Partners In Conservation Grants
City of Gresham, $18,000 – Butler Creek Greenway
Butler Creek Greenway Restoration and Outreach – Phase 2
The City of Gresham will initiate Phase 2 of a project focused on eradication of invasive weeds throughout 5.4 acres of the remaining Greenway, engaging adjacent homeowners to increase stewardship and reduce yard care impacts, stabilization of severely eroded stream banks, and enhancement of habitat for known populations of sensitive wildlife such as Coho, Oregon slender salamanders, and cutthroat trout.
City of Portland – Environmental Services, $40,000 – Bybee and Glenwood
Bybee and Glenwood Culvert Replacement for Fish Passage
The City of Portland’s Environmental Services will complete the final phase of a project to restore fish passage and habitat along all 2.7 miles of Crystal Springs Creek. Until recently, fish passage for juvenile salmonids was impeded by nine culverts. To date, seven of the nine culverts have been replaced or abandoned. The project aims to reestablish ESA-listed Chinook, coho and steelhead throughout the watershed.
Coalition of Communities of Color, $15,000 – Northeast Portland
Building Environmental Capacity in Communities of Color
The Coalition’s project seeks to build environmental knowledge through a training series: they will produce indicators for environmental health that are culturally appropriate. The project’s goal is to provide a vision of conservation priorities in communities of color.
Columbia Land Trust, Audubon Society of Portland, $11,000 – Gresham
Backyard Habitat Certification Program – Gresham Expansion
Working in partnership, the Columbia Land Trust and Audubon Society of Portland will expand the Backyard Habitat Certification Program into the City of Gresham. The program provides technical assistance, incentives, resources, and recognition to small lot private property owners to restore native wildlife habitat and manage stormwater at home.
Columbia Riverkeeper, $14,500 – Various locations
PROJECT
Columbia Riverkeeper will train volunteers, conduct river clean-ups, partner with Project YESS on a restoration project and conduct education and outreach targeting underserved and impacted communities.
Cully Young Farmers (Trinity Lutheran Church and School), $10,000 – Trinity Lutheran Church and School, North Portland
Cully Young Farmers Project
To provide weekly garden classes to students at Trinity Lutheran School, which will be focused on soil science and growing organic vegetables and plants, as well as food nutrition, preparation and flavor.
Depave, $40,000- Various locations
Depaving for Community Livability
Depave will transform a combined total of approximately 9,000 square feet of pavement into living landscapes at Creston and King Schools, Wild Lilac Preschool and Pilgrim Lutheran Church. These projects involve removing pavement at each site, followed by planting native plants and establishing community gardens in the depaved areas.
Ecology in Classrooms and Outdoors, $26,000 – Various locations
Connecting Students to Nature
ECO will provide provide ecology enrichment programs to six elementary schools in East Multnomah County. The programs’ purpose is to connect students to nature through exploration of their local ecology. Lessons are aligned with Common Core Standards and occur both in the classroom and outdoors.
Groundwork Portland, $25,000 – Various locations
Diversifying Stewards of the Willamette Watershed
Groundwork supports youth, volunteers and community partners from low-income backgrounds, communities of color, and immigrant or refugee backgrounds as they learn about environmental concerns, restore land in the Willamette watershed, and advance as civic leaders through neighborhood-based environmental projects.
Growing Gardens, $25,000 – Various locations
Deepening Roots with Schools
Growing Gardens will hire a Youth Grow Education Coordinator to provide organic food garden training, coaching and support to classroom teachers. The Youth Grow program teaches low income children lessons in where food comes from, the importance of eating fruits and vegetables and how to grow food through hands-on activities.
Holy Redeemer Catholic School , $10,000 – North Portland
Holy Redeemer Stormwater Project
This project will divert 750,000 gallons of stormwater annually that currently drains from the school roof and courtyard into the city sewers, through re-roofing and re-grading to better utilize existing bioswales, and by improving on-site filtration.
Janus Youth Programs, $30,000 – Sauvie Island
Food Works
This project will support a tiered leadership and employment program for Portland area youth, many from disadvantaged backgrounds and representing many different cultures, to learn about environmentally conscious agriculture by carrying out the preparation, cultivation and distribution of responsibly grown produce from the Food Works farm on Sauvie Island.
King Neighborhood Association, $30,000 – King Neighborhood
Green King
The purpose of this project is to create more green space, reduce stormwater runoff, and create an on-site opportunity for students of King School to learn about stormwater management and the role of native plants in protecting the water quality of our rivers.
Morrison Child and Family Services, $8,400
Hand in Hand Therapeutic Garden
This project provides environmental education for underserved marginalized youth through sustainable gardening and stormwater management. Activities involve gardening, collecting water in a cistern and maintaining a rain garden.
