your City. Public Safety information, Community Activities & Events, Training & Workshops, Volunteer Opportunities, and more.

Neighborhood Connections is a publication from the City of Gresham
Communications & Community Outreach offering City of Gresham news, Public Safety information, Community Activities & Events, Training & Workshops, Volunteer Opportunities, and more.

Inside this Issue

Keep up with what’s Happening in your City!

Facebook - Read more
Twitter - Read more
Subscribe to City media releases - Read more

Gresham Neighborhoods listing

For more information, visit the Neighborhood Associations page at GreshamOregon.gov or contact Cathy Harrington at 503-618-2482, or email Cathy.Harrington@GreshamOregon.gov.

Nadaka Nature Park and Garden Project, Petition of Community Support, Sign Here

Sign Petition Here! Nadaka Nature Park and Garden Project, Petition of Community Support. Show your support to seek grant funding to implement the Nelson Neighborhood Park master plan. When complete the park will include community gardens, an orchard, picnic tables, a nature-based play area, and a walking loop that will connect to Nadaka Nature Park. Info here!
Nelson Park, Gresham OR

Nadaka Nature Park, Garden Project
Petition of Community Support

Show your support to seek grant funding to implement the Nelson Neighborhood Park master plan. When fully implemented the park will include community gardens, an orchard, picnic tables, a nature-based play area, and a walking loop that will connect it to Nadaka Nature Park.

Sign the petition (below)

In 2009 Wilkes East Neighborhood Association and Friends of Nadaka successfully obtained a Metro Nature in Neighborhoods Capital Grant, a grant from the East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District and a donation from the Nelson Family Trust to purchase the 2.0 arce "Nelson Property" for use as a neighborhood park. This additional land, with its tall trees and open grassy area is now part of Nadaka Nature Park.

Neighborhood Connections: August 2011

City of Gresham: Neighborhood Connections, August 2011. Find Out What's Happening in and Around Your City. Public Safety information, Community Activities & Events, Training & Workshops, Volunteer Opportunities, and more.

Neighborhood Connections is a publication from the City of Gresham
Communications & Community Outreach offering City of Gresham news, Public Safety information, Community Activities & Events, Training & Workshops, Volunteer Opportunities, and more.

Inside this Issue

Keep up with what’s Happening in your City!

Facebook - Read more
Twitter - Read more
Subscribe to City media releases - Read more

Gresham Neighborhoods listing

For more information, visit the Neighborhood Associations page at GreshamOregon.gov or contact Cathy Harrington at 503-618-2482, or email Cathy.Harrington@GreshamOregon.gov.

Gang Graffiti Ticks Upward Again in the Southwest Corner of Wilkes East Neighborhood

Gang Graffiti Ticks Upward Again in the Southwest Corner of Wilkes East Neighborhood. What It Means, and What You Can Do. Info here!
More graffiti trouble at Glen East.

Oh no, not again

This past week has seen another increase in gang graffiti near 162nd & NE Glisan, and north along NE 162nd Ave in the southwest corner of the neighborhood -- an area of West Gresham that has been plagued for some time by crime and graffiti.

The latest round of graffiti begin to appear last weekend near 164nd & NE Glisan; at the Glen East apartments, and on the traffic controller in front of Walgreens at the nearby intersection. Two large 'scribbles' (above, below), one on each apartment building, were found Sunday morning. On one building, the scrawl was especially disturbing as it included the tag "RIP MOCO". By Monday evening the graffiti on both buildings had been painted over, muting the message.

Later in the week, north along NE 162nd Av between Holliday & Wasco, neighbors who have been victims of several previous graffiti strikes woke Thursday morning to find themselves once again the victim, with new gang tags on their property.

Neighborhood Connections: July 2011

Neighbors gather at Nadaka Community Festival June 18th to celebrate the Nelson addition to Nadaka Nature Park

Rain didn't dampen spirits as as hundreds of neighbors gathered Saturday June 18th for the Nadaka Community Festival to celebrate the Nelson Property addition to Nadaka Nature Park in Gresham Oregon
Neighbors celebrate the Nelson addition
to Nadaka Nature Park. Click to enlarge

Rain didn't dampen the spirits of community festival guests

Celebrating the Nelson addition
On June 18th, 2011, the Wilkes East Neighborhood held a community festival at Nadaka Nature Park to celebrate the Nelson property addition which was purchased with local grants.

The new addition which added 2 acres to this wonderful nature park has allowed the opening of the south gate -- improving accessibility to all of our neighbors and visitors as well as making room for the master plan that will include community gardens and more.

Rain is our sunshine
June 18th was a very wet cloudy day, typical of Oregon spring weather. Despite the rain, 58 volunteers with SOLV arrived at 9AM at Nadaka Nature Park for a park clean-up event. Participants removed invasive plant species as well as trash and debris. Volunteers came from HB LEE Middle school, SUN Community Schools as well as GGAPP Peer group and Catholic Charities.

The festival started at 12 noon and lasted until 3PM. Constant rain didn't dampen the spirits of the several hundred guests that attended the festival.

Johnson Creek Watershed Council seeks volunteers for the freshwater mussel surveys this summer. Apply here!

Johnson Creek Watershed Council seeks volunteers for native freshwater mussel surveys this summer, July-Sept 2011. This event represents a unique opportunity for the general public to assist with important field research. Apply here!
Freshwater mussel

Volunteer Opportunity

Last year the Johnson Creek Watershed Council partnered with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to conduct surveys for native freshwater mussels in Johnson Creek — with your help, we want to continue this work.

Spots are filling up quickly so RSVP today! All ages welcome.

  • Saturday, July 16* — Gresham Woods
  • Saturday, August 6th — Ambleside
  • Saturday, September 24 — Bundy Reserve

Time: 10:00am-1:30pm

Johnson Creek Watershed Council seeks volunteers for native freshwater mussel surveys this summer, July-Sept 2011. This event represents a unique opportunity for the general public to assist with important field research. Apply here!
Searching for freshwater mussels

Volunteers will learn about the biology and ecology of native freshwater mussels, and the many ways in which these animals benefit water quality and fish habitat. Native mussels are sensitive to pollution and disturbance, so exploring mussel distribution and the age structure of mussel beds provides insight on the biological conditions of Johnson Creek. Native Western pearlshell mussels were found in both stream reaches surveyed in the upper watershed, and native floaters were present in the lower watershed.

The event represents a unique opportunity for the general public to assist with field research

Nadaka Nature Park, lifting spirits with its peace and beauty. A letter of appreciation.

"A tranquil place in the heart of the suburbs"

Nadaka Nature Park, lifting spirits with its peace and beauty. A tranquil place in the heart of the suburbs, this lovely little park feels so 'Oregon'.
Nadaka Nature Park, Gresham OR
Click to enlarge

This lovely little park feels so Oregon

We received this letter from a Gresham resident expressing the uplifting effect Nadaka Nature Park has on their life and the lives of others, and we though we'd share it with you...

June 17, 2011
To whom it may concern:

I am a person who appreciates and uses Nadaka park. I remember when the Camp Fire girls enjoyed day camp there and was pleased when the the park became available for public use.

My husband and I have walked the loop with our dog. What a tranquil place in the heart of the suburbs.

The park is close to my mother's Alzheimer's home, Pacific Gardens. I have noticed employees from P.G. taking their lunch breaks there. Their job is anything but peaceful. The proximity of the south gate of the park really helps them regenerate their positive spirit quickly so they can do the second half of their shifts.

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