2014 Spirit of Portland Award nominations are open
Nominations are open for the 30th annual Spirit of Portland awards.
If you know an individual or group who has helped make Portland a better place to live, work, study, pray or play, nominate them for one of the 2014 awards.
Celebrated since 1985, the Spirit of Portland award is a way for the city to recognize and celebrate those who make who make outstanding contributions to the community. Each year, there are roughly 20 winners.
Recipients will be chosen based on any of the following criteria: assisting in the implementation of outstanding projects; enriching or revitalizing the community and neighborhoods; providing the community with a special service; demonstrating responsiveness, creativity and civic values; raising cross-cultural awareness; acting as good steward of the environment.
Nominations are due in the Office of Neighborhood Involvement Friday, September 12 at 4 pm.
Nomination forms are available at www.portlandonline.com/oni/spiritofportland. Contact Victor Salinas, at 503.823.3093 or victor.salinas@portlandoregon.gov.
Forms may be picked up at the Office of Neighborhood Involvement (ONI), 1221 SW Fourth Ave, Room 110.
The awards ceremony will be held on Tuesday, November 6, from 6 to 8:30 pm at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center – Atrium – 501 N. Graham St.
Knock, Knock! It’s Back, Better than Ever!
In the spirit of neighboring and storytelling: SE Uplift invites you to join us at Knock, Knock! It’s Your Neighbor: Mistakes of Neighborly Proportions for a night of honest, uproarious and unifying stories.
September 24 at Helium Comedy Club • 1510 SE 9th Ave.
Doors, Drinks & Silent Auction at 6 pm / Show at 7 pm
Tickets – $12 Advance ($13.65 w/fees), $16 at Door / 21+
Advance tickets: www.itsyourneighbor.org/tickets
This year’s event features tales of misadventure, mishap and misconception from genuine neighbors. You know who we’re talking about – Kelly from down the street who “took in” your cat, claiming she thought it was a stray and Bob, on the other side of the fence who insists that you’ve eaten all his juiciest tomatoes, or Anne who accidently called the cops on you thinking your home was being burglarized when you had only just returned from a trip south of the border.
Come prepared to laugh, cry and get your bid on. Local businesses have donated items that you want. Badly. Scenic air plane rides, glamping gear (glamorous-camping), musical instruments, sensory deprivation floats and other items of luxury one might not normally afford themselves.
9th Annual Dahlia Festival
View over 500 plants and 170 varieties of dahlias. Over 18,000 dahlias a year are grown on local farm properties in Corbett, Downtown South Waterfront and right here on Mill St.
This year’s festival is scheduled for
Sept 6, 7 • Sept 13,14
10 am – 5 pm
Old House Dahlias
8005 SE Mill St.
Music by  “Western Humming Bird”, Lorna Miller on Saturday Sept 6 from 1 – 2 pm. There will be    local vendors, garden art and complimentary coffee from Bipartisan Cafe. Pre-order for spring 2015 tubers as well as fresh-cut flowers and potted plants available.
Call Mark at 503.771.1199 for additional details or visit www.oldhousedahlias.com
Volcano Race Support Arts in School
Young Audiences’ road race returns with a new name and a brand new location. Volcano Race PDX 10K run, 5K run/walk, Kids Dash
takes place Sunday, September 28 at Mt. Tabor Park, (entrance at SE 69th & Yamhill)
Costs are: 10K, $35; 5K, $30; Kids Dash, $10
Day of registration opens at 8 am. The 10K run begins at 9:40 am, the 5K at 10 am, and the Kids Dash at 11 am. Live Music and Family Art Zone activities kick-off at 10:30 am.
All registrations include a t-shirt, swag bag, and complementary post-run snacks and drinks.
In addition to awarding medals to the top three male and female finishers, team awards will be given for: Best Dressed Team, Largest Team, and Top Fundraising Team.
100% of event proceeds and funds raised by teams will support Young Audiences’ work to inspire young people and expand their learning through the arts.
Advance registration available at www.volcanoracepdx.com.
EARTH Talk Ocean debris
By Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss
Recent news coverage of the disappearance of Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 reminded us all again of how much debris, including plastic, is in our oceans. To what extent is this a real problem that threatens ocean or human health?
The so-far in-vain search for Flight 370 has stirred up interest in the growing problem of ocean debris as objects thought to possibly be plane parts have repeatedly turned out to be just floating trash.
