Willamette Week, November 1, 2023 - Volume 49, Issue 51 - "The Give!Guide Issue"

local nonprofits you should support.

WWEEK.COM VOL 49/51 11.01.2023

Page 12

Plus: This year’s Skidmore Prize winners.

Page 14

Winner Ekua Hackman of The Commons Law Center

THE

e d i u G ! e v Gi ISSUE NEWS: Earl Says Goodbye.

P. 10

FOOD: Lechon and Mahjong in Beaverton.

P. 46

MOVIES: Let’s All Go to the Gorge.

P. 56

LEA NN E B ACH

ES M É HA RBO U R

E LL A G R AY

BONNIE RO SE M AN & T E AM

YAS CHA N OON BERG

JA NELLE FREEMAN

LY DI A HA L L AY

B RI D G E T O PO R T L A N D G RO U P

JA SMI N E D E AT H E R AGE

RÍ O PALOMARES

VERONICA OJ ECO J OHNSO N

DA N IEL LE DES CHE N E S

L I LY R AY W YSS

MEL M A R Z AHL

LISA AV EN A

SAVA NN A RAY

A RY N E + DULC I N E A

JACO B WEIGEL

JE SSICA WA RD

OL I V I A RU S H

K AT GILPATRICK

J EN É DES PAI N

A N N A L I SA PE Ñ A

A LYS S A I SE N STEI NK RU E GER

DAV I D COLU MBU S

ALL AGES HOLIDAY COAT DRIVE

NOV 27 –DEC 13

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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

Join your favorite real estate agents in sharing warmth and joy this winter! Together, we can help our neighbors feel loved, cared for, and seen. Drop off new “tags on” coats at our offices listed below from November 27–December 13. Donated coats and cash donations go directly to our nonprofit coat drive partner, Impact NW. Drop Off: Nov. 27–Dec. 13

SE Portland: 421 SE 10th Ave

Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm

NW Portland: 2050 NW Lovejoy St

FINDINGS BRIAN BURK

PORTLAND ASSOCIATION OF TEACHERS, PAGE 8

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 49, ISSUE 51 Oregon’s average elementary class size is two students larger than the U.S. average. 8

Gigantic Brewing’s Portrait Room contains no portraits. 46

Cheryl Santiago says her flooring contractor moved in—and wouldn’t leave. 9

Glow-in-the-dark chrysanthemum arrangements will adorn Lan Su Chinese Garden this month. 48

Earl Blumenauer is sick of air travel. 10

A Dutch Bros awaits along a hiking trail in Hood River. 51

Friends say GOP mega-donor Loren Parks wanted to bequeath some of his fortune to salmon. 11

Grails wants you to know that they were not inspired by the glossiest and greediest of American decades. 52

Juan Muro Jr. is helping SNAP recipients access computers.

20

If you want Michael Hurley to laugh to the point of tears, hire a tap dancer in multicolored tights. 55

Ellen Wirshup still isn’t used to being called “the Narcan lady.” 22

The magic ingredient in Filipino lechon dipping sauce: ground pork liver. 46

The Gorge Impact Film Festival is totally over pictures of emaciated polar bears on tiny icebergs. 56 Be careful who you lecture about “oral tradition.” 57

ON THE COVER: Skidmore Prize winner Ekua Hackman, one of four in this year’s Give!Guide; photo

by Allison Barr; spot illustrations by Nia Musiba.

local nonprofits you should support.

WWEEK.COM VOL 49/51 11.01.2023

Page 12

Plus: This year’s Skidmore Prize winners.

Page 14

Winner Ekua Hackman of The Commons Law Center

THE ide Give!Gu ISSUE NEWS: Earl Says Goodbye.

P. 10

FOOD: Lechon and Mahjong in Beaverton.

P. 46

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK: A shuttered North Portland sports bar awaits the wrecking ball.

MOVIES: Let’s All Go to the Gorge.

P. 56

Masthead PUBLISHER

Anna Zusman

EDITORIAL

Managing Editor Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Andi Prewitt Assistant A&C Editor Bennett Campbell Ferguson Staff Writers Anthony Effinger Nigel Jaquiss Lucas Manfield Sophie Peel Rachel Saslow Copy Editor Matt Buckingham Editor Mark Zusman

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• ••••

DIALOGUE

••••

TA R E B A LRO S ER E T A •••• E H T SMASH THE MIRROR

NOV 3

A PORTLAND TOMMY EXPERIENCE NOV 4

NPR radio show live taping

ROZ CHAS TRACY K. SMITH CURTIS SITTENFELD NONBINARY GIRLFRIEND rooted in in NOV 5 flamenco, oud and Arab-Andalusian music

SEFFARINE

a fundraiser for Moroccan earthquake relief NOV 7

powerful singer-songwriter

DEB TALAN

of the Weepies

THE STEEL NOV 8 DERVISH NOV 9 WHEELS THE HEART OF SATURDAY NIGHT

NOV 10

NOV 11

TOM WAITS tribute NOV 24 NOV 25 NOV 26

Portland’s ALL-STAR tribute to the Band’s “Last Waltz”

UPCOMING SHOWS

•••••••••••••

11/14 - ALASDAIR FRASER AND NATALIE HAAS 11/15 - JOHN JORGENSON BLUEGRASS BAND 11/16 - THE GREATEST GENERATION: THE SHARE YOUR EMBARRASSMENT TOUR

•••••

albertarosetheatre.com

3000 NE Alberta • 503.764.4131 4

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

By the time you read this, Portland teachers will be striking.

Or they will have reached an 11th-hour deal on a new contract. We don’t know. We had press deadlines. You want the future, see a psychic. You want the opinions of your loudest neighbor? You came to the right page. In the days leading up to what would be Portland Public Schools’ first-ever teacher walkout, WW explored several ramifications, including parents’ need for child care and the question of how long their support for labor will last when they’re locked in the house with their offspring again (“Solidarity Forever,” Oct. 24). Here’s what our readers had to say:

KIM MCGAIR, VIA FACEBOOK:

“The complete disregard of the students’ needs by the union is disheartening and devastating.

This senior class started high school doing school in their beds on their laptops. Not a single normal moment freshman year; most of sophomore year in masks. Could the adults in the room stop messing up their lives for one fucking minute?”

JASON JONES, VIA FACEBOOK: “People get chippy about

workers uniting to demand better wages, decent benefits, and reasonable working conditions. It’s not actually the workers who you should be mad at, though. You should be mad at the system that doesn’t afford you these same things. Teachers are just people wolfing down their lunches during 30 unpaid minutes between classes and meetings each and every day, with meetings later on about how to work more efficiently. It’s the machine that deserves your rage, my fellow human. Rage against the machine.”

MICHAEL V, VIA WWEEK.COM:

“The average pay of principals and vice principals is well over 100K. How about we eliminate those positions and instead have rotating ‘administrative duties’ for all teachers? It has been for far too long that the incentives in the public education system are to not teach but to leech off the public trough in administrative roles.”

JUST DOING THE MATH, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Teachers have

been complaining about smaller class sizes forever. They were complaining about smaller classes when my family was in school, 20-plus years ago. They know it will not happen because it hasn’t. The smaller class size point is just a way to make it seem like teachers care about your kids, and to dilute the REAL point, MORE MONEY. “Your children are bargaining chips. Not everyone can afford to live in Portland, it is a fact. But 90-plus thousand a year plus benefits is decent money. People should not have to pay so that others can live well in Portland.

As sure as I am writing this,

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx I’m seeing an increasing number of deer in the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge. Does anyone monitor these beautiful animals, count them, and look out for their welfare? Also, it’s hunting season now, and I was wondering...

—Animal Lover Sure, Lover: Grab your Kalashnikov, strap some bandoliers across your manly chest, and go full Jean-Claude Van Damme on those overpopulated deer. The city will thank you—they’ll probably even give you a medal!

The deer of Oaks Bottom are wild and beautiful, and like most wild, beautiful things—cocaine and Russell Brand spring to mind—having too much of them is actually kind of a nightmare.

That’s why there are elaborate procedures in place for when the deer (which usually have no natural predators in urban settings) become too numerous.

But before I tell you what those procedures are, you may be interested to know whom we have to thank for this lovely wildlife refuge in the first place. Was it Tom McCall? 1000 Friends of Oregon? Naturalist and Grape-Nuts enthusiast Euell Gibbons? Nope! It was motorcycles—or rather, the people who hate them—that may

there will be another teachers levy placed on the ballot along with the one already in place.”

MARK F, VIA WWEEK.COM: “In

some ways this is a foreshadowing of what may become of Portland. PPS is losing enrollment, due in part to this race to the bottom of education standards and certain COVID policies. The district is left with fewer dollars, and those that remain need more money. Portland is losing [its] tax base (businesses and personal). Those that remain will be asked to shoulder a bigger share of the cost to support many of the same failed policies that drove people away. Good luck, everyone.”

DUBIOUS, VIA WWEEK.COM:

“If they were up front about their demands and desires, I would be more open to their message, but the way they pretend that this is about the students is so disingenuous they have no credibility with me at all.

“Take a page from the United Auto Workers. They picket and strike for better benefits and working conditions without pretending it’s good for the cars.”

CORRECTION

The Oct. 25 story “Solidarity Forever” incorrectly reported there would be one more bargaining meeting before Nov. 1. There were four. WW regrets the error.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words.

Submit to: PO Box 10770, Portland, OR 97296 Email: mzusman@wweek.com

have made the difference.

For years, the site was just a dump for trash and construction rubble. Then, in the 1960s, a development plan surfaced that included a museum, a marina and—fatefully—a motocross track. The prospect of dirt bikes revving their engines all day was so noxious that Sellwood residents quickly threw their weight behind what probably sounded like a crazy alternative plan: an urban wildlife refuge. (One imagines they would have been equally satisfied with an electrical substation, or perhaps a nice, quiet mausoleum.)

Anyway, the folks who created OBWR probably never imagined it would be so successful that someday it would have wild deer breeding like rats in a KFC dumpster. But if their population ever gets so out of control as to constitute a public nuisance, a law passed in 2018 allows Portland (or any other Oregon city) to petition the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife for a permit to have a to-be-determined number of them euthanized.

In this case, “euthanized” just means shot, either on the hoof or execution-style after live capture. The law specifically forbids agents to poison, tranquilize or lethally inject deer—perhaps that’s because the same law requires the city, “to the extent feasible,” to donate the now-deceased deer’s meat to a food bank or similar charity. It’s the ciiir-cle of liiife!

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

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MURMURS WESLEY LAPOINTE

SUSHEELA JAYAPAL SENIOR BUILDING WON’T REOPEN AFTER LEGIONNAIRES’ OUTBREAK: The nonprofit that owns Rosemont Court, a Piedmont neighborhood apartment building that had to relocate 90 low-income seniors in 2021 after a Legionnaires’ disease outbreak, says it won’t reopen because the city of Portland and the state have offered no funding. “[We have] been working with public and private funding partners for nearly nine months to identify possible solutions to preserve the building and bring it back into service,” Trell Anderson, executive director of Northwest Housing Alternatives, tells WW. “To date, after seeking funding from the Portland Housing Bureau and Oregon Housing and Community Services, no funding has been offered.”

The outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease, a lung infection spread through water droplets, killed one Rosemont Court resident and sickened another 14. Anderson says the nonprofit will continue to seek public funding. Meantime, it will also explore a sale of the building. An OHCS spokesperson says it is “not able to fund all properties that requested resources.” The city did not respond by press deadline.

HOSPITAL RUNS FOOD PANTRY FOR ITS WORKERS: How bad are wages for some jobs in health care? A notice posted at Hillsboro Medical Center offers a clue. The hospital recently opened an “employee pantry” in its basement for “all staff who find themselves in need.” The notice invites employees to donate food or money to keep the pantry stocked. “The ongoing success of our employee pantry will be a collaborative effort and will need the ongoing support from any employee who is able.” Oregon Health & Science University has managed clinical operations at Hillsboro Medical Center since 2016 through a management company called OHSU Partners. On its website, OHSU says Hillsboro Medical Center is “part of the OHSU Health system, significantly expanding the Portland-area locations where Oregonians can connect with Oregon’s only academic health center.” Low pay is sore spot for OHSU. Nurses there bargained for months—and voted to authorize a strike— before signing a new three-year contract in October. Before that, university president Danny Jacobs came under fire from unionized workers for awarding $12.5 million in bonuses to 2,000 nonunion workers, including top executives. In

the end, the bigwigs didn’t get the bonuses, but everyone else did. The agreement with Hillsboro Medical Center means OHSU clinicians provide services there, but the center runs its own operations in terms of leadership and employment, an OHSU spokeswoman said. Hillsboro Medical Center didn’t return an email seeking comment.

THE WHIRL TO REPLACE EARL BEGINS: As WW first reported Oct. 30, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) says he will not seek a 15th term in Congress. Those actively moving to succeed him include Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal, Gresham City Councilor Eddy Morales, and state Rep. Travis Nelson (D-Portland). In the camp of candidates being encouraged to run who’ve made no announcement: former Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury, who has name recognition and institutional support but also the baggage of county struggles.

Definitely not running, according to confidants: former Gov. Kate Brown, who is reportedly enjoying life after politics, and State Treasurer Tobias Reed, who has committed to the secretary of state’s race. Also not running: former Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick, who previously ran for U.S. Senate. “Given my affection for pop culture/politics crossover themes, don’t you realize I’d be the last person to stand in the way of a Sister Act?” Novick said in a text message, referring to the fact that Jayapal’s sister, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), already holds a seat in Congress.

MAYOR ANNOUNCES IMMINENT ENFORCEMENT OF CAMPING BAN: Mayor Ted Wheeler announced Oct. 30 that Portland police would begin enforcing the daytime camping passed by the City Council last summer. At the time, the city said it would give notice before actually enforcing the ban, which prohibits all daytime camping on public property. “This is that twoweek notice,” Wheeler said. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2018 that cities that ban camping must provide sufficient alternative shelter. To get around that, Portland officials are building new, 200-bed shelters and have designed a convoluted system of rules to funnel people on the streets into them—no camping from 8 am to 8 pm and no camping at night for someone who refuses an available shelter bed.

After two warnings, violators could face jail time.

It remains unclear, however, how aggressively the regulations will be enforced. At the press announcement on Monday, newly sworn-in Police Chief Bob Day announced new walking patrols downtown, although the cops’ mission will be more public relations than law enforcement. “Enforcement will take time,” Wheeler said, admonishing the public not to dial 911 to report illegal camping. “We ask for your patience.”

COUNCIL WANTS CITY ADMINISTRATOR ASAP: In the latest round of negotiations over the transition to a new form of city government, a majority of the Portland City Council has suggested tweaks before the new 12-member City Council assumes office and a professional city administrator begins managing all bureaus in 2025. City commissioners—with the notable exception of Mayor Ted Wheeler—want to appoint the city administrator and allow each city commissioner to appoint a deputy city administrator next July, six months before the new form of government kicks in. Wheeler’s colleagues also want to delay the renovation of City Hall until July 2024, which would allow them to remain in their offices until then. City staff—backed by Wheeler—had recommended that city commissioners and their staff move to a nearby city building this month to make room for construction. The City Council will vote on the construction timeline and the structure of city management on Wednesday.

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7

NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

BRIAN BURK

WHERE WE’RE AT

Final Answers Here are the sticking points that separate Portland teachers from the school district as a strike looms.

BY R AC H E L S A S L OW rsaslow@w week .com

After 10 months of bargaining with Portland Public Schools, teachers are prepared to walk off the job today in a first-of-its-kind strike, immediately closing all 81 PPS schools in town.

The chief sticking points in contract negotiations are wages, planning time and class size.

At a time of increased union action across the country—including recent massive strikes by the United Auto Workers and Hollywood actors and writers—cultural momentum is on the teachers’ side.

In polling numbers released last week by the Portland Association of Teachers, 81% of Oregonians and 88% of Portlanders supported a strike to ensure fair compensation for teachers. The polling firm GBAO Strategies asked 1,000 registered voters in Oregon about the strike Sept. 14-19.

“Our kids don’t deserve the bare minimum; they deserve everything,”

said Angela Bonilla, PAT president, from a makeshift stage in the back of a pickup truck at a teachers’ march west across the Burnside Bridge on Oct. 28. “And we will not stop fighting until we can give them the schools that they deserve.”

Enough teachers and public school families attended the Saturday morning rally to fill the Burnside Bridge with a sea of PAT-blue shirts.

They chanted “Union power!”

What’s not on the teachers’ side, according to Portland Public Schools: the financial reality of the school district.

COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT (COLA) PLANNING TIME PER WEEK FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS CLASS SIZE CAP

SPEAKING OUT: Angela Bonilla, president of the teachers’ union, addresses supporters at an Oct. 28 march.

“We are not unwilling to accept their full contract proposal; we are unable,” says Dr. Renard Adams, PPS’s chief of research, assessment and accountability and a member of its bargaining team. “We are not a private company. We have fixed revenue, and a strike will not change that.”

At an Oct. 27 press conference, Adams said PAT’s proposal (see chart below) would force the district to make $277 million in cuts. Indeed, Gov. Tina Kotek, a longtime labor ally, said in an Oct. 30 press conference that the teachers’ demands were unworkable.

Becky Pringle, president of the

National Education Association in Washington, D.C., applauds Portland teachers for prioritizing students in their bargaining asks, including those for smaller class sizes and additional mental health supports.

“They’re using this mechanism of collective bargaining to get the attention of the district and say this is not OK for our kids,” Pringle tells WW. “They need more from you.”

Teachers earn 25% more on average in states where they have collective bargaining power; school support staff earn 17% more, Pringle says. Still, the average U.S. teacher salary is 6.4% less today than it was a decade ago when adjusted for inflation, Pringle says.

“No one goes into teaching to make a lot of money, but we do expect that we will be able to take care of our families,” Pringle says.

Here’s a look at where the two sides stood going into final mediation this week. These are their “last, best and final offers” as well as some state and national context to help make sense of the numbers.

PPS PROPOSAL

PAT PROPOSAL

2022-23 CONTRACT

CONTEXT

COLAs for next 3 years: 4.5% + 3% + 3% (10.9% cumulative)

COLAs for next 3 years: 8.5% + 7% + 6% (23% cumulative)

PPS and PAT signed a oneyear, 4% COLA for the 2022-23 school year.

In May, Los Angeles teachers approved a 21% COLA over three years.