Native American Youth and Family Center, $10,000 – Illahee Gardens
Transforming Lands: Cultivating a Sovereign NAYA Food System
The Center’s goal is to transform an acre of grass and weeds into Illahee Gardens, a sustainable agricultural site. Illahee Gardens will provide a site for the Portland Native American community and ethnically diverse Cully neighborhood to conduct place-based environmental education and food-focused microenterprise training.
Oregon Food Bank, $15,000 – Northeast Portland
Learning Garden Redesign and Expansion Project
The Oregon Food Bank will relocate their demonstration garden to the front of the Northeast Portland headquarters, and restructure the Learning Garden, while also preparing the original garden space and idle land for a small urban farm.
Oregon Tradeswomen, Inc., $17,000 – Northeast Portland
Young Women’s Environmental Education Project
Oregon Tradeswomen will provide young women with solid grounding in environmental knowledge through projects in stormwater management, gardening, and habitat restoration, with additional training toward environmental careers.
Outgrowing Hunger , $14,500 – East Portland, various locations
East Portland Neighborhood Gardens Sustainable Gardening Education
Outgrowing Hunger will provide venue, outreach, education, mentoring, and supplies for sustainable and watershed-friendly growing practices for approximately over 50 refugee market and community gardener families at the new 60,000 square foot expansion of the Neighborhoods Community Garden in East Portland.
Pilgrim Lutheran Church, $12,000 – East Portland
Parking Lot Stormwater Retrofit
In partnership with Depave, Pilgrim Lutheran Church will remove 1800 square feet of asphalt from their parking lot, build a bioswale, plant native plants and direct stormwater runoff to the bioswale.
Sauvie Island Center, $7,000 – Sauvie Island
Place Based Learning on the Farm with students from James John
The Center is piloting a new program of place-based science and nutrition education in partnership with James John Elementary School. The program includes fall, winter and spring visits to the farm site and two winter visits by education staff to the classrooms.
The Wetlands Conservancy, $5,300 – Gresham
Gresham Meadowlands Herptile Project
This project will introduce students and community members to the benefits of wetlands and to opportunities to maintain and preserve these important landscape features, through educational presentations, service-learning projects and volunteer events for individuals and families.
Willamette Riverkeeper, $15,000 – Various locations
Willamette River Connections
Willamette Riverkeeper will engage community members of all ages in learning more about the state of the Willamette River in Portland through citizen science, restoration, and education. Community members will participate in water quality monitoring, habitat restoration in natural areas along the east bank, and paddling to explore and connect with the river environment.
Wisdom of the Elders, Inc., $10,000 – Southeast Portland
The Wisdom Project
The Wisdom Project is a youth leadership initiative for Native and low-income youth in the greater Portland area. It introduces Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into lessons to promote student social and physical well-being. This project will train peer mentors to develop conservation skills and career pathways and to help middle-school students at summer field science camp.
Xerces Society, $9,700- Various locations
Citizen-science Investigations of the Effects of Stream Restoration on Native Freshwater Mussels
Xerces will train volunteers to conduct mussel surveys and salvages, investigate survival of native mussels re-located from project sites before restoration and re-colonization of restored reaches, and assess changes in native mussel vs. invasive clam numbers.
Partners In Conservation Plus Grants
Friends of Trees, $87,757 – Various locations
Building Partners in the Johnson Creek Watershed
Friends of Trees will continue to build upon years of restoration activities in the Johnson Creek watershed, working with partners to coordinate volunteer restoration events at seven sites in the watershed. Projects will include individual site restoration plans, site preparation, volunteer recruitment, community outreach, planting events and follow-up maintenance and monitoring events.
Johnson Creek Watershed Council, $175,353 – Various locations, Gresham
Gresham Riparian Reforestation
Johnson Creek Watershed Council will work with private streamside landowners in Gresham to control invasive plants and plant native vegetation. The Council will target properties identified as priorities in their Riparian Reforestation Strategy, especially those adjacent to publicly-owned parcels where the City of Gresham has prioritized restoration work.
Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership, $180,000 – Various locations
Thousand Acres Floodplain Restoration Project
The Partnership will remove a tide gate and water control structure in order to restore connectivity between the Columbia River and a 50 acre floodplain wetland at the Sandy River Delta. Habitat that has been degraded by hydrologic modifications, deforestation, grazing, and invasive species will be restored by reforesting 75 acres, enhancing and expanding wetlands, and by adding 60 large wood habitat logs. The community will be engaged through student education programs and volunteer planting events.