01.22.19
Once again, the Bora office was closed on Monday for our annual MLK Day of Service. Everyone signed up for one of five different volunteering opportunities, allowing us to expand our reach (and avoid overwhelming any of our hosts with 65+ excited volunteers). The day culminated with happy hour at Ecliptic Brewing, where we gathered together to share our various experiences.
Read on to learn more about the organizations we connected with and the projects we undertook.
ROSE Community Development is dedicated to revitalizing Outer Southeast Portland neighborhoods, through the development of good homes and economic opportunities. This team designed and painted a mural in the community/game room of Lents Village, an affordable housing community for folks aged 55+. Roses are overlaid on a street grid representing the surrounding neighborhood. They also re-painted the rest of the room, as well as the director’s office, bringing some brightness into the spaces – goodbye taupe walls!
The Giving Tree NW is a non-profit community building organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of under-served populations. Another ambitious mural project, this team painted an abstract collection of Portland’s bridges in the community room at The Morrison affordable housing community. There was a lot of painter’s tape involved in this one, but their meticulous attention to detail really paid off.
Transition Projects delivers life-saving and life-changing assistance to some of Portland’s most vulnerable residents. The Willamette Center is a low-barrier 24/7 shelter and service center for women and couples, and Bora’s team was more than happy to roll up their sleeves cleaning and organizing the building’s donation storage space. They also brought groceries and prepared lunch for the shelter’s residents.
Peninsula Children’s Learning Center is a non-profit whose mission is to provide high-quality, affordable childcare and education as well as family support programs that contribute to the vitality of North and Northeast Portland. Bora’s team pitched in to clear weeds and help with other landscaping tasks, organize and purge storage rooms and classrooms, and do some deep cleaning in other spaces.
The Rebuilding Center offers affordable used building and remodeling materials with the goal of promoting the use of salvaged and reclaimed materials — a non-profit resource to strengthen environmental, economic and social fabric of local communities. Our volunteers assisted the Salvage Specialist team with intake, processing and sorting of donated materials.