400 minutes

440 minutes

320 minutes

Hillsboro, 475 minutes; North Clackamas, 450; Parkrose, 380; Centennial, 365; Reynolds, 300

Flexible caps by grade (24 in kindergarten, 28 in 4th-5th, etc.)

Fixed caps for Title I schools by grade (23 in kindergarten, 26 in 2nd-5th, etc.)

Flexible caps

U.S. average elementary class size is 19.1; Oregon's is 21.

Sources: Portland Public Schools, Portland Association of Teachers, National Center for Education Statistics, news reports

TRENDING

SUDDEN-DEATH OVERTIME County jails mandate overtime at levels outlawed in hospitals and prisons.

Nurses in Multnomah County’s increasingly deadly jails are working record amounts of mandatory overtime.

Between 2019 and 2022, nurses were forced to work, at most, around 500 hours of overtime per month.

This September, that number was more than 1,000 hours, the highest recorded in the five years of data obtained by WW from the county (see chart). Required extra shifts are no longer the exception but the norm, nurses say. The data includes all staff represented by the nurses’ union— primarily frontline nurses.

The rise in mandated overtime co8

incides with a steady decline in the number of frontline nurses staffing the jail. At the beginning of 2020, there were 58. There are now 43.

The pandemic has triggered a vicious cycle: As burned out nurses leave, mandatory overtime becomes more common and hiring replacements becomes more difficult.

The exodus of jail medical staff, from nurses to management, has led to concerns about patient safety, WW has reported (“The Doctor Is Out,” Oct. 11). At the time, six inmates had died in the jail, more than in the five previous years combined.

That total is now seven. Tera Harris, a 53-year-old woman suffering from a chronic health condition, was found dead in her cell last week. She had previously filed a federal lawsuit accusing jail staff of “deliberate indifference” for failing to provide her with adequate medical care. (The county has denied the claims.)

There is no evidence to link short-staffing to any of the deaths.

But the jails’ practice of mandating that nurses work second shifts,

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

sometimes with little notice, is considered dangerous enough that it’s outlawed nearly everywhere else.

In 2001, Oregon lawmakers passed a law limiting the practice in hospitals. And in 2019, lawmakers extended some of those protections to state “correctional facilities,” prohibiting supervisors from forcing nurses to work more than 12 hours in a 24-hour period except in limited circumstances.

Arguing in favor of the law, the nurses’ union cited research showing errors in patient care were “three times higher when nurses worked shifts of 12.5 hours or greater.”

As originally written, House Bill 2230 included jails but was later amended to apply only to prisons.

Someone familiar with the negotiations tells WW that counties had lobbied for their exclusion behind closed doors. There was no public opposition, although a top official at the Oregon Department of Corrections, which runs the state’s prisons, did note that an early version of the new law would require hiring dozens

of additional nurses.

The county health department, through a spokeswoman, says “it continued to increase nursing staffing to combat burnout and staff turnover.” The county recently added 19 positions, which, it told WW last month, “will of course take time to fill.”

As of early October, the number of filled frontline nurse positions had reached a five-year low. The problem could be finding nurses willing

to work the grueling hours for lousy pay. Even with the current $4,500 signing bonus, the pay is less than that of comparable positions at some local hospitals—and because of mandatory overtime, the job just isn’t as desirable.

The county is now offering double pay for nurses who work some particularly undesirable shifts. And, ONA spokesman Kevin Mealy says, there will be discussions of “a legislative solution.” L U C A S M A N F I E L D .

Mandatory Overtime Hours Worked by Jail Nurses Source: Multnomah County Health Department

*Through September

WHO’S ORGANIZING NOW?

Legacy Health Hospitalists

ANTHONY EFFINGER

CHASING GHOSTS

When and where to hold a union vote has become its own controversy.

WORKERS: Legacy Health

hospitalists UNION: Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 200 LABOR ACTION: A union vote Health care has been hell since the pandemic.

Doctors and nurses are burned out after three years of serving surly patients who yell at them, spit on them, and even try to choke them out. Hospitals, meantime, say they are struggling to stay afloat amid higher costs for labor and supplies and lower revenue from procedures.

The struggles have led to strife, with health care workers saying they don’t want to work insane jobs for prevailing wages and hospitals claiming they can’t pay any more.

Legacy Health is a local battleground in this war. In September, doctors, nurses and physician’s assistants told Legacy that they planned to organize—joining nurses at select Legacy locations who are already represented—in part because “a pervasive emphasis on revenue over patient safety and staff well-being permeates our work environment.”

Legacy, however, says it has to stop the bleeding. In a July video on Legacy’s “financial crisis,” chief operating officer Jonathan Avery said wages had risen 31% since 2020 and the cost of supplies was up 19%. Revenue rose just 13%, though, putting a squeeze on the 3% operating margin that nonprofit hospitals like to run so they can invest in their business.

The Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, is pushing ahead with its organizing plans but has decided to narrow the focus at first to just “hospitalists,” the primary care doctors who work only in hospitals.

Kevin Mealy, a spokesman for the Oregon Nurses Association, an AFT affiliate that’s helping with the effort, says organizers wanted to get the union vote done sooner rather than later because it must be overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, a federal agency that could be out of service if Congress can’t pass a budget to keep the government open after Nov. 17.

The time and place of union elections are negotiated between employers and unions, overseen by the NLRB, which makes the final decisions.

The depth of distrust at Legacy is evident from those negotiations alone.

The vote will be held in person at Legacy

facilities Nov. 14-16. Voting will be open 6-8 am and 2:30-4:30 pm. Hospitalists must vote at their primary workplace.

The union is crying foul. It wanted workers to vote by mail, Mealy says.

Barring that, the union recommended longer hours and letting employees vote at any facility. Not only is voting restricted to one’s primary workplace, it’s being held in obscure rooms in the bowels of Legacy buildings, Mealy says.

“Doctors who have worked at these places didn’t know where these rooms are,” Mealy says. “They will be making maps for people in their own facilities.”

All of these hurdles add up to one thing, Mealy says: Legacy is trying to curb turnout.

“One hundred percent, Legacy is trying to suppress the vote,” Mealy says.

In almost all cases, unionized workers make more, so it’s easy to see why an institution that’s struggling to contain costs might harbor an anti-union sentiment. Legacy denies that.

“The decision by the NLRB is consistent with industry standards adopted at other health care facilities in the region represented by the Pacific Northwest Hospital Medicine Association,” Legacy said in a statement. “Legacy is pleased with this decision as it respects the unique circumstances and perspectives of physicians across different facilities, ensures compliance with labor laws, and acknowledges providers’ individual needs and interests.”

“ One hundred percent, Legacy is trying to suppress the vote.”

On Monday, Don Tran, president of Legacy Medical Group, sent an email to hospitalists offering his “personal viewpoint” on unions.

“I’m not sure I would want to give up my individual voice and our current collegial approach,” Tran wrote. “The union representative is not there to represent your individual interests, but will instead decide the priorities and agenda of the larger group.”

Watch out, Tran wrote: “You may want all hospitalists to be treated equally, while others may want seniority to have first preference in selecting schedules and getting time off.”

Tran will find out soon enough if vacation seniority is top of mind, or if it’s something else. A N T H O N Y E F F I N G E R .

PAIN IN THE NECK: A selfless chiropractor’s home and office became a ruin after disputes with tenants.

Tough Adjustment A beloved chiropractor once lived and worked in a complex on North Lombard. So did others.

ADDRESS: 2126 N Lombard St. YEAR BUILT: 1956 SQUARE FOOTAGE: 2,550 MARKET VALUE: $998,960 OWNER: 3CHI’S LLC HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: Since 2022 WHY IT’S EMPTY: Tenants victimized

their landlord.

For years, Dr. Paul Danis was a chiropractor on North Lombard Street at Lancaster Avenue. He owned the office building in front and lived in one of four small apartments in the back.

Danis, originally from Detroit, was a friend to everyone, says Cheryl Santiago, a real estate agent who befriended him years ago. Homeless people would knock on his door at 2 am, and Danis would give them money. He provided charity care for years. He did magic tricks.

As Danis, now 82, grew older, people began to take advantage of him, Santiago says. He had no family and his finances were in shambles. Tenants in the fourplex didn’t pay rent, and Danis didn’t take action to evict them. The city of Portland sued Danis in 2017 for nonpayment of taxes from 2013 to 2016, demanding almost $10,000, including fines.

Santiago met Danis in 2015 and was delighted by him. She began trying to help him with his money woes, seeing him as a kindly old man being worked over by the world.

“I’m a sucker for a sad story,” Santiago says.

Danis had been laissez-faire about the apartments, and Santiago tried to get him to reengage.

She arranged to inspect the units, which angered the tenants, she says. One of them called the city and complained about repairs that were overdue, leading to more fines.

Santiago says she loaned Danis thousands of dollars and took over the mortgage on the property. He gave her power of attorney, and she went to court to evict tenants, court records show. She emptied one unit and brought in a contractor to replace its floor in early 2020.

That’s when things got ugly. The contractor, a man named Tyson Pry, moved his stuff in and squatted in the unit, Santiago says. Then the pandemic hit, making it impossible to get him out. Soon, there were eight people living in the place, Santiago says.

In an eviction complaint filed in July 2021, Santiago says Pry threatened to kill her and another contractor, “using a racially and gender-based derogatory epithet,” and that he broke windows in the apartment and in the chiropractic office.

Santiago filed three complaints in Multnomah County Circuit Court to try and kick Pry out.

One document she filed alleges he paid no rent from May 2020 to February 2022. In court documents, Pry said the accusations were false and that he was being evicted for complaining about the place. Finally, in March 2022, Pry and a roommate agreed to leave in exchange for $400 in attorney fees to be paid by Santiago. Pry couldn’t be reached for comment. His attorney, Scott Staab, didn’t return a call or email.

There were more robberies along the way, including one that prompted Santiago to chase a man into the abandoned Farmer’s Barn (“Chasing Ghosts,” WW, Jan. 28), where she found him wearing nothing but boxer shorts, tube socks and tennis shoes, and wielding a pool noodle.

Santiago says she and her life partner (who co-owns the property) are out hundreds of thousands of dollars, much of which came from their retirement accounts. There are still $180,000 in liens on the property, leaving her no choice but to sell the place.

“The plan was to build affordable housing, or senior housing,” Santiago says. “After what happened, I’m lucky I don’t need housing myself.”

The only upside, Santiago says, is that Danis is living out his last days in relative peace. He lives in an assisted living facility and suffers from dementia and cancer, Santiago says.

“But he’s living his best life,” she says. “My kids call him Papa Paul.” A N T H O N Y E F F I N G E R .

Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next.

Send addresses to newstips@wweek.com.

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Oregon voices Oregon stories

NEWS EXIT INTERVIEW

Earl Blumenauer After 28 years on Capitol Hill, he wants to come home to help fix Portland.

Oregon Humanities magazine

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Exploring the lives and ideas of Oregonians since 1989.

Subscribe for free at oregonhumanities.org/subscribe

GOLD WATCH: A congressman announces his retirement.

Theresa M. Kºhlhºff Attºrney At Law

WILLS : : TRUSTS : : PROTECTIVE PROCEEDINGS

FREE WILLS, TRUSTS & PROBATE SEMINAR Sunday Nov. 12, and Dec. 17 Noon to 2pm 7512 N. Berkeley Ave. www.NorthPortlandAttorney.com (503) 286-1346 TheresaKohlhoff@gmail.com 10

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BY N I G E L JAQ U I S S n j a q u i s s @ w w e e k . c o m

U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) will retire after next year rather than seek a 15th term.

“I’m not certain that two more years in Congress in this climate is the best way to deal with things I care about,” Blumenauer says.

First elected to the Oregon House in 1972, Blumenauer, 75, served on the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners and the Portland City Council. He won election to Congress in 1996.

The safety of his overwhelmingly Democratic, mostly Portland district afforded Blumenauer the latitude to range widely. In addition to transportation, he focused on climate issues, cutting agricultural subsidies, legalizing cannabis, increasing research into neuroscience, and fixing the nation’s flood insurance policies.

In an exclusive interview with WW to announce his decision Oct. 30, Blumenauer mulled his catholic interests and concluded that a lack of focus undercut his ability to pass bills.

“I’m in the process of going through one of the big mistakes I have made in the course of my

congressional career, being involved with too many issues,” he says.

He pledges to change that. “I’m leaving Congress because I want to be able to be more present in my community,” Bluemauer says. “And if somebody thinks I have something to offer, I’m willing to try and help.”

Here are highlights from our interview:

WW: What are the issues that you really want to focus on in retirement?

Blumenauer: I spent a lot of time trying to make Portland one of the most livable communities in the country. And I think there’s some significant success, but I don’t think that’s the case now. I don’t want to overstate the case, but we’re going into a very difficult period. We have a completely untested new form of government that is creating more questions than answers. There’s going to be a lot of churn, and nobody has any idea who’s going to be there. And it was structured to promote diverse voices to be represented in the community. There’s merit to that, but it was not structured to get anything done.

Sounds like you want to spend some time helping fix this issue?

I plan on being a community resource. And if I find things that I think I can make a difference, I’ll offer them up.

Might you run for mayor?

No. I’ve been there. I’m not going to be in the meat grinder with everything I do being challenged. Leaving one dysfunctional space to come back to a new space without being clear what role somebody would play or even what’s going to happen…no.

Will you work as a paid lobbyist?

It’s not in my game plan.

Earlier this year, you and Gov. Tina Kotek sent a letter to city and county officials calling for an addiction czar. Are you satisfied with their response?

I’ve dealt with six governors, and I’ve never seen somebody as focused on helping the metropolitan area as Tina. She’s really been there with money, chalk and marbles, pushing for accountability in a way I find heartening. And in a small way, I wanted to help her. Was I satisfied with the response? No. We were looking for a plan and somebody in charge.

So what are you going to do about that?

The problem in terms of dealing with the behavioral health challenges is not a lack of resources.

We’ve got more resources than we’ve ever had, and arguably probably more resources than we’re going to have in the foreseeable future.

We’ve got to figure out how we actually spend it. Let me be clear, I think these [local elected officials] have it much more difficult than the years I spent in local government. But there are other aspects of this in terms of actually being clear about making decisions.

“ The problem in terms of dealing with the behavioral health challenges is not a lack of resources.”

Many elected officials have to be dragged out of office.

What’s the upside of choosing to retire?

I’m not going to be on airplanes every week. And I’m not going to have everybody second-guessing every choice I make and putting the worst interpretation on it—and, in some cases, being screamed at from people on multiple sides of the same issue. I’m 75 years old. I have been doing this for 50 years, and there was a time when it didn’t bother me so much that people were going to criticize and undercut and do things that are unfair. I don’t need it.

Is there an aspect of this job that you will look back on with fondness?

Oh, absolutely. Part of it is the certified smart young people, probably 500 of them. And the people in this community deserve better, but they’ve been very good to me.

Parks Foundation The reclusive GOP funder Loren Parks’ children and trustees battle over his estate.

BY N I G E L JAQ U I S S n j a q u i s s @ w w e e k . c o m

Loren Parks, the Aloha medical devices tycoon, died Oct. 13 at age 97. The longtime GOP mega-donor had largely vanished from the Oregon political scene his money once shaped.

But Parks’ legacy is an active matter in Washington County, where his three adult children are engaged in a legal battle over his substantial estate.

Parks’ children are facing off with three of his longtime allies in court in Washington County (Parks lived much of his life and died there) over the terms of a trust that held and managed his assets.

In simple terms, the fight pits Parks’ children—Gary Parks, Raymond Parks and Nancy Sopp—against three of the four trustees for the trust. (A fourth trustee, Parks’ son-in-law, Karl Sopp, is aligned with Parks’ children.)

Parks’ children, who friends say were much closer to their mother than their father after their parents divorced, argue they should have authority over the trust.

Three of the trustees, led by Parks’ longtime friend and political adviser Gregg Clapper, argue that Parks intended to leave his children a limited amount—a couple of million each in cash, real estate and other assets—while giving most of his estate to various charities.

That estate is estimated in court documents to be worth “tens of millions of dollars.”

It’s a battle that shows that even someone of Parks’ reputedly prodigious intellect needs a good lawyer. Parks first established the trust that is the basis of the dispute in 1989 and tweaked it numerous times—in later years, Clapper says, without proper legal advice.

That created ambiguities that are now the source of contention. Clapper says Parks, his close pal for more than 30 years, should have made his wishes crystal clear.

“Had Loren not confused the issue by dicking around without lawyer approval, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” Clapper says. “If he were here now, I’d lay into the bastard. It was arrogance on his part. But that’s the way he was.”

Loren Parks came to Oregon more than 60 years ago to work at the state’s pioneering

computer hardware firm, Tektronix. But he founded his medical devices company, Parks Medical Electronics Inc., in Aloha in 1961.

His company still manufactures in Aloha today, turning out “Doppler devices,” used to create images that measure blood flow through the body.

In the 1990s and into the first decade of this century, Park funneled some of the profits from his company into politics. One of his earliest efforts left an indelible mark on Oregon: He put up much of the funding for Measure 11, the 1994 ballot initiative that created mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes.

Critics say that measure took discretion away from judges, filled Oregon’s prisons, and perpetuated racial and class inequalities.

Supporters say it contributed to a decadeslong drop in crime.

Measure 11 proved to be Park’s biggest win, but he consistently wrote big checks to fund conservative objectives. (Libertarian in his thinking, he also supported Oregon’s pioneering Death with Dignity Act and Planned Parenthood.)

Parks gave more than $10 million to GOP candidates and causes over the years, often backing ballot measures spearheaded by Bill Sizemore and Kevin Mannix. He wrote big checks so often that he helped galvanize Oregon’s public employee unions, which increased their giving and sharpened their tactics in response.

Tim Nesbitt, who led both Service Employees International Union, the state’s largest public employee union, and later the Oregon AFL-CIO, says Parks’ largesse forced the unions to up their game.

“The aim of this scheme is to remove all co-trustees other than co-trustee Sopp unless the co-trustees acquiesce to distributing tens of millions of dollars of trust assets Mr. Parks intended for charity to themselves—or at least agree to advocate for such distribution,” Clapper responded in a court filing.

The two other non-family trustees, Jerry Dove, a former Tillamook County commissioner and founder of the conservation group Tillamook Anglers, and Nicole McCombie, a longtime Parks Medical Electronics sales executive, sided with Clapper.