“The ocean is like a plastic soup, bulked up with the croutons of these larger items,” said Charles Moore, the captain who discovered an ocean trash gyre roughly the size of Texas swirling around in the deep ocean currents between Hawaii and California.
“It’s like a toilet bowl that swirls but doesn’t flush,” he added. Moore’s “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” is one of five such debris vortexes in the world’s oceans.
Last April, searchers for MH370 stumbled onto the eastern edge of one of them in the Indian Ocean, at first mistaking some of the larger bobbing objects for airplane wreckage.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), trash and other ocean debris can cause direct harm to wildlife that ingests or gets caught in it and can break or suffocate coral reefs that are key habitat for many of the world’s marine species. Marine debris can also contribute to the movement of harmful invasive species that hitch rides from one body of water to another.
So much marine debris is comprised of plastic, much of which takes hundreds of years to break down and ends up in the digestive systems of everything from whales to plankton, including much of the seafood that ends up on our dinner plates.
Plastic debris in the ocean not only leaches chemical pollutants added during manufacture but also absorbs and accumulates others. This includes many persistent organic pollutants (so-called POPs that have been used extensively for things like pest control, crop production and industrial manufacturing) from surrounding seawater and marine sediments.
These POPs have been linked to population declines, diseases and behavioral or physical abnormalities in many wildlife species. Researchers are still not sure how these chemicals, as well as others (Bisphenol A, phthalates, phenanthrene, etc.) may affect marine ecosystems in the long run.
In the meantime, we can all play a role in reducing the amount of plastic and other debris that end up in our oceans.
The most effective way to stop plastic pollution in our oceans is to make sure it never reaches the water in the first place.
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), individuals need to take care to recycle and never litter, while manufacturers should reducing packaging and design more of it to be fully recyclable.
NRDC and others are working on the legislative front to try to institutionalize such measures. Contact them at www.nrdc.org
Peace Choir Launches New Season
The Portland Peace Choir is launching its 2014-15 season in September and is seeking to expand its membership. The Portland Peace Choir is a community choir that welcomes all voices.
The choir meets on Wednesdays at 7-9 pm at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church, 2800 SE Harrison St. Rehearsals begin the first Wednesday in September.
There are no auditions necessary to join the Peace Choir; all skill levels are welcome. Basses and tenors are especially needed. For anyone who has ever wanted to sing secular songs of peace and joy in a no-pressure and accepting environment, the choir offers great fun in a supportive community.
This season’s theme, “A Lasting Peace”, is from a choral suite of that features Abraham Lincoln’s words as lyrics. The choir will commemorate the 150th anniversary of Lincoln’s second inaugural address, inscribed in the Lincoln Memorial.
Other music selections include songs sung by Peter, Paul and Mary, Tracy Chapman, Cat Stevens, and Pete Seeger. The choir will also honor the passing of two luminaries, Nelson Mandela and Pete Seeger.
For information see www.portlandpeacechoir.org or call 503.482. 9630.
21st Annual World Day of Prayer
Unity of Portland joins thousands of people around the world for the 21st annual Unity World Day of Prayer September 11.
This international, transdenominational 24/7 prayer ministry takes place around the world and focuses on the theme, “We Are the Light of the World: Let Your Light Shine!”
This event takes place at Unity of Portland, 4525 SE Stark St, with a prayer vigil from 11 am – 7 pm Thursday, September 11 and a prayer service beginning at 7 pm.
Unity invites people of all faiths to join in this sacred prayer activity. Names can be submitted for prayer online at www.unityofportland.org/prayer_request.html
Contact 503.234.7441 or email info@unityofportland.org.
Fifth annual SoTabor Harvest Fest
This years South Tabor Neighborhood Association “Harvest Fest” is growing. All are invited to attend Sunday, September 7, noon to 4 pm in the big field behind Trinity Fellowship at 68th & SE Clinton.
There’s a BBQ corn on the cob fundraiser ($2), live music, free fresh pressed cider, local handmade crafts, face painting, kid crafts and, of course, the popular veggie/plant/seed/tool exchange.
There’ll be a neighborhood visioning meeting at 3 pm for those interested. Set up volunteers will receive cofee and goodies from Grand Central, while Flying Pie Pizza awaits those who assist with cleanup.
For more info or booth space:harvest@southtabor.org
Cooking Up the Harvest
Multnomah County Master Gardeners host Katherine Deumling, owner of Cook With What You Have, a small business devoted to making cooking with fresh produce a regular, delicious and creative part of people’s lives.
The program will be held September. 9 at 6:45 pm at Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church, 5441 SE Belmont. Parking is on SE 54th Ave.
