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2019 Summer Newsletter"Diversity, Harmony, Community - |
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Summer 2019 NewsletterInside This Issue:
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Download your copy here. (includes active web links)
Newsletters are a regular publication of the Wilkes East Neighborhood Association. They are hand-delivered to over 1,500 residences and businesses in our area 3 times per year, timed to correspond with our regular meetings.
View archive | Policy & Ad Rates
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Got a story or tip to share? |
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Volunteers Needed |
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Get involved, Make a difference
When: Sat, May 04, 2019 9AM-12PM |
Register now for the sixth annual Green and Clean Day of Service on Saturday, May 4.
This year's day of service will put a special focus on the kids while promoting community engagement. Everyone is invited to help beautify the school grounds at Hartley Elementary with coordinated activities for all ages and fitness levels. Join Gresham City Councilors to help with a variety of spring cleaning, landscape and maintenance projects.
Individuals and organizations, register online by April 28 to ensure enough refreshments for volunteers.
This event is sponsored by the City's Office of Neighborhoods and Community Enhancement.
For more information about this event, contact Michael Gonzales at 503-618-2482 or email Michael.Gonzales@GreshamOregon.gov.
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Join us Saturday!When: Sat May 11, 2019 10AM-10PM |
The forest at Nadaka Nature Park is once again alive with activity as our diverse population of birds are busy nesting, singing, and enjoying the spring air! This May, join Friends of Nadaka and the Audubon Society of Portland as we lead a Spring Bird Walk through Nadaka’s beautiful forest and meadow. We will identify birds and bird calls, talk about species characteristics, and enjoy the richness of our urban bird population!
A limited number of binoculars will be provided. New and experienced birders are all welcome!
Meet at the Nadaka Nature Park picnic shelter at 9:45am to sign in and enjoy coffee and light refreshments before we start our walk at 10am.
Cost: FREE
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Seeking Volunteers
When: Wed, Apr 17, 2019 6PM-8:30PM |
Learn about the most common garden and landscape weeds. Youll find out how these aggressive plants take over in your yard, and get tips that will help you get the upper hand without turning to synthetic herbicides.
Space is limited, please register for this free event
For more information, contact Brandi Boersma, East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation at 503-935-5364, or Brandi@emswcd.org
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Saving Our Streams
When: Sat, Mar 09, 2019 9AM-1PM |
Learn to Naturescate, create a low-maintenance landscape that conserves water, minimizes pollution, and creates habitat.
Register today, space is limited
For more information, contact Brandi, East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District, at 503-935-5364 or Brandi@emswcd.org
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Let's Go Walking!
When: Sat, Mar 09, 2019 9AM-5PM |
The City of Canby has rehabilitated an old Weyerhaeuser road to make a nice trail down to the Willamette River. We will walk through a couple of wooded parks and along the paved trail between a golf course and the river, to an area where we'll see the remains of an old gantry and other structures used to unload logs. The trail is a pleasant out-and-back route. After the hike, we'll have lunch at the Backstop Bar and Grill in Canby. Bring an energy snack and water. Good walking shoes are recommended.
Trail conditions: Paved and dirt trail mix, about the last half-mile before we turn around is all downhill, and uphill on the return. Otherwise the trail is fairly level.
For more information about this hike please contact Dana or Doug Duvall at 970-230-6543 or danakol24@aol.com.
Senior Healthy Hikers asks that participants be 50 or older. A couple wishing to hike is welcome if one member of the couple is 50 or better.
Pets are not permitted on our hikes or walks.
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Make New Friends!
When: Thu, Mar 21, 2019 6PM-8:30PM |
Meet the beetles, bugs, flies, lacewings and other invertebrates that provide free pest control. Discover ways to attract and sustain these friendly beneficial insects that help your garden thrive.