Since the initial filings, the parties have wrangled over the same essential point. Who should have the authority to make decisions about the assets in Parks’ trust: his children or the trustees? That question has been the subject of numerous filings over the past two years and remains unresolved.

The court did appoint a representative to look out strictly for Parks’ interests. That representative, Tim McNeil, a Portland lawyer, may be the closest thing there is in the case to a disinterested party.

In June, McNeil filed a motion with the court laying out his reading of the trust: Parks’ children, he wrote, had no authority to dismiss trustees, nor did the trust give them any say in where Parks’ money should go.

The stakes are high. An appraisal by Cogence Group, a financial forensics firm, pegged Parks Medical’s value at $25.5 million.

The trust also has other unspecified assets, including cash, real estate and another company, Parks Metal Products Inc. Parks’ friends say he gave far more to charities than to political causes and that he always intended the bulk of his estate (after specified

“Had Loren not confused the issue by dicking around without lawyer approval, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“By the end of the 1990s, Oregon public employee union members were raising more per capita than any state in the country,” Nesbitt says. “He was the very best of enemies.”

Parks gave his last political contribution in Oregon in 2015 and, as he reached his mid90s, his mental acuity slipped. In July 2020, his doctor determined he was no longer competent to make financial decisions.

That determination, it appears from court filings, triggered disputes that have raged ever since.

Clapper, a former radio personality and station owner known for writing and narrating sarcastic political ads, filed a lawsuit in 2021, asking the court to appoint an independent representative to oversee Parks’ trust.

In that lawsuit, Clapper accused his fellow trustee, Karl Sopp, the husband of Parks’ only daughter, Nancy, of attempting to divert funds from the trust for the benefit of Parks’ children. (The Sopps’ attorneys did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did attorneys for Parks’ sons.)

In November 2022, Nancy Sopp countersued, seeking to have Clapper removed as a trustee, as she argued Parks’ trust allowed.

Clapper said that was just a money grab.

payments to his children) to go to charity.

“Loren Parks had a long history of making large charitable gifts annually,” McCombie tells WW. “Loren was always very clear with friends, associates and his attorneys that he wanted his entire estate to go to charity. As trustees, three of us (Nicole, Jerry and Gregg) believe and know it is our duty to make sure Loren’s intentions are carried out.”

Dove, the Tillamook Anglers director, says Parks supported dozens of projects that preserved or improved salmon habitat along the Oregon Coast. He bought habitat along the Nehalem, Trask and Miami rivers, seeking to improve conditions for salmon.

Dove says he spent countless days in small boats with Parks. They often discussed what would happen when Parks died.

“Clapper and I knew him better than anybody else,” Dove says. “I sat with him eight hours a day in fishing boats for 40 years. He told me 1,000 times, ‘the children get nothing more than it says in the trust.’”

Dove says Parks would be dismayed at the court battle. “If he were here,” Dove says, “he’d blow his stack.”

The parties will next appear in court Nov. 17.

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

11

www.giveguide.org

An Invitation to

Give!

More than 250 local nonprofits deserve — and need — your support.

This year is Give!Guide’s 20th.

As the person who created this annual fundraising effort, I’m comfortable telling you I never expected G!G to become what it is today — a philanthropic juggernaut with its own staff that operates year-round.

What started with a couple dozen participating nonprofits and less than $30,000 in giving now supports 10 times as many organizations and drives more than 250 times as much giving each year. So here’s a huge thank-you to all of you Willamette Week readers who’ve made this happen.

When WW started this campaign, the idea was to instill the annual giving habit in younger Portlanders. That remains our focus today — and explains why we reward nonprofits that excel at attracting new donors under the age of 36, and created the Skidmore Prize.

Give!Guide shows the power of individual giving, supported by dozens of local partners. Last year, some 16,000 of you contributed more than $8 million. You have no idea what that means to the people served by the nonprofits you supported.

In the pages that follow, and at our website (giveguide.org), you’ll learn about 250 truly amazing — and equally worthy — nonprofits serving the greater Portland area. These wonderful organizations do so much for so many that we don’t know how our region could survive without them. As you read their stories, we hope you’ll be inspired to give early — and often — between now and midnight on Dec. 31, when the campaign closes for 2023.

You’ll also find profiles of this year’s four Skidmore Prize winners. The award celebrates Portlanders under the age of 36 who do amazing work for local nonprofits. Each of this year’s award winners more than fits the bill. (You can read about them and this year’s finalists on pages 14-23.)

Along the way, you’ll find information about our wonderful sponsors and business partners. A huge thank-you to all of them! And you’ll learn about Big Give Days, which add to the many fabulous incentives for giving provided by local businesses.

We hope Give!Guide offers one-stop shopping for your year-end giving — and is both easy and fun. A key ingredient is giveguide.org, the website created for us by the Roundhouse Agency. They’ve outdone themselves this year.

The past four years have not been kind to Portland. With a new form of city government in the offing and the beginnings of a downtown revival, we hope this year’s Give!Guide can add to the forward momentum.

That’s where you come in. We hope between now and the end of next month at least 17,000 of you will visit giveguide.org, whip out your credit or debit cards, and let them run wild for a bit. We’ll all benefit if you do.

Thanks so much,

The Give!Guide Team Richard H. Meeker

Toni Tringolo

Josh Rentschler

FOUNDER

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

CAMPAIGN ASSISTANT

G I V E ! G U I D E I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y N I A M U S I B A

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www.giveguide.org

Why Your Gift Is Critical for Local Nonprofits This Winter

BY N I N A DA B I T X R AY. F M

The importance of your individual giving this winter has intensified for Oregon nonprofits. Gifts from individuals will likely be the key to many local organizations remaining standing as the proverbial rug is pulled out from under them.

We’re all feeling the challenge of rising inflation and a supposedly impending recession. But these critical community services often feel it more acutely. In the past few months, three of the five major local foundations¹ have paused or canceled upcoming grantmaking. Combined, they manage billions in assets earmarked for local nonprofits. For the nonprofits, these foundations’ pause means a major deficit in planned funding and, subsequently, a scaling back of their work and public services.

These funding changes come amid an overall decline in giving nationally, down 10.5% when adjusting for inflation, according to Giving USA.2 Gifts from individuals like you make the difference. The majority of donations in Give!Guide are small, mostly at the $10 level. When nonprofits have a strong base of individuals supporting them like this, they’re more stable, resilient, and responsive to their communities.

Many folks feel like their support will be a drop in the bucket. But support at grassroots levels is often the best-case scenario for nonprofits. A larger base of supporters provides critical stability and strength. When organizations don’t rely on foundations or a few major donors, they’re more representative. And, as a result, these organizations are better positioned to serve their communities.

It’s easy to feel helpless with the issues being tackled. How can your few bucks

PRESENTING SPONSOR

possibly solve a problem like the housing affordability crisis, corporate disregard for the environment, or untangling a system of laws built on systemic oppression?

Well, they won’t. But they don’t have to. These organizations are solving those issues. They have the vision, experience, expertise and tenacity to make it happen.

They need your support to act on any of that, though.

Showing a community’s backing is critical for getting an organization off the ground.

It’s also important for the systemic change envisioned by the organizations you see in Give!Guide. A large amount of support shows the community believes in their mission, and is willing to put their money where their mouth is to make it happen.

Your support is proof the community is ready and willing to make that change a reality.

Join thousands of your neighbors in giving back this holiday season. Give!Guide has made it extra easy for you by selecting 250 organizations making major waves in the Portland metro area. With your help, all of these organizations will be resilient in the face of any storm.

This is XRAY.FM’s 10th year participating in Give!Guide. Their tremendous partnership with the nonprofit cohort is anchored in our community-centric fundraising practice and is led by XRAY.FM development manager Nina Dabit. ____________________ ¹Process Overview — The Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation, Frequently Asked Questions | Collins Foundation, Grant Opportunities – M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust.

2Giving USA: Total U.S. charitable giving declined in 2022 to $499.33 billion following two years of record generosity.

SKIDMORE PRIZE SPONSOR

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MAJOR SPONSOR SPECIAL BUSINESS PARTNERS

CATEGORY SPONSORS BIG GIVE DAY PARTNERS: Akâdi, Atlas Tattoo, Backyard Bird Shop, Cotopaxi, Dame, Dossier Hotel, Kachka, Oregon Cultural Trust, New Seasons Market, Nossa Familia, Portland Nursery, Portland Spirit, Powell’s Books, SCP Hotel, Splendid Cycles, Urdaneta

DONOR INCENTIVE PARTNERS: Gluten Free Gem, Henry Higgins Boiled Bagels, ¿Por Qué No?

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SPONSORED BY

Unveiling Portland’s

2244 E. BURNSIDE STREET PORTLAND OR, 97214

Brightest

Stars: The Skidmore Prize Winners

P R O F I L E S BY R O B E R T H A M

RAW FOOD,

NA T U R A L

S U P P L E M E N TS ,

HEALTHY TREATS , & TOYS! GIVING BACK TO OUR COMMUNITY SINCE 2005 14

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P H OTO S BY A L L I S O N B A R R

This fall, we celebrate four remarkable individuals doing exceptional work for Portland-area nonprofits. Each Skidmore Prize winner is the embodiment of community dedication, a testament to the power of passion and purpose. Their stories of resilience, determination, and unwavering commitment to social causes leave us awestruck and motivated to do more. In recognizing their outstanding accomplishments, we honor not just their achievements but the potential in all of us to make meaningful differences.

The Give!Guide Skidmore Prize winners serve as living proof that transformative impact is within reach, reminding us that every small act of kindness, every bold initiative, and every heartfelt gesture can spark change on a grand scale. Let their stories inspire you to be the change you wish to see in the world.

And keep in mind the inspiration for the name of this prize: The Skidmore Fountain in Portland’s Old Town, which bears this inscription: “Good citizens are the riches of a city.”

Qualifications: Winners of the Skidmore Prize are nominated by their peers, must be under the age of 36, and work full time for a local nonprofit. Winners received their awards, including prizes of $4,000 each, at a special luncheon held October 13.

BECOME A PATRON SAINT OF MUSIC

We’re all thrilled to have a concert venue that’s as beautiful as the music that’s played in it. But it doesn’t happen without the support of our fans, patrons and staff. The fact is, we rely on donations to keep this nonprofit running: every year, we need funds to curate our amazing acts and to offer outreach programs. We also rely on donations to maintain this incredible building. While we hate to yell “fire,” a major upgrade to our Thank you to our non-profit and business partners: Alberta Abbey Artists Repertory Theatre Fear No Music Portland Radio Project

Arciform Culshaw and Company Flashback Photography PDX McMenamins Snow B. Designs Southpark Seafood The Hotel Zags

alarm and sprinkler system is required—and it is expensive! Please help if you can. You may not become a saint, but you will be one of our heros.

TOCportland.org in The Old Church building

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www.giveguide.org

Caleb Coder, 30

Executive Director, Cultivate Initiatives

Helping strengthen the communities where we live and work.

The Standard and our employees are committed to positively transforming our communities. We have a culture of caring and strive to make a difference through volunteerism, financial support and more. The company double matches employee donations and we are on track to give more than $7.1 million this year to more than 2,000 schools and nonprofits in Portland and across the country.

Insurance, Retirement, Investments and Advice.

standard.com 16

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1303PACI-23 Willamette Week Give Guide.indd 1

10/11/23 3:25 PM

When the Wy’East Shelter, a 125-bed all-male shelter that prioritizes space for houseless veterans, seniors, and men with disabilities, opened its doors on Southeast 122nd Avenue in 2018, many residents of the Mill Park neighborhood greeted it with disdain and outrage. A hastily organized information session at the nearby Pizza Baron restaurant drew a few hundred people who came to express their fury at the new shelter.

The experience left Caleb Coder, a recent transplant to Portland who lived in a house that adjoined the shelter, feeling frustrated that all these people would show up to, as he put it, “reject our new neighbors.”

“I walked away from that being bummed,” he says, “and really asking if there was a third way, and rather than rejection, people came together to be for and with our new neighbors.”

Working with local restaurants and NGOs, Coder started holding regular “Eat and Greet” events, offering free food and a space for people in the neighborhood. “It was a safe place for our unhoused neighbors to be and exist,” Coder says. “And for our neighbors housed and unhoused to come together to interact and get to know each other as humans.”

Those get-togethers proved to be a catalyst. During winter storms, he and Wy’East manager Y’Ishia Rosborough and a small team of volunteers would offer propane stoves and hot soup — and, more importantly, human interactions — to their houseless neighbors. They were soon commissioned to open a warming shelter in East Multnomah County.

As their team grew, so did their ambitions, leading to the creation of the nonprofit Cultivate Initiatives. Started in 2021, the organization has expanded its size and scope in a short time to oversee a team of former or currently houseless workers, hiring them at a living wage to help clean up the streets in east county and around local businesses. With help from Concordia University Nursing, Cultivate Initiatives brings health services and mobile showers to seven different locations on a weekly basis.

But perhaps the biggest initiative was the creation and stewardship of Menlo Park Safe Rest Village, a temporary shelter of 60 small pods for houseless adults and couples to sleep in and store their belongings while they receive services like assistance getting an ID or signing up for the Oregon Health Plan — all with the ultimate goal of helping them more easily transition into permanent housing.

It’s a huge step forward for Coder, who came to the city to attend seminary and wound up working in carpentry to stay afloat. And it’s the kind of work that makes him more than worthy of the 2023 Skidmore Prize. At the same time, he prefers to direct the attention toward the good work Cultivate Initiatives has done.

“As soon as we become the hero, we miss the point,” Coder says. “We stand on many people’s shoulders and community-based organizations and advocates and people who want to see our community thrive. That’s what it’s about. We’re a small drop. Yet, if we get a handful of drops, then we have a bucket, and then we have a body of water.”

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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www.giveguide.org

Ekua Hackman, 34 Staff Attorney, The Commons Law Center

One of the most difficult conversations you are going to have in your life concerns what is going to happen after you die. What is going to happen to your assets and personal property? How are loved ones going to deal with any debt you may have? And who is going to be responsible for all of the above when you’re gone?

Ekua Hackman, a staff attorney at The Commons Law Center who specializes in estate planning and probate law, will tell you that, challenging as it may be, it’s a conversation you need to have with family as you get older.

“Going through it on a personal level,” she says, “experiencing a few deaths in the family, and seeing the kind of chaos that results when one person doesn’t have an estate plan set up, I was like, ‘I never want to see this happen again.’”

Hackman says that was one building block that led her to concentrate on estate law at Willamette University. But she also points to the huge disparity in generational wealth when it comes to income levels and race. According to recent figures from the Federal Reserve, Black and Latino families in America own about 20% of the net wealth that white families do.

“I wanted to know how I could combine an interest with estate planning with wanting to help Black families build intergenerational wealth,” Hackman says. Luckily for her, she happened to meet Amanda Caffall, The Commons Law Center’s deputy director who, at the time, was actively looking for an estate planning lawyer to work with Black families. With that, a new career was born.

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What Hackman quickly realized was how challenging it was to get Black Portlanders to take the idea of planning for the unexpected seriously.

“There’s a lack of knowledge about estate planning,” she says. “A bias that says why would a person need it if they don’t make millions of dollars? There’s already a suspicion and distrust between Black Portlanders that have been out here for generations and the government. And lawyers don’t have the best reputation for being forthright and honest.”

Hackman has already eased the minds of dozens of families in Portland since being hired by The Commons Law Center. It helps, she says, for some clients to be able to work with a lawyer who looks like them. And, as anyone who has worked with her will attest, Hackman has an incredible bedside manner when broaching such a potentially challenging subject as one’s mortality.

“It took some growing pains,” she admits. “They don’t teach you how to talk to people in law school. They teach you how to do the work. So you really have to learn how to appeal to their humanity and their good sense. From my first client to now, there are miles and miles of improvement in terms of getting people to trust me and understand that I don’t benefit from this personally.”

Hackman’s work doesn’t end there. Since earning her degree in 2015, she’s become a vital mentor for other law students and recent graduates.

It’s something that she benefited greatly from in school and wants to pay forward for a new crop of estate lawyers.

“I was much, much shyer in school,” Hackman says, “so I didn’t always feel comfortable reaching out. So having people reach out and be like, ‘Hey, I’m here. Please talk to me,’ is helpful. If I see a shy person, I make sure I kind of get in their face a little bit and tell them, ‘Hey, I know you don’t necessarily want to talk right now, but I’m here for you.’”

MAKE CULTURE COUNT JOIN THE MOVEMENT Match your donation to support 1.6K+ cultural nonprofits and score up to 100% refund in the form of a tax credit!

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Juan Muro Jr., 35

Executive Director, Free Geek

Why do we feel that investing in the community is so important?

Because of the sizable returns.

NW Natural is proud to have served our customers for over 164 years. With that pride comes the knowledge that we have an even greater responsibility to the community at large.

Together with numerous charitable organizations, we’re doing what any good neighbor would do. We’re working to make this the kind of place we can call home.

And that’s the biggest return of all.

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NW Natural believes in the power of community and we are proud to support the nonprofits in Give!Guide 2023.

Juan Muro Jr. has a history of giving his all to whatever he is involved with. He spent a dozen years in the Bay Area in the employ of Starbucks, starting as a barista and working his way up to a position as district manager with 20 stores under his umbrella. Since moving to Portland around seven years ago, Muro has gone all in with Free Geek, the nonprofit started in 2000 as a resource to safely recycle computers and electronics, and to help volunteers get hands-on experience building their own computers. He joined the organization at first simply to serve as a sales manager for their brick-and-mortar retail store in spite of having, he says, “no nonprofit experience and no tech experience.”

“But I was really wanting to do a passion project,” Muro continues.

“I applied an hour before the application expired on Craigslist. They called me within a couple of days. I believe I was only the second external leadership hire.”

Muro has since helped Free Geek through an internal reckoning of inequity within the organization and pushed the nonprofit to shift its focus toward bridging the digital divide, the wide gap between socioeconomic and demographic groups regarding access to computers and the internet.

Under the guidance of Free Geek’s previous executive director, Hilary Shohoney, Muro was instrumental in starting classes at Multnomah County Library locations and at Free Geek to introduce the basics of computing to new users. He developed a partnership with the SNAP program to help 1,000 recipients of those benefits get access to computers and support to do schoolwork and apply for jobs. And Muro has secured funding to bring low-cost broadband internet and computer skills training to individuals and families most affected by the digital divide.

All of it, Muro says, was part of a long-term vision started by Shohoney to “be intentional in the way that we provided services to the community.