Cooking from scratch is often seen as time consuming, complicated and unrealistic for many busy families. Deumling sees it as a way to simplify and beautify your life – a creative, delicious and even meditative part of daily life. Cooking with extraordinary local fruits and vegetables is a treat for the senses and health and a real connection to soil, climate and place.
Native Oregonian Deumling partners with area farmers markets to promote local produce and works with non-profits, public agencies, and businesses to empower people to create healthy, delicious meals. She works with local CSA Farms, creating weekly, customized recipes packets for CSA members.
A member of the Board of Directors of Slow Food USA Deumling previously served as a Slow Food chapter leader and is a Sister on the Planet Ambassador for Oxfam America. She was recipient of a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship that allowed her to study food and culture in rural Mexico and Italy for a year in 1996.
She is an avid gardener and particularly evangelical about having people plant herbs–one of the simplest, most delicious and inexpensive ways to improve your cooking.
Food sharing recycling tip
By Bonita Davis Certified Master Recycler sunnyside resident
Are you experiencing a bounty of fruits and vegetables in your garden this year? Even after sharing with neighbors, friends and co-workers, you may still have more produce than you can use. Food presevation techniques, such as drying, root-cellaring, canning, fermenting, or freezing keeps produce ready for meals throughout the year. To learn more about these techniques, go to www.extension.oregonstate.edu, under the Food Preservation tab.
Another option is sharing your harvest with SE organizations committed to feeding the hungry, or food insecure, in our community. Go to www.oregonfoodbank.org and look under Plant-A-Row-for-the-Hungry for agencies near you that accept fresh food right from your garden. SE Portland has five drop-off facilities and has a map and details on how to donate. It’s simple to do and your donation will be appreciated. You can learn more about expanding your future gardens to include a “plant-a-row” for the food bank.
Yet another option is the Portland Fruit Tree Project, which brings people together to pick fruit that would otherwise go to waste and make it available to people in need. Details on registering your tree for harvest, or to help as a volunteer, go to www.portlandfruit.org/harvest-programs.
Leftover food constitutes about 25% – 30% of the waste generated in the Portland Metropolitan area.
Tour of Untimely Departures Get involved in one of Portland’s favorite Halloween evening events – Friends of Lone Fir Cemetery’s Tour of Untimely Departures.  Groups of guests are led along a luminaria-lit path and meet ghosts at their graves. Become a volunteer by following the registration process to be a ghost, tour guide, tour tail, ghoul, greeter, pumpkin carver, or member of the logistics crew. Ghosts dress in period costumes, portraying cemetery residents and tell the story of his/her untimely departure to tour groups as they stop by your gravesite every eight minutes. This year eight men and three women are needed. Submit a Volunteer Survey at www.friendsoflonefircemetery.org.
Greenway Tour of Mount Tabor/North Tabor/Rose City Park Neighborhoods on Saturday September 6th, from 2 – 4:30 pm. Starting at Fred Meyer, 6615 NE Glisan St., this organized tour will highlight the new 50’s greenway being built right now and hopefully the future infrastructure improvements we have applied for a grant to build. Highlights include access to both our high schools, Normandale and Mount Tabor Parks. For those who do not want to climb the mountain, we can set up an end location to meet up afterwards.
Easy Meditation Classes–Non-denominational, no floor sitting or experience required, beginners welcome. Wednesdays 6:45 – 7:45 pm Tabor Space library, 5441 SE Belmont. The first meditation starts September 17. Another meditation place and time are Sundays 11 am – noon, 1332 SE 50th starting September 21.  For more information: www.meditatepdx.com,  mylafox@msn.com, 503.490.2362.
KEYS….KEYS…KEYS…yours perhaps? Check the Mt Tabor Park Visitor Center for a huge collection of keys; car keys, house keys, keys for a wide variety of locks, some with expensive black “key fobs”, some just on rings, others on lanyards and cords.  They have been turned in at the Park Visitor Center and arein the lost and found box.  Stop by and check our collection; one or more might belong to you.  You will find us there just about every weekend and often on weekday mornings.
YOUTH CROSS COUNTRY–Portland Parks and Recreation 3rd through 8th grade youth cross country program starts Wednesday September 3 at 5 pm at Wilshire Park, NE 33rd & Skidmore. Practices are held twice a week. The XC meets are held at Overlook park ( 1 mile north of Rose Quarters on Interstate) on Thursday 9/11, 9/25, 10/9 and 10/23. The races are 3 – 4 grades–1500 meters at 5 pm; 5 – 6 grades–2000 meters at 5:20 pm; 7 – 8 grades–3000 meters at 5:40 pm and an open event for the general public at 6 pm. Everyone is welcome. Visit www.foottraffic.us for more details.
