Neighbors West-Northwest Community Announcements

Tsuga Community Commission launches new day-camp program taking place in Portland this summer. Registration is now open for up to 40 applicants from each of three neighborhoods through June 21st 2013. Click here for additional information and to sign up today.

The Oregon nonprofit Tsuga Community Commission (TCC) opened registration this week for a new program, Neighborhood PLACE: Parks Learning and Community Enhancement. This social capital improvement project will be piloted in three Portland Neighborhoods this summer with funding from Metro, Neighbors West Northwest, Southeast Uplift, the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association, and Tsuga Community donors.

Neighborhood PLACE is a free ($25 registration fee), one week day camp program for participants age 9 – 14 from a given neighborhood. Its an innovative curriculum that introduces youth and teens to local land use issues, involves them in experiential education field trips, and results in a service learning community enhancement project at the end of each week.

Each week of camp will involve a different set of youth from around Portland; youth from within each neighborhood focus area. The Hotel Deluxe roof top event space will serve as home base for Neighborhood PLACE: Goose Hollow. The campus of Warner Pacific College will host Neighborhood PLACE: Mt. Tabor. Kingsley Park will receive a site design plan by participants at Neighborhood PLACE: Linnton.

“There are opportunities all around us for kids to learn from our urban, residential, industrial reuse, and park spaces in Portland,” said Akari Anderson, Programs Manager for Tsuga Community Commission. “We’re excited to be working in so many unique venues this year.”

Tsuga staff are often involved in the regional environmental education programming when not at camp together each summer. The name Tsuga (/ˈsuːɡə/) comes from the taxonomy designation for Hemlock trees growing in Oregon. Hemlock trees are important secondary species growing out of nurse logs and old-growth stumps where they must expose their roots to become established characters in a mature forest.

“We’re in our eighth year of working on camp programming from a statewide perspective and excited for this opportunity to focus on neighborhood scale capacity building,” said Ethan Erickson, Executive Director of Tsuga Community Commission. “Our staff and funding partners recognize how important it is to involve youth and teens in local governance beginning with identifying observable issues and appreciations of each community, and then coming together in a collaborative manner to respond in the form of a service learning improvement project.”