Talking with folks impacted by this digital divide and learning what their actual needs were, and figuring out how we can adapt our programs and our organization to meet those needs.”

What Muro has found in doing this work is a true sense of purpose.

When he moved to Portland, he was somewhat adrift, knowing he needed a major shift in his life but entirely unsure what that looked like. Through connecting to Free Geek and, with their help, bringing new possibilities to underserved communities, Muro has achieved what he called “justice.”

“I really saw a vision and I wanted to see it through,” Muro said. “Part of that was selfish. I wanted to find some justice for myself through this work, but being able to connect with people who are going through similar experiences and extending an arm out for work and opportunity, I get to do that every day. For me, that’s the kind of justice I always wanted.”

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design/build remodeling home improvement solar energy

THE POWER OF COMMUNITY Clean energy isn’t just good for our environment; it makes communities stronger, more resilient, and more equitable.

We’re proud to help community development organizations like Hacienda CDC create homes that aren’t just affordable but sustainable, too, by going solar and plugging into resources like the Portland Clean Energy Fund.

Our community is building a brighter future.

And we’ll run it on sun.

503.288.7461 www.neilkelly.com

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O R CCB #16 63 | WA L& I # N EI LKCI 18702

Ellen Wirshup, 29 Project RED Program Manager, Alano Club of Portland

Ellen Wirshup had no designs on a career running the Project RED initiative, a nonprofit that helps distribute free Narcan, the medicine most often used to treat opioid overdoses, around the state of Oregon.

In fact, when she started getting boxes of the medication from the Alano Club of Portland to deliver to bars in Portland, she was doing so in her spare time as she juggled a pair of service industry jobs.

“Becoming pretty well known as ‘The Narcan Lady,’ as some people have called me, is kind of strange,” Wirshup says. “I’ve been a bartender.

I’ve been a host. I’ve been a server. And all these other things. Those jobs felt easy. I knew how to do that. This has been such a learning curve, I didn’t know if I’d be any good at it. I just knew that I wanted Narcan to be everywhere.”

Wirshup is well on her way to making that a reality. Since she was offered a full-time position by the Alano Club to lead Project RED last year, she has been instrumental in delivering the potentially lifesaving medicine free of charge to nearly 200 businesses and schools around Portland. In addition, she estimates she is mailing out at least 400 boxes of Narcan each month throughout the state of Oregon.

“Even though [the Food and Drug Administration] moved Narcan to now be over the counter,” Wirshup says, “a lot of people can’t afford it.

People who are at risk of overdose aren’t going to go into Walgreens or Rite-Aid or check it out with a pharmacist. Folks in places like Banks that are much farther away don’t have organizations like Outside In or

places they can walk in and grab it. I wanted to make sure that I could get free Narcan to anyone and everyone who needed it or wanted to be a bystander who is prepared.” To that last point, Wirshup also offers training sessions for businesses and individuals who want to learn how to administer Narcan safely and effectively.

With the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reporting that Oregon saw an 18.2% increase in drug overdose deaths between April 2022 and April 2023, the efforts of Project RED feel more necessary than ever. While statistics like that are fueling her work, in reality, she had a far more personal motivation.

Wirshup went through her own struggles with addiction (she has almost three years of sobriety under her belt), and very recently lost two close friends to overdose after they bought pills that had a lethal amount of fentanyl in them. Not wanting anyone else to suffer the same fate, she picked up a case of Narcan from the Alano Club and began offering it to nearby bars. Some were receptive, others skeptical of someone who wasn’t part of a legitimate organization.

Now that she has the bona fides of Project RED, doors are continuing to open for Wirshup as well as the support of her peers who nominated her for the Skidmore Prize. The attention and recognition has been, she says, “an honor.”

“I definitely cried my eyes out,” she continued. “I thought this program was going to be small. I thought I was going to get Narcan into a dozen places. It’s bewildering how quickly it has grown. To have people recognize me not as a bartender who served them at some point, but as a person who has brought people Narcan and has trained people on how to save lives, it’s insane. I’m kind of out of good adjectives.”

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www.giveguide.org

How to Give 1 What causes do you care about?

Go to GiveGuide.org.

Since 1996, Willamette Riverkeeper has fought pollution and habitat destruction along the 187 miles of the amazing Willamette River, from Portland to Eugene and beyond. We protect wild species, and work to create public access to this natural wonder - which is owned by the people.

You make a difference in supporting our Work Today!

2 Find a nonprofit in your area of interest.

www.willametteriverkeeper.org

VISIT

3 Give ’em a few bucks!

Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education ... on Portland’s North Park Blocks with multiple core exhibitions and national and international rotating exhibitions.

OJMCHE is FREE the first Sunday of the month.

4 Find another local nonprofit whose work matters to you.

5 Repeat and reap your rewards!

724 NW Davis Street www.ojmche.org 24

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

CWS 24 Hour Crisis

Scan to

& Support Line

make a

(888) 654-2288

donation

Clackamas Women’s Services (CWS) supports people experiencing and healing from domestic and sexual violence, child and elder abuse, stalking, and trafficking.

Services are free of charge and confidential. We serve people of any age, gender identification, sexual orientation, or immigration status to ensure that anyone in our community who wants to escape violence can access the help they deserve.

First Tech Federal Credit Union is proud to partner with CWS to support survivors by matching Give!Guide donations of $50, up to $5,000, on Giving Tuesday (November 28th).

Located at A Safe Place Family Justice Center (503) 655-8600

256 Warner Milne Rd, Oregon City, OR 97045

www.cwsor.org info cwsor.org

SCAN ME

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Making health care work for absolutely everyone.

COR-23644508-1005

Absolutely Everyone

Portland Radio Project Commercial-free, Volunteer-powered A local artist Every 15 minutes

Love local music?

Help us support it!

Look for the big red heart at PRP.FM 26

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www.giveguide.org

FOR





No matter how much or how little you give, you get some serious goodies in return! It’s what we like to call a goodies-for-goodies situation.

Big Give Days Get entered to win one of these prizes when you donate to nonprofits on the following Big Give Days. You’ll be entered to win for every donation without limits, so give big!

IF YOU GIVE $10 OR MORE You get freebies to a few of our favorite local spots!

It’s quite literally a good return on your investment. From a free bagel with cream cheese to a gluten-free treat to a free taco, you have three yummy reasons to drop everything and give today. We’ll send you a link to claim your gifts after you’ve donated.

Incentive partners include: ¿Por Qué No?, Gluten Free Gem, and Henry Higgins Boiled Bagels.

Three Big Oregon Getaways from SCP Hotels You could win a one-night stay at one of SCP’s three Oregon locations: Redmond, Depoe Bay or Salishan Coastal Lodge.

NOVEMBER 15  4 winners A Taste of Portland Four prize packages to four of Portland’s best restaurants: Urdaneta, Akâdi, Kachka and Dame.

Each prize package includes gift cards and wine!

Must be 21+ to win.

Big Travel Pack Giveaway from Cotopaxi Win one of four Cotopaxi’s bestselling Allpa Travel Pack Backpacks stuffed with a dad hat, hip pack, packing cubes, and more!

NOVEMBER 28  1 winner

NOVEMBER 8  1 winner

Splendid Cycles E-Bike Extravaganza You could win a 2024 Riese & Muller Nevo4 electric bike from Splendid Cycle!

The winner’s e-bike will be custom ordered after a fitting at Splendid Cycles.

Big Ink Day with Atlas Tattoo Two donors will win a $250 gift certificate from Atlas Tattoo.

If You’re 35 or Under: Atlas will be giving out two additional $250 gift certificates. That’s four chances to be a winner!

No tattoos? No sweat. Winners can give their big prize to a friend and make a lasting impression.

DECEMBER 6  6 winners

NOVEMBER 22  4 winners NOVEMBER 1  3 winners

DECEMBER 27  4 winners

Experience Guatemala with Nossa Familia You could win a Guatemala coffee tour for two. This trip package can be used on an upcoming Nossa Familia Origin Trip of your choosing. Trip tickets must be used in either 2024 or 2025, more trip details on giveguide.org.

Air travel is not included.

Winners will need to have a valid passport and obtain their own travel insurance.

Shopping Spree from New Seasons Market Win one of five $100 gift cards or the grand prize: one $500 gift card.

Enjoy the best local foods and products from your friendly neighborhood grocery store

DECEMBER 28  1 winner

Big Bird Day with Backyard Bird Shop You could win a $500 gift card to Backyard Bird Shop!

Put those binoculars down and set a reminder to give big on December 28.

DECEMBER 13  2 winners Portland Spirit Staycation A dinner cruise for two and a onenight stay at The Dossier Hotel.

If You’re 35 or Under: You have two chances to win! Portland Spirit will be giving out an additional dinner cruise for two and a one-night stay at The Dossier Hotel.

DECEMBER 29  2 winners Portland Nursery’s Big Plant Palooza You could win a $500 gift card from Portland Nursery.

If You’re 35 or Under: Portland Nursery will be giving out a second $500 gift card to one donor under the age of 36. That’s two chances to win!

DECEMBER 20  2 winners Powell’s Big Book Day Win a $500 gift card from one of Portland’s favorite independent bookstores, Powell’s City of Books.

If You’re 35 or Under: Powell’s Books will be giving out a second $500 gift card to one donor under the age of 36!

DONORS MUST GIVE ON A BIG GIVE DAY TO BE ENTERED TO WIN A BGD PRIZE. FOR A COMPLETE PRIZE DETAILS, VISIT GIVEGUIDE.ORG.

DECEMBER 30 1 winner

Oregon Heritage Tour Getaway Package It’s time to celebrate Oregon! You could win an Oregon getaway package like no other. The package features three heritage sites, three one-night stays, and more!

Head to giveguide.org for all the details!

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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www.giveguide.org

Helping families escape domestic violence & find safety, hope, and independence for 46 years.

“I was so scared when I came to the Raphael House shelter. But that’s where I learned to do things on my own, and where I first felt safe. Now I have my own apartment and a support circle.

It’s life-changing.”

-Mo, survivor

Support Raphael House and all our impactful partners serving survivors of domestic and sexual violence – donate at giveguide.org!

Call to Safety Clackamas Women’s Services Domestic Violence Resource Center FinAbility Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization Native American Youth and Family Center New Avenues for Youth Sexual Assault Resource Center Self Enhancement, Inc. 28

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Meet the Nonprofits CATEGORIES Animals.............................30 Civil & Human Rights........32 Community........................33 Creative Expression..........34 Education............................35 Environment........................36 Health..................................37 Home................................... 38 Human Services..................39 Hunger..................................40 LEGEND  New to Give!Guide for 2023  BIPOC-led

Oregon Cultural Trust Qualified

Oregon voices Oregon stories

Oregon Humanities magazine

SCAN TO SUBSCRIBE

Exploring the lives and ideas of Oregonians since 1989.

Subscribe for free at oregonhumanities.org/subscribe Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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Animals SPONSORED BY MEAT FOR CATS AND DOGS

The Veterinary Shortage and Why It Matters

BY H E AT H E R M I L L E R , C AT A D O P T I O N T E A M , O N B E H A L F O F T H E A N I M A L S C AT E G O R Y

In the Portland area, love for animals runs as deep as the Columbia River. Yet many Portlanders are struggling to get veterinary appointments, even for emergencies. Why? And how does it impact our animal-related nonprofits?

Simply put, the supply of veterinary professionals hasn’t kept pace with the demand for services. A surge in pet ownership, coupled with ever-increasing demand for higher levels of care, added strain to an already overextended workforce. During the pandemic, many veterinary professionals changed jobs or left the profession entirely. Clinics are stretched thin, leading to stress and frustration both for clients and veterinary teams.

Higher demand for veterinary care presents problems for nonprofits, too.

Nearly all of the organizations in the Animal category of this year’s Give!Guide are impacted. When animal welfare organizations don’t have enough medical staff (or have reduced access to veterinary services), it can lead to animals receiving less medical care, slower adoptions, and reduced veterinary service offerings for the public. When this happens, it’s harder for people to access subsidized vet care, which can lead to an increase in pet health and behavior issues and an increase in unplanned litters. And those issues put even more pressure on the whole system.

Most pet owners consider their pet to be family. When care isn’t available for a suffering family member, it impacts the well-being of the entire family. And when families are hurting, it affects our whole community. But we can keep our community strong!

If you have a pet, establish a relationship with your veterinarian, keep up with preventive care, and schedule appointments early. Be patient with veterinary team members. And, whether you have a pet or not, support organizations dedicated to improving the lives of people and animals—you’ll find many such groups in this year’s Give!Guide.

These organizations focus on animal assistance and/or welfare.

Animal Aid Cat Adoption Team Exotic Bird Rescue of Oregon  Fences For Fido Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon Oregon Humane Society PAW (Portland Animal Welfare) Team Portland Urban Beekeepers  Project POOCH Sound Equine Options Stumptown Strays  The Pixie Project The Pongo Fund Zeb’s Wish Equine Sanctuary

THE 35 & UNDER CHALLENGE C a lling a ll y o ung cha ng e - ma k er s!

You don’t need to be a millionaire to make a significant impact in the world. With just a $10 donation or more, you can become a vital part of supporting causes that resonate with your heart. Head over to giveguide.org, and let’s rally together for the 35 & Under Challenge!

Here’s the deal: The nonprofit in each category with the highest number of unique donors aged 35 and under will receive an additional $1,000. That’s a grand total of $10,000 up for grabs, and it’s all waiting to go to charities with strong support from the younger generation.

At the heart of WW’s Give!Guide lies a powerful mission: to inspire a new generation of givers and cultivate a community of engaged and compassionate citizens. We believe the energy, passion, and fresh perspectives of those under 35 can be the driving force behind positive change in our world.

If you have kids or young adults in your family or social circle, seize this fantastic opportunity to introduce them to the magic of charitable giving. Engage in meaningful conversations with them about their values and what causes ignite their passions. Use Give!Guide as a valuable resource to explore a wide range of causes and nonprofits. Encourage them to take the reins and witness firsthand the incredible impact they can have on the world. It’s not just a donation; it’s a lesson in empathy, empowerment, and responsible citizenship that can shape their outlook on life. Join us in creating a brighter and more connected future for all.

SPONSORED BY

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Sponsored Content Presented by University of Oregon, Executive MBA

WHAT IF FINDING A FULFILLING JOB COULD BE FUN? A new startup born out of the University of Oregon Executive MBA program wants to revolutionize the way we find work For today’s professionals, finding a fulfilling career is like chasing a white whale. Those curious if there’s a career path better for them face a host of challenges including being judged solely off a piece of paper full of keywords and job titles. The impact is felt nationwide, but with Gen Z increasingly entering the workforce and millennials in the peak of their careers, these generations are ready for something new.

The change they are looking for may be just around the corner.

brought us together, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t credit the Oregon Executive MBA and their incredible matching skills. They placed Jana and me on the same year-one study team.

JANA: Starting a business with someone is a big step. It’s not something I take lightly; but Alyssa and I share the same vision and passion, while having completely different life and work experiences. We’re able to have open conversations and be honest with each other.

ALYSSA: An early concept for Paloma surfaced during a conversation about our capstone project.

Jana transformed that idea into Paloma. I’ve always believed in the vision and I served as sounding board and brainstorming partner throughout the capstone process. One day, she asked if I wanted to try to build it into a real company. Without hesitation, I said yes.

Paloma sprang from a kismet meeting in the University of Oregon’s Executive MBA program and seeks to address those challenges. The brainchild of Jana Chapman and Alyssa Varela McKee, Paloma is on a mission to create a space for career-minded individuals to connect with companies based on things that actually matter while providing honest and transparent information, reducing unnecessary bias and assumptions. Yes, that means no more resumes, no more job titles and no long application process.

What led you to join the University of Oregon’s Executive MBA program in Portland?

Chapman and McKee developed Paloma while earning their degrees at the UO Executive MBA program (Class of 2023). Since then, it’s continued to evolve through feedback and community support, with a promising future that could transform the way we find work. Willamette Week interviewed Paloma’s founders to discuss their startup’s journey, what they learned at UO’s Portland-based executive MBA program and the future of hiring. The interview has been edited for clarity.

ALYSSA: I was driven by a desire to strengthen my self-confidence, expand my skills and inspire others from underrepresented communities to keep forging ahead. As the first in my family to graduate college, I realized that earning a degree isn’t just a personal achievement, but a milestone that carries my parents’ and grandparents’ hopes and dreams.

For me, education became more than a pursuit, it’s become a beacon of opportunity.

Can you tell us a bit about what led to you two teaming up and creating Paloma?

ALYSSA: Fate, compatibility and a shared vision

JANA: I’ve always known I wanted to pursue an MBA. But it was never just about the accreditation. I wanted to push myself and be surrounded by people who would challenge me. Our cohort did just that. We became extremely close, and I now have 43 allies working in different industries.

They will always have my back, personally and professionally: that’s an amazing community to be part of.

How do you think Paloma will change the hiring process?

ALYSSA: Our vision is to create a hiring process built on authenticity. That means no resume, keywords or job titles: removing any unnecessary

biases. Paloma will create that space.

JANA: No one wants to waste their time. The world has changed so much, but the resume has basically stayed the same. Job seekers spend countless hours filling out repetitive information online. People don’t want to waste their time on menial tasks that get no results. People are fed up and ready for something different.

How did the Executive MBA program help prepare you to start Paloma?

JANA: The program isn’t just about learning material, it’s about gaining an understanding of the entire business landscape. For example, the capstone allowed us to apply what we learned in class to a real-world scenario. My capstone advisor, Scott Grout, is probably the main reason why I decided to pursue Paloma beyond the program. He was instrumental in guiding me through the process of building Paloma.

ALYSSA: So much of what I learned in the program has proven to be helpful, but what’s made a great impact are the long-lasting relationships with peers, faculty members, and advisors—including my capstone advisor Jim Coonan—who genuinely make me a better person. Their willingness to help goes beyond the classroom and program. They’ve helped us expand our network in the start-up community.

What’s next for Paloma?

JANA: Our goal is to continue to refine the business model, prove the market fit and secure a large enough following for investment. At the moment, we are looking for professionals and companies to join our beta by signing up for our mailing list at findmypaloma.com.

ALYSSA: Help us build the future of hiring!

To learn more about the University of Oregon’s Portland-based executive MBA program, you can visit business.uoregon.edu/programs/executive-mba. To learn more about Paloma, you can visit findmypaloma.com.

