Earlier this month, the Metro Council awarded $15,000 in grant money to five North Portland community projects.
Issued through Metro’s 27-year-old North Portland Enhancement Grant Program, initially created to compensate the community affected by the now-closed St. Johns Landfill, this year’s grants target a wide array of programs – ranging from an after-school chess club to a home weatherization team. However, the role each allocation of money plays in the organizations varies, due to the different nature of each program. So how exactly are this year’s funds expanding organizations and impacting their community?
The impact is immeasurable, said Metro grants program spokeswoman Karen Blauer.
"It’s amazing how much you can do with so little and impact so many," Blauer said. "We’re just here to incubate these programs, but their legacy is in the community’s hands."
Impact Northwest’s Urban Opportunities illustrates this process. Championed by Polly Bangs, Urban Opportunities steers low-income children towards stable employment opportunities through resume-building volunteer experience, job interview training and general confidence building activities.
"All the kids that go through the program come out with long-term solutions," Bangs said. "Making them feel like active participants in their community encourages them to give back for the rest of their lives and gives them the confidence needed to pursue lifelong careers. There’s no end date."
The enhancement grant money will only further expand Bangs’ efforts. With the $4,250 boost, Urban Opportunities will help prepare 25 Roosevelt High School students for career tracks and enter them into the program’s internship program, placing students behind the pink counter of Voodoo Doughnuts van or at a vegetable-laden booth at St. Johns Farmers Market.
Bangs has now reached the point where younger siblings of students once involved in her program are eagerly signing up to participate.
"I’m starting to see the more long-term outcomes of the program," she said. "It’s coming full circle."
This year, Blauer said, the annual grant money has reached an all-time low because of the recession, with $15,000 divided among five organizations. But the shortage of money hasn’t lessened the growth of these programs.
Emily Moser of Oregon Partnership’s Lines for Life, a Portland nonprofit providing peer-to-peer youth counseling, says the $4,250 allocation will pay to train teen volunteers to run the YouthLine, a counseling service where volunteers talk to other teens who are seeking guidance, support or just a person to talk to.
"It could be stress over a bad grade they got in school, or it could be really serious," Moser said. "Either way, these kids can help each other out."
Now that the St. Johns Landfill is long closed – and well down the path toward being reopened as a park– the initial purpose of this grant program has faded.
So how much longer will Metro keep it up? Blauer says it’s hard to know. Its future ultimately lies in the hands of the Metro Council.
"We’re reaching a really important stage where this community liability, a dump, has actually turned into an asset," Blauer said. "The initial issue of environmental equity is gone, but the community is still doing great things with these funds. Either way, we’ve helped them grow."
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