Our Streets PDX

The main goal for this grant is to be able to fund the rent and utilities for our proposed Safe Haven and give us financial stability to maintain a company space and use it to center all of our community events out of.

 Setting a solid foundation for the Safe Haven is our immediate goal, with plans to expand upon this foundation to continually make the space more diverse and accessible for the communities we are targeting. 

 Being a young organization, our focus has been primarily on executing the events and activities we envisioned and making it work with the resources we were able to get from public donations. As we become more established and follow this path of growth in our impact on the community we know that we will need to create both long-term and short-term partnerships and relationships to be financially stable enough to continue what we do. 

We have a plan to expand the Feed the Streets program with a goal of distributing 1,000 meals and 500 items of everyday necessities per week. We will achieve this by having appropriate  funding to pay staff members, purchase 2 cargo vans and cover other operational costs. 

The goal of the Our Streets PDX Youth Development program is to help the younger generation to self-develop and create career paths. The OSPDX Safe Haven will serve as our year-round headquarters and as a place for low income and marginalized young people, while supporting our other community development projects. Our objective is to provide education and other enhancement activities to fulfill otherwise unmet needs. Our amenities will include an event space for lessons and a lounging area with games and refreshments to provide a comfortable space for those who visit. Activities would include art, trade education, job skill development, community events, and more.

We strive to foster new ways of self-growth for our young constituents while creating a space for them to express themselves and build relationships in safety. All our lessons are intended to build confidence and interest for each participant. We will encourage out-of-the-box thinking, mental development and self-awareness. Many of those we support lack consistent resources and mentors in their lives. Our research  has shown that low-income high school students are less likely to attend college than higher income students.

With the launch of our proposed Safe Haven we envision serving 200-300 youths of color and provide a space to develop and promote healthy outlets and talents. Alongside our community space renovations, we hope to provide multiple avenues of youth development and sustainable education. Our initial garden renovation at Ockley Green Middle School has opened our pathway to connecting with youth centered establishments and organizations. 

Moving forward from this, we hope to assist more schools providing both weekday and weekend programs that give the youth a place to express themselves and promote positive outlets, especially for those whose family situations don’t allow them opportunity to do so due to hours of work or food scarcity situations. Our mentorship program will teach the youth to develop skills such as gardening, art and tradesmanship as both a healthy outlet and a path to professional development. Our goal in 2021 is being able to attain and create the Our Streets PDX Safe Haven, equipped with a simple kitchen, amenity areas for art and recreation and office space for our staff members to work. We hope to attain a usable space in the beginning of 2021 and continue to develop and grow every month. 

The style of operations for Our Streets PDX creates intimate relationships with both volunteers and beneficiaries of our events. Due to this dynamic between our staff members and the people we work with we can take in both praise and criticism in what we do and incorporate those conversations and ideas into our growth process. Our Streets PDX operates in an anti-hierarchal fashion that sets the base mindset of giving the people what they need instead of what we think they need. The best example of this is our Feed the Streets program and team members talking to the people on the streets and hearing directly from them what they need and how we could provide those necessities. We also do volunteer and beneficiary surveys that will contribute to our continuous improvement processes and help us assess how we are doing as an organization and how we can do better.

Our Feed the Streets recognizes the high percentage of POC houseless individuals, as well as those in low-income households and provides produce and meals to those people. This endeavor serves as a foundation to building the community and providing means of increasing quality of life for themselves. Using this connection to these Portland residents we are able to assess various needs for this community and develop plans to create greater impact.

Our Youth Development program seeks to provide opportunities for higher education and personal growth to children of color and those who face societal challenges due to historical inequities. By allowing the youth to find solace and mentorship with our organization we hope to empower them to make healthy and impactful choices to take the steps to make a quality life for themselves that some of them don’t foresee. Teaching colored youth how to embrace their unique qualities and talents in a healthy environment, we believe we can start to empower them to create a foundation for a stronger path to adulthood.