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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Civil & Human Rights SPONSORED BY DAVIS WRIGHT TREMAINE

Take Action Toward a More Just Society

BY A R O N K L E I N , PA R T N E R S H I P S F O R S A F E T Y & J U S T I C E , O N B E H A L F O F T H E C I V I L & H U M A N R I G H T S C ATEGORY

© 2023 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved. | ENT-224-AD

The fight for civil rights and human rights continues to matter. Liberation is as urgent today as it was decades ago. Transformative solutions to our region’s challenges must center the people who are the most harmed and will be most impacted.

In this category, you’ll find organizations that are eliminating the gap between people and power. Many of these groups are led and staffed by people who have experienced the harm of oppression and marginalization. Through our collective experiences, we have deep understanding of the problems and the wisdom needed to implement sustainable, effective, and humanity-affirming solutions.

You’ll also find organizations that are responding to the urgent needs of people whose basic needs are unmet. Employment, safe housing, safe relationships, and freedom from violence lay the foundation for people to be champions for change.

By supporting the work of Civil & Human Rights nonprofits, you are joining people in every generation who take action toward a more just society. You are restoring hope and energizing activists. You are uplifting your values.

Together, we are creating stronger, safer, and more resilient individuals and communities.

These organizations focus on advocacy for civil and human rights issues, specifically through policy, education and/or community organizing.

ACLU of Oregon  Basic Rights Oregon Black & Beyond the Binary Collective  Call to Safety  HereTogether Imagine Black Futures Immigration Counseling Service Mission: Citizen   National Indian Child Welfare Association  Oregon Alliance for Gun Safety Foundation   Oregon Center for Public Policy  Oregon Justice Resource Center  Partnership for Safety & Justice  Raphael House of Portland St. Andrew Legal Clinic   Street Roots Unite Oregon  Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project  Western States Center   Youth, Rights & Justice

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www.giveguide.org

Community SPONSORED BY WILLAMETTE WEEK

The Surgeon General Recommends You Support Community Organizations

BY I S A B E L R O D R I G U E Z , P DX W I T; J U S T I C E H AG E R , S I S T E R S O F T H E R OA D ; J O H N N A LO R E E N , U K A N D U , O N B E H A L F O F T H E C O M M U N I T Y C AT E G O R Y

In the Surgeon General’s recent report on the “Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” he says that “loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling.…The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.”

Community is literally a life-extender, but the benefits don’t end there. The report also found that more connected communities experience less violence, increased social mobility, reduced wealth inequality, increased levels of civic engagement, and more representative governments.

Unsurprisingly, we know that feelings of isolation occur disproportionately among marginalized communities: people with disabilities; people experiencing financial insecurity; and those living in areas that have seen systemic disinvestment and neglect. Cultivating community helps uplift marginalized people, interrupting the cycles of poverty and inequity that erode our neighborhoods.

Coming out of a period of societywide isolation, it’s no wonder we’ve seen corresponding increases in poverty, violence, addiction, and despair. Philanthropy has a role to play here, and the Surgeon General actually spells it out: Fund new programs and invest in existing successful programs that advance social connection.

Organizations in the Community category are: • Building more equitable and cohesive communities throughout our city by reviving and sustaining cultural traditions.

• Furthering economic and educational opportunities in underserved communities.

• Empowering communities through storytelling.

And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. If we want our city to thrive, we need to band together to support these organizations and build the community we want to see.

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Bugeyes, hippos with insomnia, arrogant anteaters, introverted frogs, paradoxical polar bears, acrobatic worms, self-touting accordions and tricky penguins fill the stage with wonder, awe and humor.

TICKETS: IMAGOTHEATRETICKETS.COM or call Imago: 503.231.9581

These organizations focus on supporting, building and/or celebrating a specific sector of Portland’s culturally diverse community.

Albina Vision Trust  APANO Communities United Fund  Community Cycling Center  Depave Ecotrust   Familias en Acción   Friends of Willamette Week Hacienda Community Development Corporation  Native American Youth and Family Center  Neighborhood Partnerships   Next Up Oregon Humanities  Portland Parks Foundation  Portland Women in Technology (PDXWIT)  Sisters of the Road  Street Books The Black United Fund of Oregon  The Blueprint Foundation  The Rosewood Initiative  The Street Trust Torus   UKANDU 

New Avenues INK specializes in high-quality, cost competitive promotional items while providing paid internship hours for young adults experiencing homelessness and housing instability. Get a quote today!

Social Mission SCREEN PRINTING

NEWAVENUESINK.ORG @newavenuesink

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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Creative Expression SPONSORED BY OREGON CULTURAL TRUST

Artistic Expression Is Here to Stay

BY J O R Y J O L I V E T, T H E R E D D O O R P R O J E C T, O N B E H A L F O F T H E C R E AT I V E E X P R E S S I O N C AT E G O R Y

With the Oregon Shakespeare Festival narrowly avoiding closure this year, and other prominent local theaters pausing their work to raise funds, it’s fair to say the arts community is in uncharted territory. Donations are down, inflation is up, and the stock market is all over the place. For those of us working in the arts, it’s a tense time.

Art isn’t going anywhere. It’s part of the human experience, giving our lives meaning and enjoyment. Creative expression is also a critical tool in changemaking — helping us confront our biases, embrace diversity, and envision a better future.

The Portland metro area’s creative scene has long been a dynamic force for change, serving as a platform for social, political, and environmental activism, motivating individuals to take action.

While times may be tough, we aren’t letting go of the transformative power of the arts. We’re telling stories and painting pictures. We’re dancing. We’re spinning imagination into possibility and reality. Artists are reflecting the world’s foibles and challenge us all to create a better, more beautiful world for our communities.

As you consider what organizations to support this year, I encourage you to think about a performance you’ve attended, or a book you’ve read, or a painting you’ve seen, or movies or television you’ve watched that changed you in some way. Support an arts organization in honor of that transformation because there are many more transformations yet to come.

Giving back to our Portland community since 1911

DWT.COM

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These organizations focus on supporting, creating and/or celebrating the arts in the Portland area.

Alberta Abbey Foundation  Artist Mentorship Program  Artists Repertory Theatre  BRAVO Youth Orchestras  Bridging Voices  Caldera  Fear No Music  Friends of Noise  Independent Publishing Resource Center Literary Arts Miracle Theatre Group (Milagro)  Montavilla Jazz My Voice Music Native Arts and Cultures Foundation  North Pole Studio Open Hearts Open Minds Open Signal  Oregon Children’s Theatre  Outside The Frame  PassinArt: A Theatre Company  Portland Playhouse  Portland Radio Project Portland Street Art Alliance  SCRAP PDX Synth Library Portland  The Red Door Project Third Angle New Music TOC Concert Hall Write Around Portland  XRAY.FM

Education SPONSORED BY BANK OF AMERICA

Education Is Empowerment

BY Y I L A N S H E N , W I L D D I V E R S I T Y, O N B E H A L F O F T H E E D U C AT I O N C AT E G O R Y

Looking over the Give!Guide Education category, you may think the organizations vary greatly. There are groups focused on career training, music, science and technology, reading, theater, and other curricula. You find organizations educating adult learners and in recreational settings.

Many focus on equity by supporting students of color, students experiencing disabilities, or those experiencing homelessness. One connecting thread among all 31 nonprofits in this community is that we are in the work of empowerment.

As education nonprofits, we know that empowerment can feel scarce at times despite all the hard work we put into empowering our communities and members to achieve and grow in the face of significant challenges.

Currently, Portland Public Schools teachers are advocating for more resources and better school conditions after working as educators under some of the toughest challenges in our lifetime. Our schools and teachers are a pillar of education. Our nonprofit education community serves as the supportive foundations. Together, the strength of the collective community can help to make it easier to meet the challenges, and empowerment feels abundant again.

What we ask for during Give!Guide is the same that the teachers are asking for — to be empowered by the community to do the hard work we signed up for. By supporting these education organizations, you are empowering them to further their reach, to strengthen their programs and to continue their successful work. Know that your monetary support amplifies this empowering effect for all of us.

Amid Portland’s daytime camping ban, Rahab’s Sisters is a rare beacon of Radical Hospitality for marginalized and unhoused Portlanders.

Located in the under-resourced eastside along the I-205 corridor, Rahab’s Sisters is one of only a few daytime sanctuaries, and the only one reserved for women, trans, and nonbinary Guests.

As during the pandemic, Rahab’s Sisters stands to meet Portland’s growing need. You can help ensure everyone has a supportive safe place to be during the day.

Make your gift today at rahabs-sisters.org/donate

These organizations focus on providing and championing a robust and equitable education for all.

Adelante Mujeres  African Youth and Community Organization  Blosser Center for Dyslexia Resources  Boys & Girls Clubs of Portland Metro Area  Brown Girl Rise  Building Blocks 2 Success  Camp Yakety Yak  Civics Learning Project College Possible Community Transitional School Echo Theater Company Ethos Music Center Free Geek  Friends of Outdoor School Girls Build  HOLLA Mentors  Mt. Scott Learning Center Open School Inc.  Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education  Oregon Tradeswomen  Peace in Schools Portland YouthBuilders Reading Results  Sauvie Island Center Schoolhouse Supplies Self Enhancement Inc.  SMART Reading The Library Foundation Tucker Maxon School  Wild Diversity  Youth Music Project Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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Environment SPONSORED BY A TO Z WINEWORKS

Environmental Organizations Ensure a Climate Change-Resilient Future

BY M AYA H U R S T- M AY R , C O L U M B I A S L O U G H WAT E R S H E D C O U N C I L ; G L E N N F E E , T UA L AT I N R I V E R K E E P E R S , O N B E H A L F O F T H E E N V I R O N M E N T C AT E G O R Y

Central City Concern is

Recovering Our Community “Central City Concern is about changing lives and giving people an opportunity that a lot of people won’t give them.”

— Nick (right) with Shaun, CCC program participants and Clean Start employees

Central City Concern helps those struggling with life’s biggest problems end or avoid homelessness and build healthy, housed, resilient and engaged lives.

GIVE HERE 

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From heat domes to atmospheric rivers, our region is already experiencing the impacts of climate change — impacts that disproportionately affect vulnerable communities. We need to make our region more climate change-resilient and work collaboratively for our most vulnerable residents.

We’re privileged to live where beautiful natural settings are found in our daily lives and where our neighbors generally have strong environmental values. But we also face a housing crisis that needs to be addressed without making the climate impacts worse by compromising our shrinking wetlands, clean water, and tree canopy.

The gravity of the climate crisis can make us feel inconsequential and helpless to forces out of our control. Fortunately, a growing coalition of environmental nonprofit organizations is at the forefront of this critical work. You can find many of them in the Give!Guide’s Environment category.

While each of these organizations has a singular mission, they’re working collectively, like the hundreds of young people marching for awareness and change in September, to address the climate crisis and its related impacts. Each day, these organizations ask challenging questions of leaders and each other about how we protect our natural world and our most vulnerable neighbors.

Small actions can make a significant difference. When you contribute to local organizations like these, you know your dollars go a long way to create a community of shared stewardship. When you contribute to local organizations like these, you know your dollars go a long way to create a community of shared stewardship.

These organizations focus on environmental education, conservation, and advocacy.

Adventures Without Limits  Cascadia Wild  Columbia Riverkeeper Columbia Slough Watershed Council Crag Law Center Ecology in Classrooms and Outdoors ELSO Inc.  Forest Park Conservancy  Friends of the Columbia Gorge Friends of Trees Friends of Tryon Creek   Grow Portland Lloyd EcoDistrict  Neighbors for Clean Air

Northwest Trail Alliance Oregon Wild People of Color Outdoors  Portland Audubon ReBuilding Center ReClaim It  Tualatin Riverkeepers Willamette Riverkeeper Wisdom of the Elders Inc. 

Health SPONSORED BY CAREOREGON

Whole Health for Whole Communities

BY C A S C A D I A H E A LT H O N B E H A L F O F T H E H E A LT H C AT E G O R Y

When we think about health care, we might visualize a doctor’s office or a hospital. But our health, and where we get care, goes beyond the walls of an exam room. Where we grew up and where we live, our income, race, education, and gender identity (among other factors) all contribute to our health. And finding care that truly sees the needs of a whole person — from physical and mental well-being to housing and community supports — can be just as important as a vaccine or checkup.

Across the Portland metro area, integrated models of care — where a person can access a host of care options and social supports, no matter who they are or how they identify, and regardless of their ability to pay — are being championed as one solution for improving health outcomes, lowering costs across the health care system, and providing supports to those struggling with houselessness, income insecurity, stigma, and more.

By weaving together primary care, mental health, substance use treatment, housing assistance, peer support, and wellness — and by underscoring the importance of equity and inclusivity — health organizations can honor the realities individuals face every day: The realities that stigma may result in delay of treatment or that prioritizing where your next meal is coming from may outweigh filling a prescription, among other things.

Community-based organizations that offer such inclusive and integrated care are in constant need of community support to ensure their continuation and growth. Historically low and neglected reimbursement rates and workforce challenges have plagued the industry even well before the added impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic. But despite these challenges, needs across the community have increased, spiking demand for services.

Inclusive, integrated health care models are fundamentally changing the way people are receiving care, improving health outcomes and reducing strain on our city’s overcrowded emergency departments — a win-win for our whole community.

Paying It Forward: How Oregonians Fund Culture Statewide For more than two decades, the Oregon Cultural Trust has played a vital role in enriching our state’s cultural resources, supporting more than 1,600 nonprofits across Oregon. We have woven a unique and awe-inspiring cultural tapestry, united by artistry, defined by stories, and guided by wisdom.

How? It’s simple. The Cultural Trust empowers Oregonians to leverage their support for arts, heritage, and humanities nonprofits with the Cultural Tax Credit. When you match your cultural donation with a gift to the Oregon Cultural Trust, you direct a portion of your state taxes to fund more than 1,600 cultural organizations. And come tax time, you will receive up to a 100% refund in the form of a state tax credit.

By using the Cultural Tax Credit, Oregonians and the Cultural Trust have awarded close to $40 million, and counting, to the cultural nonprofits that define our quality of life. Join us by taking your support of Oregon’s arts, heritage, and humanities to the next level. Make culture count.

Learn more at culturaltrust.org or by calling 503-986-0088.

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is a 501(c)(3) non-profit?

Photo by Antonio Harris

Consider a tax deductible donation today to help us amplify underrepresented voices in the arts.

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SEE A SHOW

DEC 15th -23rd

These organizations focus on human health education, care and/or advocacy.

Baby Blues Connection Cascadia Health Fora Health  Friends of Hopewell House Kinship House MIKE Program Mother & Child Education Center  NAMI Clackamas  New Narrative  North by Northeast Community Health Center  Northwest Mothers Milk Bank Parkinson’s Resources of Oregon  Planned Parenthood Columbia Willamette Portland Street Medicine

Project Access NOW  Quest Center for Integrative Health  Raíces de Bienestar   Special Olympics Oregon  The Lund Report The Marie Equi Institute Trillium Family Services  Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center & Foundation  Wallace

DEC 31st

albertaabbey.org For our full calendar of events and more info Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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Give the gift ofa CASA

Home SPONSORED BY NEIL KELLY

There’s No Place Like Home

BY B R A N D I T U C K , PAT H H O M E , O N B E H A L F O F T H E H O M E C AT E G O R Y

Oregon’s largest and longest-serving CASA organization, CASA for Children advocates for more than 920 children in foster care with the support of over 500 volunteer advocates. In Multnomah County, less than half of the children in foster care have a CASA. With your M U LT N O M A H , WA S H I N G T O N , help, we can close that gap.

COLUMBIA & TILL AMOOK COUNTIES

giveguide.org/nonprofits/casa or casahelpskids.org/give

“Home” is where kids do their homework, brush their teeth, and read bedtime stories. For adults, home can be a comfort zone.

What happens when someone doesn’t have a home? Brain science reveals that not having a home causes a distress reaction; the brain releases chemicals that turn off our prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for critical thinking, language, and logic. We are left in survival mode. This fight, flight, or freeze instinct is helpful when we face an emergency and need a momentary burst of energy to save our lives.

But when we experience not having a home for days, months, or even years, our brains stay in survival mode the whole time — we can’t concentrate, tell time, or problem solve. We can’t understand the rules of a shelter, get to appointments on time, or be good parents.

The solution to being in perpetual survival mode is housing. Only then can our brains move back into their thinking center and allow us to manage our mental health, get and keep a job, and improve our lives for the better.

All the organizations in the Home category work to build housing, support people moving from homelessness to housing, repair their homes, or help people keep housing long term. These are critical services that our community needs to help people move from just surviving to thriving in their own home.

With your support, we can make sure every child and adult in Portland has a home for good. We must prioritize housing as a basic right, recognizing that home is more than a physical space — it is a foundation to build a healthy, thriving community.

These organizations focus on housing solutions (permanent, transitional, short-term, and emergency shelters), repairs, legal aid, and more.

Advocates for Life Skills and Opportunity Bienestar  Bridges to Change  Catalyst Partnerships  Clackamas Women’s Services Community Energy Project Community Partners for Affordable Housing  Community Warehouse Do Good Multnomah  Family Promise of Metro East Family Promise of Tualatin Valley Habitat for Humanity Portland Region HomeShare Oregon  Impact NW  Just Compassion East Washington County  Northwest Pilot Project Our Just Future  Path Home Proud Ground  REACH Community Development Taking Ownership PDX  Transition Projects

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Human Services SPONSORED BY THE STANDARD

A Community of Compassion

BY K A S E Y A N D E R S O N , A L A N O C L U B O F P O R T L A N D ; E L L E N C L A R K E , H E R E TO G E T H E R ; C H L O E S A FA R , M E N TA L H E A LT H & A D D I C T I O N A S S O C I AT I O N O F O R E G O N ; W I N T E R WAG N E R , O U R S T R E E T S , O N B E H A L F O F T H E H U M A N S E R V I C E S C AT E G O R Y

It takes a village. Or, in our case, a city.

Our community faces a crisis. Houselessness in Portland has increased by at least 30% since 2019 — disproportionately impacting BIPOC communities — and drug overdoses have more than doubled.

The convergence of the housing and mental health crises and worsening opioid epidemic have garnered plenty of attention with stories in local and national media. But what these stories seem to miss is the vast number of Portlanders who meet suffering with compassion, who help build communities around those who are most vulnerable.

The Portland metro area is filled with those communities of compassion, and nowhere is that more evident than in the organizations who make up the Human Services category. When we collaborate and coordinate, our services have the power to create change.