Annual neighborhood/Providence meeting set. The annual meeting of the North Tabor and Laurelhurst Neighborhood Associations and Providence Portland Medical Center is scheduled for Tuesday, Oct. 28 from 7 – 8 pm, in the Social Room at the hospital, 4805 NE Glisan. The agenda, as set by representatives of the three groups, includes updates on the guest housing project, new services at the hospital, the joint transportation work group, volunteer opportunities at Providence Portland and online neighborhood/hospital news.
spaghetti dinner to benefit the Outreach group from Tabor Heights United Methodist Church to help with their trip to the United Methodist Committee on Relief Depot located in Salt Lake City, Utah. Several of them will spend five days there working to fill emergency relief boxes with needed supplies for hurting people here in the US and all over the world. The dinner is being held September 6 at Tabor Heights, 6161 SE Stark St. It will be between 5 and 6 pm and cost is $8 for adults and $5 for 12 and under. Phone 503.232.8500. Web www.taborheightschurch.org
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Documentary from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, September 13 from 1 – 3 pm. Attend a free presentation of 9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. This 60-minute documentary presents recent science-based evidence explaining the destruction of the Twin Towers and Building 7 on September 11, 2001. The screening will be held at the Belmont Library, located at 1038 SE Cesar Chavez Blvd, Portland, from 1 – 3 pm. Free DVDs of the full 97-minute video will be handed out during the Q&A following the presentation. Bring along as many friends as you can who are new to the 9/11 evidence
Division Back in Business Businesses on SE Division are excitedly awaiting the end of the Streetscape/Paving project that has been tearing up the street for almost a year. City Officials and the Division/Clinton Business Association are planning a celebration in October to welcome everyone back to the area. Despite the construction, many new businesses have moved in. Veteran businesses Josephine’s Dry Goods and the Lodekka Double Decker Dress shop have both moved to Division. New businesses, Holy Spokes! Bike Shop, Tidbit Food Farm & Garden, and Parson Farms Fresh Produce have settled in as well. The whole street looks forward to October when they can show off all of the new happenings.
Constructive Wallowing: How to Beat Bad Feelings By Letting Yourself Have Them,is a new book by psychotherapist and Buckman resident Tina Gilbertson, LPC. She will explain how to use emotional literacy to improve relationships and self-esteem at six Multnomah County Library branches, including three in SE Portland, beginning September 9. Gilbertson speaks at the Holgate branch on Tuesday, Sept. 9 at 6:30 pm; at Central on Sunday, Sept. 21 at 2 pm; at Belmont on Saturday, Oct. 4 at 4 pm and at Sellwood-Moreland on Sunday, Oct. 5 at 1 pm. See the full schedule and registration info at multcolib.org/events/constructive-wallowing for details.
Powell-Division Transit and Development Project – Help build what is collectively known about the people, places, real challenges and promising opportunities within the Powell-Division corridor connecting Gresham, E. and SE Portland. This meeting is open to the public. The Equity work group will meet Wednesday, September 3, 4:30 to 6 pm at the Midland Library, 805 SE 122nd Ave. Midland Library is served by TriMet line 71 and is walking distance from lines 20 and 4. RSVP? Call 503.813.7535
Safety Program–Sharon White is coordinater of pedestrian/driver safety outreach and education for the City of Portland working to reduce the number of fatalities and serious crashes on Portland’s ten identified high crash corridors. Human factors (distraction, cellphone use, speeding, sobriety, age, etc.) contribute to 93% of vehicle crashes Two pedestrian/driver safety trainings are being offered to community members. “Every Corner Is A Crosswalk” is available for viewing at animatedtrafficlaw.org/ror/index.php. Motor vehicle drivers and bicyclists that fail to yield to pedestrians according to Oregon laws can be given a warning or a citation that carries a fine of approximately $287. Pedestrians that fail to give cars an adequate time to stop or that jaywalk can be given a warning or a citation that carries a fine of approximately $142. “Portland Walks – Be Safe” is at www.portlandoregon.gov/article/278767. The Traffic Safety and Neighborhood Livability Hotline is the best place to initiate a conversation about anything related to transportation safety. 503. 823.SAFE (7233) or by email at safe@portlandoregon.gov.
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