Contact Brandi Boersma at Brandi@emswcd.org or 503-935-5364
 Monica McAllister, Nadaka. Click to enlarge |
Nurturing Nature, Food, and FamiliesBy Grace Graham, The turning of winter over to spring is one of our favorite seasons at Nadaka Nature Park.. |
The forest is cool and quiet, patiently holding its breath for the first signs of new life, and the garden lies resting, silently preparing rich soils that will nurture new seeds in the coming months. This is a time of year that gives Friends of Nadaka (FON) the opportunity to reflect on the old year’s accomplishments, and welcome in a new season of beginnings, opportunities, and goals.
This 2019 New Year came with the bittersweet news that our incredible Nadaka Coordinator of the last 5 years, Monica McAllister, has decided to begin a new journey as the Community Connections Liaison with East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District. As Nadaka’s first and only Coordinator to-date, Monica leaves behind an amazing legacy of community engagement and education programs, lasting partnerships, and deep ties with our neighbors in West Gresham. We join our partners, neighbors, and park users in thanking Monica for years of dedication, leadership, and initiative in helping bring a community vision to life.
Friends of Nadaka is taking this shift in leadership as an opportunity to review the successes, challenges, and accomplishments of Nadaka’s first five years, and develop a strategic plan for moving forward. This review and planning process will last through the spring, and no permanent hires will be made to replace Monica until the review is complete. In the interim period, Jamie Stamberger of Stamberger Outreach Consulting has stepped in as a part-time Interim Coordinator for Friends of Nadaka, and has begun working closely with Nadaka’s current AmeriCorps Member, Grace Graham, to keep events and programs running through the next several months. Jamie recently served as the Interim Executive Director for the Columbia Slough Watershed Council (FON’s fiscal agent), so she is already familiar with Nadaka’s programs, systems, and partners. Please direct all Nadaka inquiries to info@friendsofnadaka.org, and expect a short delay in response as Grace and Jamie are frequently outdoors, meeting with partners, and navigating a new wave of projects and responsibilities.
Despite all of these organizational changes, Friends of Nadaka hosted a wildly successful MLK Day of Service event on January 21st, in partnership with Friends of Trees, the Nature Conservancy, and several other community organizations. Over 100 volunteers showed up to help us get 750 native plants in the ground in under three hours, an amazing feat that demonstrates the passion and energy our neighbors and partners have for giving back to their community and honoring the legacy of a great community servant and leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The cold snap and snow that followed forced us to cancel February 9th’s Community Planting Event, but we have decided to combine it with the coming Nadaka & Rockwood Neighborhood Planting Event this April 13th from 9am-12pm with Friends of Trees, to form one giant restoration party! If you are interested in volunteering with us, please sign up through Friends of Tree’s website at https://friendsoftrees.org/event-calendar/.
This year’s English-led Seed to Supper gardening course with the Oregon Food Bank kicked off on Thursday, February 21st, and will take place as a 5-class series every Thursday evening from 6:30-8:30pm through March 21st. This class is free to attend, and is a wonderful opportunity for beginner gardeners to learn how to get started growing their own food on a budget. Due to some unexpected conflicts, the Spanish-led Seed to Supper class has been tentatively postponed for later in the spring. Friends of Nadaka is working with the Oregon Food Bank to reschedule the Spanish Seed to Supper, and we will post details on our website and Facebook page as soon as possible. Please email info@friendsofnadaka.org with questions or requests to be notified when more details are available.
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Friends of Nadaka is excited to announce that for the fourth year in a row, we are once again hosting the Welcome Back Vulture Day festival on Saturday, March 16th from 12-3pm, in partnership with the Audubon Society of Portland. |
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This free, family-friendly event is filled with educational activities, live birds, food, games, and more! Attendees will have the opportunity to meet Ruby, Portland Audubon’s live Turkey Vulture, along with many of Audubon’s other education birds. Other activities will include comparing your wingspan to that of a California Condor, exploring the varied cultural significance of different birds, enjoying a scavenger hunt and bird walk in Nadaka Nature Park’s forest, and crafting your own unique bird mask! Learn more about this event at Audubon Society of Portland’s website: http://audubonportland.org/.