A beautiful thing about the Human Services nonprofits in the Give!Guide is that they cover a wide range of needs. Some nonprofits provide housing security, food, substance use services. Others provide clothes, family services and child care support, showers for people who are unhoused. Each of our organizations offers unique, intersecting, critical services to support and empower community members who are struggling — from housing and outreach providers to youth organizations to food pantries and everything in between.

Together, we can lift each other up and grow, transform, and thrive.

Together, we build a brighter future for all Portlanders. It takes all of us: nonprofits, government, businesses, citizens. It takes a city.

These organizations focus on providing services to marginalized communities.

4D Recovery  Alano Club of Portland Birch Community Services  Black Economic Collective   CASA for Children Inc. Central City Concern Centro Cultural  Cultivate Initiatives  Domestic Violence Resource Center Dougy Center Dress for Success Oregon  Every Body Athletics  Family SkillBuilders FinAbility   Friends of the Children – Portland Good Neighbor Center Hygiene4All Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization  Janus Youth Programs

Mental Health & Addiction Association of Oregon   NAMI Multnomah Neighborhood House  New Avenues for Youth Operation Nightwatch – Portland Oregon Energy Fund  Our Streets  Outside In p:ear  PDX Diaper Bank POIC+RAHS  Portland People’s Outreach Project Portland Refugee Support Group  Pueblo Unido PDX  Rahab’s Sisters  Rose Haven Sexual Assault Resource Center Stone Soup PDX The Commons Law Center  William Temple House

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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Hunger SPONSORED BY NEW SEASONS MARKET

A Fight for Food Security and Justice

BY M I C H A E L C A S P E R , S H E R I E LY N G A R D N E R , A N D M A R I S S A K AT T E R O F M I L K C R AT E K I TC H E N ; C L AU D I A SCHEC TER , FRIENDS OF PORTL AND COMM UNIT Y GARD E N S , O N B E H A L F O F T H E H U N G E R C AT E G O R Y

Providing food and financial education to 800+ families weekly

bcsi.org/give-guide

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The Portland metro area is a culinary haven with an explosion of food carts, artisan food makers, award-winning restaurants, and vibrant farmers markets. Unfortunately, nearly 12% of Portland residents experience food insecurity on a daily basis, with six neighborhoods classified as food deserts. The area also witnessed a 35% increase in food insecurity over pre-pandemic levels.

Food insecurity means not having enough food for an active, healthy life. Factors such as inflation, cost of living, pandemic SNAP benefit cuts, environmental conditions, and systemic barriers limit our food choices. Marginalized neighbors are severely impacted, especially those who identify as low income, single parents, students, disabled and aging groups, veterans, migrant workers, immigrants, and members of LGBTQ+ communities. Even independent small business owners and care providers face food insecurity.

During this Give!Guide season, we hope you’ll join our community in the fight for food justice. Cultivating a community where nobody goes to bed hungry, people have access to land, tools, and gardens to grow their own food. A place to gather and learn about food as medicine.

This category includes 25 local nonprofits focused on hunger-related issues. Together, we address food insecurity, improve our food systems, and raise awareness about local farming, community gardening, and nutrition. We are gardeners, growers, and gleaners building a healthier metropolitan year-round. We are purpose-driven staff and volunteers turning fresh produce into prepared healthy meals delivered to people’s doors.

We share one belief — that access to better and affordable food is a human right. When we work together, we build collective power in eradicating food insecurity for all of us.

These organizations focus on food insecurity, food systems, farming, gardening, gleaning, and nutrition.

Blanchet House & Farm C3 Food Pantry   Farmers Ending Hunger Farmers Market Fund Feed’em Freedom Foundation  FoodWaves Friends of Family Farmers Friends of Portland Community Gardens Growing Gardens  Hunger Fighters Oregon  Kindness Farm Lift Urban Portland Mainspring   Meals on Wheels People

Milk Crate Kitchen  Oregon Food Bank Our Village Gardens  Partners for a HungerFree Oregon Portland Backpack  Portland Fruit Tree Project Rogue Farm Corps Store to Door  Thimbleberry Collaborative Farm  Tualatin Food Pantry Zenger Farm 

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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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Steadfast Support From Local Companies Helps Nonprofits Go Further Support from local companies is a core component of Give!Guide. It’s why every participating nonprofit has a business partner helping them reach their fundraising goals to help move the nonprofit’s mission forward. These companies are pitching in with guidance, marketing, matching gifts, incentives, and more! The businesses on this list make a big impact on our quality of life — and it’s great to live where so many people care about making a difference!

¿Por Qué No? Taqueria 503 Distilling A Children’s Place Bookstore A Kids Co. Academy Theater Ace Hotel Portland ACM Business Services Acme Construction Supply Active Culture Studios Adelshiem Winery Advice Booth Alameda Realty Alder Creek Kayak & Canoe Alder Tree Vineyard Alex Raymond with Altered Ink Alternative Mornings with Greg and Biscuit at 94/7 FM Amaya International Restaurant Anatomy Tattoo Andina Ankrom Moisan Architects 42

Annie Bloom’s Books Anonymous Arc’teryx Arciform Arnerich Massena Around Portland Tours ASW Global Consulting Atkinson Insurance Group Atlas Pizza Autodesk Inc. B&B Print Source Baby2Baby Back Roads Fund BadBeard’s Microroastery Bag&Baggage Productions Bambuza Hospitality Bar Carlo Bathena Baysinger Partners Architects Beach Hut Deli Beaverton City Library

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

Bella Beek Bella’s Italian Bakery Bellagrams Ben Purkert Beneficial State Bank Benza Vineyards Big Winds Bike the Gorge Bipartisan Cafe Birchwood Counseling LLC Birdie Time Pub Birds & Bees Nursery Bjornson Vineyards Black Bulb Creative Blackbird Benefits Collective Board of Directors Bowl Whisk & Sweets Brainium | playSTUDIOS Break Bread Sandwich Shop Brew Dr. Kombucha Bridge City Kid

Bridgetown Wealth Management Broadway Books Brooklyn Trattoria Brooklyn Tweed Burgerville Burns Feed Store Cambia Health Solutions Canopy by Hilton Portland Pearl District Cargo Center Street Silver and Gold Charter Mechanical Chilango PDX Chocolat-e Cinema 21 Citizen Ruth Clinton Street Theater COAST Cobalt Painting Colas Construction Columbia Sportswear Community Cycling Center Concentrates Conscious Minds Convergence Networks Coopers Hall Winery Cotopaxi Crafted From Scratch Creekside Brewing Crisp Salads Culshaw & Company Cup of Joe Cup of Tea Custom Comet Dahl Style Dairy Hill Ice Cream Daryl Wilson Dave’s Killer Bread Deadstock Coffee Deschutes Brewery Devil’s Food Catering Dick’s Primal Burger Dixie Tavern DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid Dobbes Family Estate Dogtopia Dos Corazones Family Fund Dove Vivi East Glisan Pizza Lounge Eastside Coffee Bar and Workspace Eastside Kettlebell Collective ECHO Natural Beauty Ecliptic Brewing Embassy Suites by Hilton Portland Downtown Embold Credit Union Energy 350 eNRG Kayaking EPB&B Essance Skin Care Et Fille evo Family Roots Therapy Fantastic Fungorum Ferment Brewing Company Fermenter Fetch Fetch Pet Insurance Fifty Licks Fino Bistro & Pizzeria Fire on the Mountain First Tech Federal Credit Union Fiskars Flagrant Magazine

Flashback Photography PDX Florida Room For Bitter For Worse Baby Blues Connection Board Members Fortis Construction Free Land Spirits Fresh Pot Fried Egg I’m In Love Friends of Howard Hedinger and The Constance Fund Fubonn Shopping Center Garnish Apparel Gilda’s Italian Restaurant Glendoveer Golf Club Go Wild American Adventures Good Neighbor Pizzeria Gorges Beer Grand Central Bakery Grand Union Real Estate Great Notion Green Bean Books Grounded Design+Build Guero Number One Tortas Gurton’s Plants Habitat Hanif Abdurraqib Happy Mountain Kombucha Hart Wagner Hawthorne Veterinary Clinic Henry Higgins Boiled Bagels Here We Go Again Deluxe Resale Boutique Heritage Bank Holler Treats Hollywood Boosters Business Association HOLO Footwear Honey Mama’s Hopworks Brewery HOTLIPS Pizza Icon Tattoo ilani resort Intel Island Sailing School Java Man Coffee JinJu Patisserie John L. Scott Real Estate/ Smira Group Jojo Jungmaven Justseeds K&F Coffee Roasters Kabba’s Kitchen Kamp Grizzly Katie O’Brien’s Kaveh Akbar Kelly’s Jelly Inc. Keys Lounge Killer Burger KinderCare Learning Companies Kiss Coffee Kyle Rosso Photography Labyrinth Forge Brewing Company Lardo LASH LAB PDX Laughing Planet Ledge Society Left Field Organics Legion Motorcycle Company Level Beer Lime Living Room Fixers LMC Construction Luna Wellness Spa M Films LLC

HIV Services Substance Abuse Treatment

Quest Center believes in access for ALL

Non-Opiate Based Pain Management Mental Health Holistic Medical Care

X

Quest Center prioritizes low-income and uninsured LGBTQIA2S+ and BIPOC individuals in need of culturally responsive and trauma informed care.

Learn More giveguide.org/nonprofits/quest

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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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more MONEY, more adventures Reward yourself in cash every month with iQ Credit Union’s Intelligent Checking account.

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More to explore at iQcu.com/intelligent-checking *APY = annual percentage yield. Rate good as of August 1, 2023. All rates subject to change. No monthly fee. To earn the Intelligent Checking rate of 6.00% APY on balances up to and including $25,000, and 0.25% APY on balances over $25,000, you must meet the following monthly requirements: twelve (12) debit or credit card transactions; direct deposit of $100 or more per month, log in to online banking at least once per month; and receive e-Statements. If account requirements are not met, the non-qualifying rate will be 0.05% APY. New accounts will receive the qualifying dividend rate for the first statement cycle. Existing accounts converted to Intelligent Checking may qualify to receive the qualifying dividend rate beginning on the first day of the month following the month in which the account is converted. All requirements must be met with transactions posted and cleared by the close of business on the day before the last day of the month. ATM transactions do not count toward the 12 debit card transactions. Dividend paid on the last day of the month in which it is earned. Qualifiers must all be on the same account. **Only accounts that meet the Intelligent Checking criteria are eligible for the $25 ATM fee refund. Visit www.iQcu.com for details about how the ATM fee refund is calculated and other limitations.

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TICKETS AT WHITEBIRD.ORG 44

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

MacDonald-Miller Facility Services Mae Ploy Thai Cuisine Magna Kusina MAGNACORP-TF Maple Grove Hot Springs + Retreat Center Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation Mattress Lot McCarthy Family Farm McClellan Immigration Law Offices McMenamins meat for cats & dogs Mercer Advisors Migration Brewing Miller Paint Minuteman Press Lloyd Center Mississippi Records Mississippi Studios Moberi Montavilla Farmers Market Moss Adams Movie Madness/Hollywood Theatre Mox Boarding House Nancy Henry & Bruce Campbell, Authors of This Rough Magic National Forest Foundation Neighbors Realty New Avenues for Youth Ben & Jerry’s PartnerShop New Seasons Market Next Adventure Nico’s Ice Cream North Drinkware NorthFresh Coffee Roasters Nossa Familia Coffee Nothing Bundt Cakes NW Enforcement NW Natural NW Printed Solutions Oakshire Brewing Oblation Papers and Press OnPoint Community Credit Union Oregon Ballet Theater

Oregon E-Bikes Oregon Public House Oregon Zoo Pacific Office Automation Pacific Power Pamela Slaughter LLC Pan’s Mushroom Jerky Papa John’s Pizza Parr Lumber Patagonia Patchmarks Patricia Reser Center for the Arts Paulson’s Flooring Pavelcomm PDX Platters Pearl Jam People-Places-Things Personal Beast Phil’s Meat Market & Delicatessen Pink Rabbit Pistil Designs Pizza Thief Poppy & Finch Portland Art Museum Portland Audubon Nature Store Portland by Mouth Portland Center Stage Portland ComedySportz Portland Design Studio Portland General Electric Portland Ink Portland Leather Goods Portland Nursery Portland Radio Project Portland Timbers Portland Trail Blazers Portugal. The Man Foundation Posies prAna Premier Motorsports Presents of Mind Prosper Portland Providence Puffin Drinkwear Pure Environmental NW Push x Pull Coffee

Rad Pop Ramsey Cox Media Relations & Public Affairs Rangoon Bistro RARR Clothing ReBuilding Center ReClaim It Reclaimed Wool Red Robin Redwood Restaurant Remy Wines ReRack Rerun RERUN2 Revel Indoor Cycling RISE Brewing Co. Rivermark Community Credit Union Rock Haven Climbing Gym Rogers Machinery Company Inc. Rogue Brewing Company Rose City Rollers Rubinette Produce Market Ruby Jewel Rudy & Naty’s House Cleaning LLC Sackcloth & Ashes Sales Xceleration Sam Smith Teamaker Sasquatch HR Sat and Straw Schommer and Sons Construction Schooner Creek Boat Works Scottie’s Pizza Parlor Sebastiano’s See See Motor Coffee Co. Seeking Space Yoga Sensi Graves Swim Sesame Collective Sesame Donuts She Bop Shift Accounting Shine Aesthetic Medicine Shoofly Vegan Bakery and Cafe SHWOP Sizzle Pie Snappy’s Snow B Designs Soaps for Good Solabee Southpark Seafood Spark R&D Stammtisch Stargazer Creative Studio Steeplejack Brewing Company Stem Wine Bar Stone Barn Brandyworks Straight from New York Pizza Stumptown Coffee Stutheit Kalin LLC Super Plastic SuperDeluxe Sustainable Northwest Wood Sweet Betty’s Sweet Hereafter Sweet Pickles Designs Swing State Boxing Club Symposium Coffee

Tacovore Tân Tân Café & Delicatessen Taqueria Los Puñales Tattoo34 PDX Tempos Contemporary Circus Th3rd Sound The Barrio The Benito and Frances C. Gaguine Foundation The Benson Hotel The Cator Agency The Children’s Clinic The Decemberists The DragonTree Holistic Day Spa The EastBurn The Estate Store The Florida Room The Get Down The Greenbrier Companies The Hotel Zags The Jerry & Donna Smith Family Foundation The Mountain Shop The People’s Yoga The Portland Stamp Company The Renaissance Foundation The Side Yard Farm The Sports Bra The Stacks Coffeehouse Thunder Road Guitars Thunderpants USA Tin House Tin Shed Garden Cafe Titan Freight Systems Two Rivers Bookstore Tyler John Hartman Umpqua Bank Unitus Community Credit Union Up Up Books Upright Brewing Urban Remedy Verde Cocina Vernier Science Education VEWS Entertainment Wacom Walsh Construction Water Avenue Coffee Western Partitions Inc. Weston Westward Whiskey WickerWoodWorks Wieden + Kennedy Weird Sisters Yarn Shop Wild Hearts Wellness WildCraft Studio School Willamette Valley Pie Company Willamette Valley Vineyards Willoughby Giving Fund Woke Fly Wonder Ballroom Woodlark Hotel Wyld CBD XLB Your Neighborhood Restaurant Group Yu|Mono Z&Z Properties Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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Top 5

Buzz List WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

FOOD & DRINK

PHOTO CREDIT

1. GIGANTIC BREWING HAWTHORNE PORTRAIT ROOM

Editor: Andi Prewitt Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

4343 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-889-0190, giganticbrewing.com.

3-9 pm Monday-Friday, noon-9 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Nearly one year after opening its third location—the first one with a full food menu—Gigantic has finished the pub’s intimate Portrait Room (though those portraits are still in the works). The clubby space, which is now open to the public, is lined with inviting ruby-hued banquettes and rare English brown oak paneling as well as tchotchkes that founders Ben Love and Van Havig mined from estate sales. Moodier and cozier than the bright blue and white restaurant, the venue is pretty much the perfect place to hunker down with a beer when the rain is coming down in sheets this fall. We recommend the fresh hop Pilsner while it’s still on or the very drinkable Pay Czech dark lager once the final keg kicks.

2. SANDY HUT

1430 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-235-7972. 11:30 am-2:30 am daily.

We should all aim to be this much fun when we’re 100. The Wolf’s Den, the Sandy Hut, or the Hut of Huts is an idealized version of a midcentury bar and restaurant. The restored Hirschfeld mural, cozy booths and padded bartop add vintage flair, while a slushy machine, Big Buck Hunter and pinup calendars keep things from getting too fancy. The crowd is a mix of folks who’ve managed to survive the bar’s zhuzhing up by new ownership in 2015 and whatever counts for a hipster these days. No matter the name or the state of the interior, the bartenders will not stand for any of your lip but will be generous with the pours of liquor, essential for any top-tier dive.

3. BIRD CREEK DISTILLERY

815 SE Oak St., Suite B, birdcreekwhiskey.com.

Noon-5 pm Tuesday-Saturday or by appointment.

Oregon may be best known for craft beer and wine, but it turns out we also work wonders with whiskey.

Bird Creek is the latest brand to join established names in Portland like Westward, Bull Run and Aimsir. Its pint-sized tasting room is located in the same building as Portland Coffee Roasters (Mark Stell founded both), and all of the barley used to make the whiskeys is sourced from Oregon and Washington. Now’s the time to try a flight; the business’s Baronesse variety just nabbed the title of Best American Single Malt Whiskey 2023 at the ASCOT Awards, and Full Pint, named after the barley developed at Oregon State University, won a platinum in the same competition.

4. PORTLAND CIDER COMPANY

Various locations, portlandcider.com. Hours vary.

Portland Cider has spent the past few weeks working to save area fruit from an undignified, ugly death on a hot sidewalk. Every year, the company asks people to bring in unwanted apples and pears from trees growing on their property and then turns them into a crisp, delicious beverage. The results of those efforts, Community Cider, are ready to enjoy. The flavor profile changes every year—the business is, after all, dealing with literal mixed bags of fruit—this year, 38,000 pounds were donated to its Clackamas facility. Go ahead and drink up; proceeds benefit an organization trying to expand free school lunch access to all Oregon students.

5. PONDEROSA LOUNGE & GRILL

10350 N Vancouver Way, 503-345-0300, jubitz. com/ponderosa-lounge-country-bar. 9 am-midnight Monday-Wednesday, 9 am-2 am Thursday-Friday, 8 am-2 am Saturday, 8 am-midnight Sunday.