If you aren’t able to make it to our Seed to Supper series but are still interesting in buildling or freshening up your gardening skills, Outgrowing Hunger will be hosting a monthly hands-on Natural Gardening Class from 6-7:30pm in the Nadaka Community Garden, starting with April 16th, May 16th, June 20th, and continued once a month through the end of the growing season. Find more event dates at https://outgrowinghunger.org/calendar. We will also be hosting the Creating Edible Landscapes Workshop on May 18th from 9-11:30am with East Multnomah Soil & Water Conservation District. Registration is required for this event, and it will fill up fast, so don’t wait! Sign up here:
https://emswcd.org/workshops-and-events/upcoming-workshops/.
For more information about how to get involved in creating positive social and environmental change at Nadaka and the Wilkes East and Rockwood neighborhoods, sign up for Friends of Nadaka’s brand new e-newsletter! Newsletter subscribers will receive an email at the beginning of each month with event information, park news, and other community resources! Sign up here: http://eepurl.com/gb1A2r. You can also stay up-to-date by “liking” our page on Facebook @NadakaNaturePark, or following our new Instagram account, @nadakanaturepark_. If you have questions about any events, news, or programs at Nadaka Nature Park, please email info@friendsofnadaka.org. Thank you for your support, and we hope to see you at Nadaka soon!
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“A place that nurtures nature, food, and families”Turned leaves are falling, the mornings are cool, and our plants are drinking up the first rains of the season as we settle into a beautiful autumn here at Nadaka Nature Park. |
By Monica McAllister & Grace Graham
After a summer buzzing with community celebrations and gatherings, gardeners tending their bountiful harvests, and many educational workshops and volunteering events, we at Friends of Nadaka (FON) are looking forward to our winter programming and have already begun planning for next year’s events. Over the next several months, we will be offering indoor gardening workshops, forest restoration projects, and other community engagement events that we encourage all of our neighbors to attend. Before diving into information about our upcoming park activities, however, we would like to take a moment to reflect on the past season’s successes and thank our community members and partners who helped make them possible.
This year’s 8th Annual Nadaka Community Festival was a huge success! We had over 350 participants, 3 performances, and 34 partnering organizations & businesses. We were thrilled to have The Aztec Dancers, Ukrainian Folk Singer Natalia Hougan, and the NW Panmen Terry Baber and Brad Hirsch on the Steel Drums perform again at this year’s festival. The Audubon Society of Portland education birds and handlers, City of Gresham Police Cadets and Fire Department had a ton of fun connecting with the community and teaching them about the amazing work they do. Environmental education activities, crafts, and face painting were led by our Nadaka Interns, East County Nature Crew, Centennial Park High School, Gresham High School Key Club, and TALON Apprentices from Audubon Society of Portland while the Boys & Girls Club kept the fun going with games and activities at the picnic shelter! We extend a big thank you to our Festival Committee, volunteers, partners, and everyone else who made the festival a marvelous success! Our Festival sponsors and donors included: Owens Corning, City of Gresham, and St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church, as well as Albertsons, Starbucks, and Rockwood PUD who donated hot dogs & chips, coffee, and water respectively. We are extremely grateful for their support!
Friends of Nadaka would like to recognize the amazing work of our two Nadaka SummerWorks Interns and nine East County Nature Crew who helped lead and teach bilingual events for the Human Solutions apartment complexes and lead nature activities for the SKIP Program (City of Gresham’s Summer Kids In the Park Program, which includes free lunch and family-friendly activities) hosted at Nadaka with the Boys & Girls Club this summer. This year, Lilia from the SummerWorks Intern Program joined the ranks of the Nadaka Ambassadors, and Trey has returned as an Ambassador after his internship with the East County Nature Crew to continue working at the park year-round. We also want to recognize the amazing work of our year-round Ambassadors who have been working to engage the community, lead events, and keep the park safe and clean!
For the fall season, volunteers from the neighborhood showed their love for Nadaka at our SOLVE Beach and Riverside Cleanup in September and the No Ivy Day event in October. For this year’s No Ivy Day event, Friends of Nadaka was awarded a $2,000 SPACE Grant from East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District. This grant enabled us to purchase native plants and tools, and help support the Nadaka Park Coordinator and Nadaka Ambassadors in running the event. We were lucky to have “College Possible” high school youth and community members come together to prep the garden for winter. Another great annual event was our Fall Bird Walk with Audubon Society of Portland, where we cataloged the number and variety of species passing through the park during fall migration. In the garden, we finished up our free hands-on gardening workshop series with Outgrowing Hunger, and did an end-of-the-season cleanup. For those who are interested in gardening at the park, new garden registration for Nadaka begins February 1st. Contact Adam Kohl of Outgrowing Hunger (adam@outgrowinghunger.org) for more information and how to register for a garden plot.
New to our team at Nadaka Nature Park this fall is AmeriCorps Member Grace Graham, who recently started an 11-month term of service as the Events & Outreach Specialist for both Nadaka Nature Park & Garden and the Columbia Slough Watershed Council. Grace was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska, and graduated from Willamette University in Salem, OR last May with a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Science and degree emphasis in Social Sciences. During her time in school, Grace managed her university’s Outdoor Program, assisted her academic advisor in climate research, and spent a semester studying biodiversity and the local social impacts of ecotourism in Bocas del Toro, Panama. After graduating, she worked for a diversified organic farm in Salem before moving to Portland to begin her service with AmeriCorps.
Grace is thrilled to have the opportunity to bring her passions for environmental conservation and social justice together through her position as the Events & Outreach Specialist. At Nadaka, she has begun facilitating and leading environmental stewardship programming with the SUN Program at HB Lee Middle School and students from Centennial Park Alternative High School. She is also looking forward to becoming more involved with communities and organizations in the Wilkes East neighborhood. At the Columbia Slough Watershed Council, she assists with outreach and communication efforts, and provides logistic and administrative support for community events. She is excited about becoming more engaged in diversity, equity, and inclusion work in the environmental field, and looks forward to building many more relationships with the communities she serves! If you have questions about Grace's role, the AmeriCorps program, or opportunities to collaborate, please contact her at grace.graham@columbiaslough.org.
Even though winter weather will be upon us shortly, Friends of Nadaka will still have many fun events coming up rain or shine! Join us for our Urban Weeds Workshop with EMSWCD on Thursday 11/8 from 6-8:30 PM in the community hall at St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church. MLK Day of Service will be at the park on Monday, January 21st, and the Community Planting Event will follow on February 9th. Starting in March, we will be offering our Annual Free Indoor Gardening Workshop Series with Oregon Food Bank in English, Spanish, and Russian. Another event to keep an eye out for is our Spring Bird and Nature Walk Day with Audubon Society of Portland.
These are just a few of the activities we have in store for the community at Nadaka. For more information and opportunities to get involved and help create a positive social and environmental change in the Wilkes East and Rockwood community, visit www.friendsofnadaka.org, “Friends of Nadaka” group and Nadaka Nature Park page on Facebook, or contact Monica at monica@friendsofnadaka.org or 503-956-8558.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the park!
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Free Event!
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Neighborhood Plant Swap
Want to add to your garden plants & at the same time share some of your over populated plants!
In an effort to connect with our community and encourage camaraderie amongst us gardeners, Eastrose Fellowship is hosting a plant swap on Saturday, October 13th, 10 am - noon.
How it Works
Pot up the extra plants in your yard and bring them over. Be sure to label plants with their name and best growing conditions. Pick up some cool new treasures for your garden. This is a fun way to introduce more diversity into your garden.
Feel free to bring these to swap: plants, seeds, houseplants, tools, decor, mason bee houses, etc. No invasive plants please.
Join us for this fun, community affirming event!
More Info
For more info, contact Karen Pyle kpyle23@gmail.com
Happy Gardening!!!
Thank You!
Wilkes East Neighborhood would like express our gratitude to the following for their generous contributions & continued support:
• Jazzy Bagels, Main St & Powell
• Parkrose Hardware, 106th & Sandy
• Growers Outlet, 162nd & Glisan
• SOLV, Bringing Oregon together
• Albertsons, 181st & Glisan
• And, all the many volunteers!
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