In WW’s 2018 Bar Guide, we called the Ponderosa the “crown jewel” of Jubitz, which is more of a miniature city than a truck stop in far North Portland.

The lineup of country music performers is as solid as it was back then, and now the rowdy lounge is hosting a six-week Battle of the Bartenders, in which teams of two will go head to head March Madness style every Wednesday through Nov. 29 (7-9 pm). Judges will score competitors based on their signature drinks and knowledge, but audience support is also factored in. Sounds like the makings of a scene from Cocktail, so consider us in.

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THEY HAVE THE MEATS: Magna Kubo is a casual lechonería, with roasted meat and accompaniments as the focus.

Happy Hut Magna Kubo, the Beaverton spinoff of celebrated Southeast Portland restaurant Magna Kusina, brings some much-appreciated Filipino flavors to the westside.

BY M I C H A E L C . Z U S M A N P H OTO G R A P H S BY A A R O N L E E

A “kubo” is a traditional Filipino hut.

Magna Kubo is a storefront in Old Town Beaverton and an offshoot of Carlo Lamagna’s much-acclaimed Portland restaurant Magna Kusina. The latter provides sit-down, order-at-the-table service and Filipino fare presented with panache. Magna Kubo, which opened in June, also serves food from the Philippines, but emphasizes the simpler, more casual approach of a lechonería, with roasted meat and accompaniments as the focus.

A meal at Kubo begins at the counter a few paces inside the doorway. Here, orders are taken by unfailingly friendly folks who happily field questions from those unfamiliar with the cuisine. On my several visits since opening, this breaks down to about half the guests. The other half seem to be of Filipino heritage delighted that food from their homeland—which has a smaller presence in the metro area’s dining scene compared to fare from other Asian countries—has a

new purveyor on the suburban westside.

Once orders are placed, grab a number and have a seat in the small, simply furnished dining area. When Kubo first opened, waits could be long—at both lunch and dinner— but now that it has settled into a groove, crowds are often light and wait times tolerable.

The closest item on the menu to traditional lechon (strictly speaking, spit-roasted suckling pig) is liempo or crispy pork ($30). It is a pound of pure porcine pleasure: tender pale meat interspersed with layers of delectable, jiggly fat and a crunchy, golden-skin crust. It reminds me most of Cantonese-style roast pork belly. Given the generous portion served at Kubo, this is a dish best shared with a friend or two. It, like all the entrees, comes with rice, atcharra (made with pickled carrot, onion and garlic) and a side of sauce.

The traditional lechon dipping sauce of the Philippines is Mang Tomas. The brandname version of it is offered at Kubo: sweettart with a little garlic and onion flavoring plus the magic ingredient, ground pork liver.

It is the natural accompaniment to liempo.

For a leaner red meat treat, try the bistek ($28)—beef shoulder, technically called teres major, marinated in a bath of soy sauce and cola flavored with star anise and garlic. It’s a solid choice for the dedicated meathead. And instead of plain rice, why not upgrade to garlic fried rice ($4), with or without a fried egg on top ($1)? One can also feast on citrus- and fish sauce-marinated chicken (manok), which can be ordered by the quarter, half or whole bird ($17, $23, $34), or a deep-fried whole pompano ($25).

Need some veg with all that protein?

Among a decent-sized slate of options, I

Top 5

Hot Plates WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. WORLD VEGAN MONTH COURTESY WORLD VEGAN MONTH

was enchanted with laing ($12), coconut milk-braised greens and onion pepped up with fried shallots and chiles. It is both vegan and gluten-free. For kids and adults with less adventurous palates, Kubo also served a wagyu beef slider ($8) during my visits.

Four months in, Kubo still feels like a work in progress. Menu selections have come and gone, and the online version may or may not reflect current offerings. Food may come out more or less quickly. And in October, the restaurant began hosting game nights on Wednesdays. Learn to play mahjong and enjoy food and drink specials. And in

Various locations, instagram.com/veganizerpdx. Through Nov. 30; check participating restaurant websites for specific hours and days of operation.

Portland Dining Month may never be resurrected (another casualty of the pandemic), but now we do have a World Vegan Month dining program. The inaugural Veganizer PDX-organized event involves more than 20 restaurants— from Fermenter to Gnarlys to Obon Shokudo—offering specials starting as low as five bucks each. A portion of the sales of those items will go to selected nonprofits, while customers have the chance to earn gift cards by completing a World Vegan Month passport. It’s a win-win!

2. PALOMAR

959 SE Division St., #100, 971-357-8020, barpalomar.com.

5-10 pm Tuesday-Friday, 10 am-2 pm and 5-10 pm Saturday-Sunday.

All good things must come to an end, which, in the Pacific Northwest, means that many patios close down once the rainy season gets underway. While you may not have access to Palomar’s rooftop pop-up Tocayo for the next six months, the Cuban restaurant is using the seasonal shift to relaunch weekend brunch. Chef Ricky Bella’s new menu includes everything from a Frita McMuffin to a guava French toast soaked in Coco Lopez cream of coconut to a Benedict with roasted pork belly. And since Palomar knows how brutal those brunch lines can be, it offers reservations so you can skip the wait.

3. LA FLORIDITA PDX

4680 SW Watson Ave., B, Beaverton, 503-747-0509, laflocafe.com. 7:30 am-3 pm Wednesday-Saturday, 8 am-3 pm Sunday.

The latest Beaverton Farmers Market pop-up to graduate to brick-and-mortar is this Latin bakery. For the past two years, La Floridita has been the suburb’s go-to for croquetas and pastelitos—Cuban puff pastries with a variety of sweet or savory fillings. To prepare for growth, the business expanded its menu over the summer, so be sure to check out the papa rellenas (potato orbs stuffed with ground beef or chicken), pandebono (a cheese bread common in Colombia), tequeños (picture T.G.I. Friday’s mozzarella sticks only made with queso blanco and dough) and paletas. The cafe also serves coffee made with beans from Tourist Coffee, a woman-owned roaster in Bogotá.

4. MONTELUPO ITALIAN MARKET– EASTSIDE

late October, the Kubo crew added Sunday brunch service, featuring twisted takes on your morning favorites. The fun begins at 9 am.

Kubo is worth checking out, especially for those who have not yet had a chance to enjoy Filipino food. And it adds yet another positive Beaverton dining alternative, both for Portland escapees and those willing to make the short drive west.

EAT: Magna Kubo, 12406 SW Broadway, Beaverton, 971-268-5990, magnakubo. com. Noon-9 pm (or until sold out) Thurs-

1613 SE Bybee Blvd., 503-719-5650, montelupo.co/sellwood.

11 am-7 pm daily.

Forget pumpkin spice. We’re all about cacio e pepe season.

Sure, you could eat the simple yet stunning dish any time of year, but something about it says “peak fall.” And now Sellwood-Moreland residents have another source for adult mac and cheese: Montelupo, which boldly opened in Northeast Portland the summer of 2020, has spun off an eastside location. The intimate space offers take-home pasta that’s handmade daily as well as sauces, sandwiches and half-adozen focaccias—with toppings like Italian sausage, potato and guanciale, and goat cheese, you might just make a meal out of the bread and call it a night.

5. GEORGE’S CORNER TAVERN

5501 N Interstate Ave., 503-289-0307, georgescornertaver.wixsite.com/my-site. 10 am-2 am daily.

At the corner of North Interstate Avenue and Killingsworth Street for nearly a century, George’s is like the longtime character actor you are always happy to see. And like a good ensemble player, George’s has a little something for everyone: a solid whiskey list, a killer back patio, Jell-O and pudding shots, and super-friendly service. And perhaps George’s best (un)kept secret is its fried chicken and jojos, which give Reel M Inn a run for its money. A three-piece basket with a jojo upgrade will run you $18, and arrives hot and juicy. The proportions of potato and bird aren’t as freakishly gargantuan as those at our Southeast Portland fave, but they’ll arrive in minutes, rather than hours.

day-Sunday.

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COURTESY LAN SU CHINESE GARDEN

GET BUSY NOV. 1 - 7

STUFF TO DO IN PORTLAND THIS WEEK, INDOORS AND OUT.

FLOWER POWER: Lan Su Chinese Garden celebrates the chrysanthemum and all it symbolizes in Chinese culture this November.

WATCH: White Bird Presents: Ephrat Asherie Dance

For the first time ever, athletes can medal in break dancing at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris (the International Olympic Committee has officially named the event “breaking”), which means more people may be drawn to it thanks to the international exposure. Get up to speed on the art form now at a performance by Ephrat Asherie Dance, named after the group’s artist director, a New York City b-girl and choreographer. The company will make its Pacific Northwest debut when it presents Odeon, a remix of breaking, house and vogue set to a live soundtrack of samba and other Afro-Brazilian genres of music.

Lincoln Performance Hall at Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 503-2451600, whitebird.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday, Nov. 2-4. $38-$49.

GO: The Weird Portland Gala 2023

Portland’s weirdness has gone from cute and quirky to downright distressing, but those who still count themselves among the fans of the city’s strange, off-beat branding pre-pandemic should find something of interest at the Weird Portland Gala. You can expect all of the greatest hits from the 2010s to attend, from celebrity llamas to Moshow the Cat Rapper to The Unipiper. The Weird Portland Hall of Fame will also see its first class of inductees—individuals who’ve made a significant cultural impact on the Rose City. Potentially the best, or worst, part of the whole event should be the premiere of “We Are So Weird,” a song and music video inspired by 1985’s “We Are the World.”

Rainbow City, 301 NW 4th Ave., weirdportlandunited.org/gala23. 7:30-11 pm Friday, Nov. 3. $45–$250.

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SHOP: Legendary Makers Market: An Asian American Night Market

With more than 125 vendors and some 8,000 anticipated attendees, the Legendary Makers Market is poised to become the largest pan-Asian American-centered event ever held in Oregon, according to organizers. Expect to find many of the same features that make up the Portland Night Market—food, crafts and music.

However, there will also be film screenings and appearances by Asian American and Pacific Islander artists, including director Mike Truong of the James Beard Award-winning All the Homies Network and Luann Algoso, creator of the comedy web series Gabby Antonio Smashes the Imperialist, White Supremacist, Capitalist Patriarchy! If you’re more in the mood for self-care, be sure to check out the Wellness Refuge, which will have yoga sessions, acupuncture and massage therapy. Portland Night Market, 100 SE Alder St., pdxnm.com. 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday, Nov. 3-4. Free admission.

WATCH: Portland Queer Documentary Film Festival

Looking for some films that tell stories from a fresh perspective? Head to QDoc, the only festival in the U.S. and only one of two in the world devoted specifically to queer documentaries. Now celebrating its 15th year, this event is known for screening award-winning works fresh from Sundance, Tribeca and other top-tier fests.

The 18 films cover a wide range of topics— you can see them all or select just a few.

And with so many artists from around the world attending (at least three Academy Award-winning directors have shown up in the past), you never know who may be standing in the popcorn line with you. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503493-1128, qdocfilmfest.org. Times vary

Friday-Sunday, Nov. 3-5. $75 for a festival pass, $8-$10 for individual tickets.

GO: Nights of the Golden Flower

In November, the flora of focus tends to be the evergreen tree as we quickly transition from Halloween to the Yuletide (not that we condone Christmas creep). But in November, Lan Su Chinese Garden is all about the chrysanthemum, which symbolizes longevity, nobility and endurance in Chinese culture. A two-week festival dedicated to the bloom kicks off with Nights of the Golden Flower, which will feature glow-in-the-dark floral arrangements by renowned designer Donald Yim and more than a dozen local artists. Peruse each piece while sipping hot chrysanthemum tea, then vote for your favorite. Lan Su Chinese Garden, 239 NW Everett St., 503-228-8131, lansugarden.org. 4-6 pm Friday, 5-7 pm Saturday-Sunday, Nov. 3-5. $10-$25.

EAT & DRINK: Skamania Lodge Dine & Discover Series With Great Notion Brewing

Not the kind of place to coast along on nostalgia and name recognition, Skamania Lodge just keeps adding amenities to its sprawling property overlooking the Columbia River in the Gorge. In recent years, that has included everything from a newly designed golf course, an 18-hole putt-putt experience, and two sheltered outdoor pavilions—the newest boasts an openair grill and bar. More space also means more opportunities to host events, like the Dine & Discover Series, which is currently scheduled to take place monthly through April. Each multicourse meal will feature a beverage partner from Oregon or Washington. Up first is Portland’s Great Notion Brewing. You’ll work your way through five dishes and five beers: an Italian Pilsner, a

bourbon barrel-aged imperial stout and three styles of IPA. Skamania Lodge, 1131 SW Skamania Lodge Way, Stevenson, Wash., 844-432-4748, skamania.com. 5:30 pm Saturday, Nov. 4. $125.

GO: Diwali Festival at The Judy There will be dozens of Diwali festivals across the metro area over the next two weeks, but if you’re looking for a family-friendly way to celebrate the Hindu festival of lights (as opposed to a latenight Bollywood dance party), Northwest Children’s Theater has an option tailor-made for kiddos. Attendees can decorate rangoli (ornate geometric patterns), adorn their hands with henna designs, and learn a traditional dance. Sweet and savory Indian foods will be available for purchase from The Big Elephant Kitchen.

The Judy Kafoury Center for Youth Arts, 1000 SW Broadway, T-100, 503-222-2190, nwcts.org/the-judy. 10 am-2 pm Sunday, Nov. 5. Free.

GO: Día de Los Muertos Celebration

This First Tuesday’s Art Walk in Hillsboro will have a bonus feature: the Día de Los Muertos Celebration. From 7 to 8:30 pm, watch traditional dancing and drumming

by Huehca Omeyocan, a local performance group dedicated to the arts of the pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican people.

Starting at 5 pm, there will also be a Day of the Dead pop-up exhibit on display as well as an altar to honor the spirits of the deceased. Walters Cultural Arts Center, 527 E Main St., Hillsboro, 503-615-3485, Hillsboro-Oregon.gov/Walters. 5-8:30 pm Tuesday, Nov. 7. Free.

SEE MORE GET BUSY EVENTS AT WWEEK.COM/CALENDAR

WHEN YOU NEED HELP, WHO YOU GONNA CALL? I NEED EMERGENCY SERVICES: to reach dispatch for Fire, Ambulance, Police, and Portland Street Response.

I NEED SOCIAL SERVICES: to get help accessing food, employment, housing or childcare.

I NEED LOCAL GOVERNMENT SERVICES IN PORTLAND AND MULTNOMAH COUNTY: to ask a question, request assistance, or report an issue related to local government.

I NEED AN INTERPRETER: When someone answers, say the language you wish to speak.

Allow 2-5 minutes to connect with an interpreter. Do not hang up.

Wait until the interpreter has been connected.

Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

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ESCAPES

Hike of the Month:

Indian Creek Trail This urban trek through Hood River rewards with fall colors and a caffeine pit stop.

BY A DA M S AW Y E R P H OTO S C O U R T E S Y O F H O O D R I V E R VA L L E Y PA R K S A N D R E C

Two segments of the Indian Creek Trail, when eventually joined, will total roughly 6 miles. This shorter sojourn begins high above Hood River and then explores both sides of a canyon surrounding the creek, with an optional coffee break thrown in for good measure. It’s a wonderful urban hike that showcases a ton of wildflowers in spring, blackberries in summer, and a good smattering of color in fall.

This old trail connects the upper and lower parts of the city and is located alongside an old wooden flume that supplied water to a downtown fruit cannery (it is no longer in service).

While battered and bruised in some places, the chamber is in remarkably good shape, all things considered.

From the parking lot, walk up the road past a woodshed and pick up the trail on the left. The path descends into the trees briefly before beginning a steady ascent. To your left, oak trees cling to a steep hillside with the Hood River below it.

After little more than one-tenth of a mile, you’ll reach a bench with the only real view of the river you’re going to get on this trek, so soak it up.

After four-tenths of a mile, the trail bends to the right and enters the canyon. You’ll hear Indian Creek far below, but you won’t necessarily get a good look at it until later on. During summer, this long stretch is brimming with trail snacks in the form of blackberries and plums. Soon, the flume comes into view and parallels the trail for some distance.

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M C K E N Z I E YO U N G - R OY @ M C K E N Z I E YO U N G A R T

The trail leaves the woods near a power substation, bends to the left, and crosses Indian Creek where it pours through a culvert near a junction.

If you want to do the 3.2-mile hike that stays in the canyon, make a left onto the trail leading back into the ravine on the south side of the creek.

We’ll come back to that shortly. For now, continue straight to the junction of 12th Street and Pacific Avenue toward a Dutch Bros Coffee, an optional pit stop for a walk-up beverage.

Cross 12th Street and make a right to pick up the trail on your left. The path then descends and crosses over Indian Creek and makes a hard left.

Follow the grassy trail alongside the creek for two-tenths of a mile and continue straight onto a boardwalk before arriving at a picnic bench and the official end of this segment. The plan is for the city to acquire an easement here to connect with the other section of the Indian Creek Trail.

But for now, it’s private property, so head back the way you came.

After crossing the street and walking down past the Dutch Bros, arrive back at the earlier trail junction at the top of the canyon. Take the trail to the right and enjoy another boardwalk stroll through an attractive forest on the south side of the creek. Ascend a set of stairs and cross over a series of footbridges, staying straight at any junctions.

The trail then passes by an opening where you get a pretty good view of Mount Hood on clear days. Continue hiking through a shady stretch of mixed forest for another tenth of a mile and arrive at a bench with a view of little more than the trees directly in front of it. The trail continues a short distance out to the Betty Lou Avenue Trailhead, but the bench makes for a good turnaround point.

Head back to the junction with the main trail, take a right and return to the trailhead parking area.

DISTANCE: 4.2 miles or 3.2 miles, out and back DIFFICULTY:  out of  DISTANCE FROM PORTLAND: Approximately 63 miles DIRECTIONS: From Portland, take Interstate 84 east to Exit 63 and turn right onto 2nd Street. Drive 0.2 miles and make a right onto State Street followed by a quick left onto 6th Street. Continue onto Serpentine Road and, in 0.2 miles, veer left onto Hazel Avenue. Drive a final 0.3 miles to the small Hazel Avenue Trailhead parking lot on the right.

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W H AT TO S E E A N D W H AT TO H E A R

BY DA N I E L B R O M F I E L D @ b r o m f 3

COURTESY OF THE GORIES

SUNDAY, NOV. 5:

MUSIC

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson | Contact: bennett@wweek.com

Second Act

C O U R T E S Y O F C H AT P I L E

Oklahoma sludge-rock band Chat Pile has made American industrial and infrastructural decay its primary subject, and frontman Raygun Busch tackles it with gusto and good humor. Despite the gnarly riffs and even gnarlier subject matter on their debut album, God’s Country, there’s something fundamentally endearing about the band, and their goofy stage names have as much to do with it as their obvious empathy for Americans who didn’t ask to be born in a crumbling late-capitalist empire. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 8 pm. $25. All ages.

Earl Sweatshirt performs as if the act of rapping is the only thing keeping him standing on two feet. Since debuting more than a decade ago as Odd Future’s teen prodigy, the 29-year-old MC has sharpened his bars while thickening the production haze around them, resulting in some truly soupy and cryptic music (and polarizing—“East” is a litmus test for rap fans). Comfortable in the knowledge that he’s one of the most technically gifted rappers of his generation, Earl does whatever the hell he wants. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St. 8 pm. $35.

All ages.

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C O U R T E S Y O F E A R L S W E AT S H I R T

TUESDAY, NOV. 7:

How Grails reinvented itself in the wake of the pandemic.

BY DA N I E L B R O M F I E L D @ b r o m f 3

Eighties revivalism is all the rage right now, from synth pop to Stranger Things. But you can count Portland rock band Grails out of the conversation.

Founder, drummer and guitarist Emil Amos is surprised that critics have compared his band’s new record Anches En Maat to that glossiest and greediest of American decades, which he describes as generally “too cut and dry” for his tastes. To him, Maat more closely reflects the spirit of the ’70s, the decade in which “the maggots and entrails of the culture lie.”

Listening to the seven grand, sweeping instrumentals on Anches En Maat, it’s not hard to think of the baroque-soul opuses of Isaac Hayes, the thunder of Get Up With It-era Miles Davis, and the general spirit of a time when musicians around the world were hurtling headfirst into the expansive and expressive possibilities of electric guitar music. And yet, according to guitarist Ilyas Ahmed, nothing the band does is “deliberate.”

“It’s not like we’re genre-hopping collage artists or anything where it’s like, let’s make something that sounds like the Knight Rider soundtrack or something,” says Ahmed, the only member of the band who currently lives in Portland.

“We didn’t know we were going,” adds Amos, who lives in North Carolina. “That’s the beauty of art, and that’s why we still care. We’re not going to stop dreaming, and there’s something about that that’s totally dangerous.”

Amos and guitarist Alex Hall are the two remaining founders of the band, which has released eight albums since 2003. Though prolific in their early years, the band has worked at a slower pace as of late.

Maat is their first album since 2017’s Chalice Hymnal, which had been their first since 2011’s Deep Politics.

Amos and Ahmed first met while backing Damo Suzuki, the wildcard singer known for fronting the legendary German rock band Can. However, the current lineup of Grails—which is scattered across the U.S. and added Ahmed and Pittsburgh percussionist A.E. Paterra in the years since Chalice Hymnal—first convened without even having met or played together as a complete unit.

“The first time this lineup played in a room, there was chemistry,” says Ahmed. “We wrote new music the first day we played together.

I think that speaks to a collective experience that at the time was unspoken, maybe. We were all coming at music from the same sort of broken, desperate characters that we are a little bit.”

Anches En Maat is the first album the band has recorded together

C O U R T E SY O F G R A I L S /S O U R C E : FAC E B O O K

No history of American garage rock is complete without The Gories. Hailing from Detroit—a city with a storied tradition of feral, primal rock ’n’ roll, from the MC5 to the Stooges to Funkadelic—the Gories updated ’60s-style garage rock in the ’80s by turning up the bluesiness and dialing down the sophistication to near-Stone Age levels of primitivism.

Upon reuniting in 2009, the trio entered a second phase as a formidable touring act whose shows are a testament to the power of rudimentary rock noise.

Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. 8 pm. $25. All ages.

MONDAY, NOV. 6:

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y M C K E N Z I E YO U N G - R OY @ M C K E N Z I E YO U N G A R T

SHOWS OF THE WEEK

in one room since 2008’s Doomsdayer’s Holiday. The group recorded the initial tracks for it in 2019, right before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world of live music and in-person recording and left the band’s future uncertain.

According to Amos, Grails was conceived at a time when the idea of “getting in the van and creating a legend” was a more tangible prospect for young bands than this current, historically terrible time to be a touring and recording music group. That idealism has fluctuated over the ensuing decades, but the pandemic was a historic low point, when “the whole machine broke down extensively and we had to rebuild it with what idealism there was left, which was almost none.”

“Everyone’s kind of in this ultra-despair mode right now about what it means to be a musician or being like a working musician or a writer and all these things,” Ahmed says. “We’re still kind of allowed to do our thing because we’ve put so much time and energy into feeding our identity and making it stronger that it never boiled over.”

Once live music began to open back up, there was only one thing to do: fly to Portland and save the band. Grails performed its first show since the pandemic last July at Lúnasa Cascadia, a five-day campout in the woods west of Portland. Though a neo-pagan festival celebrating the beginning of the harvest season seems a strange place for a critically acclaimed underground rock band to reconvene, the gig was crucial to their rediscovery of their sound and identity following the pandemic.

“That show and all the practicing, it basically was the first day of the rest of our lives as a band,” Amos says. “After that, everybody got on their red-eyes and flew off, and all of a sudden we had a band again.”

The group subsequently embarked on a European Union tour throughout October of this year with support from James Blackshaw, an English acoustic guitarist who recently returned to recording and performing after a hiatus of nearly a decade.

“We didn’t know what was going to happen,” Amos says. “We didn’t know if we were going to get there and have a disaster and be financially ruined. But it was a total success in a spiritual category that I think is more dramatic because of the pandemic and how everything broke down and our idealism broke down.”

Anches En Maat came out Sept. 22 on Brooklyn label Temporary Residence Ltd. The band sees it as a sort of reset, a clean slate, and is excited about the possibilities to come. “We could cut anything and make any kind of follow-up record,” Amos says. “The band could go anywhere. We could do a modern broken-electronics record. We could make a Barry White record. We could do anything now.” Just don’t expect them to make anything that sounds like the ’80s.

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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson | Contact: bennett@wweek.com

PHILIP NEWTON / PORTLAND OPERA

SHOW REVIEW BANDCAMP

CULTURE

Michael Hurley at Laurelthirst

BY R O B E R T H A M

Wedding Bells Portland Opera leans into the buffoonish ribaldry of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

BY E R I C A S H

The Marriage of Figaro is, metaphorically, a veritable grand tour of Europe. It also has the makings of a classic joke: an Austrian composer and an Italian librettist walk into a bar, armed with a French comedy lampooning longtime class mores in a Spanish setting, ready to set it to music in a new style.

For the fifth time in its nearly 60 years, Portland Opera presents the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the libretto of Lorenzo da Ponte. Adapted from the 1784 play by Pierre Beaumarchais, The Marriage of Figaro debuted at Vienna’s Burgtheater in 1786, and at the Portland Opera in 1971.

Many players in this production made their Portland Opera debuts on opening night at Keller Auditorium on Sat., Oct. 28.

Among them are Jesús Vicente Murillo in the title role, as well as Tesia Kwarteng as Marcellina, housekeeper to the doctor Bartolo (Matthew Burns, who will reprise the role in an upcoming production at Inland Northwest Opera in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho).

Richard Ollarsaba, who plays the dastardly Count Almaviva, was the crowd favorite for his entertainingly villainous performance; during intermission, the audience marveled at his great range of facial expressions, and only when he took the stage during the final bow did they rise to their feet.

Even centuries after the opera’s debut, the

Count’s entitled attitude and petty melodramas still ring true as a clownish caricature of a greedy aristocrat (because the source material was banned in Vienna, Mozart, being in the court of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, and da Ponte had to actually tone down the class-based satire).

In the story, the Count is said to have finally forsaken his longtime practice of stealing into the bedrooms of couples in his service and having his way. Still, he has untoward designs on Figaro’s betrothed, Susanna (Leela Subramaniam), spurring Figaro, Susanna and Countess Almaviva (Laquita Mitchell) to concoct complex stratagems to outwit the Count.

Under the direction of Fenlon Lamb, who has played several roles in this opera (Cherubino as a soprano, then later Marcellina as a mezzo), Subramaniam and Mitchell stand out as the story focuses greatly on their characters’ conflicts with the Count, and the steps they take to challenge him (in Toi Toi Toi, Portland Opera’s magazine, Lamb wrote, “I’ve always been caught up with and incensed by Susanna’s plight and the Countess’s fears and sadness as they both grapple with the consequences of the Count’s unwanted advances”).

One plan is to trick the Count into a romantic rendezvous, but ensuring that he instead meets a disguised Cherubino (Deepa Johnny, who earned almost as much applause

as Ollarsaba did at the end of the show). As Cherubino is a lusty teenager who takes every chance he can get to flirt with and feel up every woman in sight, Susanna and the Countess delight in putting dresses and makeup on him.

Though much of the opera is defined by a subtle sharpness in its wit, its greatest strength is knowing when to dial the comedy knob to a broader setting. Hence the Count and Cherubino’s buffoonish ribaldry, the cliffhangers between acts, and mistaken identity gags (especially during a final act largely set in a garden maze) that lead to a coda filled with grace and forgiveness.

The 2023-24 season of the Portland Opera will continue with Enchanted Woods (a Shakespeare-inspired program), The Snowy Day (based on the children’s book by Ezra Jack Keats), and Puccini: In Concert. But for a season opener, it doesn’t come any funnier than The Marriage of Figaro and its elaborate, involved schemes, which ensure that no one (least of all the Count) spoils the occasion.

SEE IT: The Marriage of Figaro plays at the Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 503-241-1802, portlandopera.org. 7:30 pm Friday and 2 pm Sunday, Nov. 3 and 5. Tickets start at $70.

With all the upheaval and uncertainty happening within the music community—both here at home and around the world—isn’t it a wonderful thing to know that one of the hottest tickets in Portland remains an octogenarian singer-songwriter who performs tunes about werewolves, lightgreen fellows, and painting a mural of a fire-breathing dragon?

Michael Hurley is one of the true treasures of the Northwest, a bona fide freak-folk nonpareil whose work has been celebrated or covered by the likes of Cat Power and Jeff Tweedy. It’s the kind of acclaim that most other artists would squeeze every last drop out of, using it as a source of money or ego strokes. Instead, behold Hurley, playing a happy hour set for a few dozen scraggly folk at Laurelthirst as he does every last Friday.

It makes for a packed house at the roots music hub that borders on uncomfortable.

But when I watched Hurley perform, the bonhomie in the room and the respect that everyone had for him and the venue made up for it all. As per the Laurelthirst’s request on its online calendar, attendees kept quiet during the set, listening with hushed reverence and the occasional frisson of joy.

If this had any effect on Hurley, he didn’t show it. He slipped onstage with drummer Rachel Blumberg without warning or announcement, kicking into “O My Stars” before his bassist and saxophonist had a chance to strap in. The set ambled on from there, with Hurley concentrating on the lines he was picking out on his hollow-body Gibson and his gruff vocals rather than anything happening in front of him.

Hurley only broke protocol to introduce the show’s “dance program”: a young tap dancer in multicolored tights who provided wobbly but delightful auxiliary percussion with their feet. By the end of the second song with the dancer, even Hurley realized how wonderfully silly it all was, laughing to the point of tears.

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MOVIES

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson Contact: bennett@wweek.com

C O U R T E S Y G O R G E I M PA C T F I L M F E S T I VA L

screener

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REJOICE, REJOICE: A scene from JOJO, showing at Saturday’s Gorge Impact Film Festival.

Voice of the Planet The Gorge Impact Film Festival faces the climate crisis with both pragmatism and hope.

BY C H A N C E S O L E M - P F E I F E R @ c h a n c e _ s _ p

In a skiing and windsurfing hub like Hood River, the founders of the Gorge Impact Film Festival didn’t want to put on just “another mountain outdoor festival.” After all, in the contemporary festival landscape, there’s a nearly endless supply of handsome, well-intentioned films in which outdoor adventurers strap on a GoPro or environmental activists grieve a decimated ecosystem via drone-captured overhead shots.

Instead, festival directors Alan Hickenbottom, Leith Gaines and Sean O’Connor tried to curate a specific thesis for the festival’s inaugural year. On Nov. 4, at The Ruins in Hood River, they’ll program a day of 16 films posing the question “Now what?” with a subtitle of “Joy, Hope, and Optimism on a Changed Planet.”

“We didn’t want to be Pollyannaish about it,” Hickenbottom tells WW. “The challenges we are undergoing as a planet and society are real. But as we like to say, the planet is not going anywhere and neither are we, so what do we do?”

The directors have seen short-lived film festivals come and go in their cumulative decades in the Columbia River Gorge, so they’re striving for the organizational and logistical balance to create something sustainable. Festival director Hickenbottom has decades of experience in renewable energy and entrepreneurship; program director Gaines is immersed in Hood River’s art scene as an administrator and nonprofit director; and creative director O’Connor (a filmmaker himself ) carries firsthand knowledge of independent filmmaking and the international festival circuit.

The result is a one-day slate of films featuring panthers, surfing, regenerative farming, the Klamath River, and much more. On a human level, many of the selections emphasize how the visions of driven individuals ripple into a collective impact.

That includes Paddle Tribal Waters, about Paul Robert Wolf Wilson’s efforts to prepare Indigenous youth to kayak the whitewater of the Klamath River when major dams are removed in 2024; Between Earth & Sky, about the transformative canopy science of ecologist Nalini Nadkarni, whose contagious enthusiasm and treetop research innovations evolved her field; and Ultimate Citizens, about Seattle guidance counselor Jamshid Khajavi employing a Frisbee (among other

tools) to help make sense of immigrant and refugee experiences.

“We’ve all met those special human beings that just radiate positive force,” Gaines says of Jamshid Khajavi, who will attend Nov. 4. “They can’t help themselves.”

Most of the Gorge Impact selections—picked from a pool of nearly 100 submissions—are hopeful in tone but thread a needle of bracing reality and forward thinking. “It’s sort of a glib thought, but we weren’t really interested in any films with pictures of emaciated polar bears on tiny icebergs,” Hickenbottom says.

“We’re past that. We had those. They didn’t work.”

The Gorge Impact Festival also marks a long-awaited homecoming for O’Connor’s own film: Kumari: A Father’s Dream. A decade in the making, Kumari spotlights the life and work of trekking guide Jagat Lama and his mission to bring essential health care to his remote Nepalese village before and after a catastrophic 2015 earthquake.

An official selection of the Banff Mountain Film Festival, Kumari kicks off the Nov. 4 festival’s evening block of films—the first time many of its Oregon supporters will have a chance to see it. “Oh, man, I’m going to cry,” O’Connor says in anticipation of the local premiere. “It’s going to be humbling and beautiful to show my neighbors what it is.”

Nobody wants to get ahead of themselves a week before a film festival’s inaugural run, but the Gorge Impact Film Festival was 70% of the way to a sellout with two weeks to go, with the only notable hiccup being the closure of the Hood River-White Salmon Bridge the weekend of the festival.

Hickenbottom, Gaines and O’Connor say they intentionally designed this year’s event as a manageable single-day outing catering to a little more than a 100 guests. If all goes well, the long-term goal is an annual presence as Hood River’s first long-running film festival.

“Our little vision is that Hood River is overrun in one of the first weekends of November every year with filmmakers and film fans,” Hickenbottom says.

“That’s what we’d love to get to.”

SEE IT: The Gorge Impact Film Festival screens at The Ruins, 13 Railroad St., Hood River, 541-308-0700, theruins.org. Various showtimes Saturday, Nov. 4. $30-$75.

MOVIES R O T T E N T O M AT O E S

TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

THE KILLER “Forbid empathy.” The nameless assassin (Michael Fassbender) at the corroded core of David Fincher’s The Killer chants that command throughout the film, conditioning himself to be cruel. Reunited with Se7en screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker, the director has made a thriller that makes you feel as if the icy blood of its protagonist is coursing through your veins, an experience that is as exhilarating as it is unnerving. When we first meet the Killer, he’s killing nothing but time, feasting on McDonald’s and listening to The Smiths as he awaits the arrival of a target in Paris. He’s methodical to a fault, but he makes a catastrophic mistake—and the woman he loves (Sophie Charlotte) pays the price. Incidentally, who is she? The Killer’s girlfriend? His wife?

Revolting against the niceties of backstory, Fincher trusts the faces of his actors (including Tilda Swinton, who plays a rival assassin with haunting poise) to speak the story. His faith in Fassbender is amply rewarded—even the way the actor’s arms smoothly swing past his hips is expressive—but Fincher is the true star of the film.

Adapting a French graphic novel series, he transforms a deliberately spare plot into a banquet of suspense that leaves a troubling aftertaste. It can’t be an accident that all of the Killer’s victims are women and people of color—or that the one life he spares is that of a Caucasian male. Some will interpret The Killer as an uncompromising attack on white supremacy; others will see Fincher as, at best, a white filmmaker bumbling into a conversation he can barely understand. How he responds to the audience’s reaction will determine if, unlike the Killer, he understands the difference between precision and comprehension. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Hollywood.

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

Martin Scorsese’s final act is that of an American tragedian, and in Killers of the Flower Moon, the 80-year-old film icon unflinchingly dramatizes the history of white, 1920s Oklahomans wreaking intrafamily genocide on the Osage people after oil is discovered beneath the tribe’s lands. The murders are underway when Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns from World War I to work for his uncle (Robert De Niro), a cattle baron whose actual business is infiltrating the Osage community and plotting to steal their fortunes. Thus, Ernest’s personal sins will become inextricable from his work, even if DiCaprio wears a perfectly dumb underbite to suggest the character is straining not to comprehend his deeds. There’s no such underplaying of intelligence by Lily Gladstone (Certain Women), whose acting superpower is gentle directness. She plays Mollie, an Osage woman who loses family members fast when she marries Ernest. In the film’s only glaring flaw, the script leaves Mollie, its most important Osage character, wanting for moments of dynamism amid her suffering.

That said, Killers of the Flower Moon isn’t about dynamism or change; like The Irishman, it commits over three hours to study crushing inevitability. The film is at once a crime epic, a spiritual

exorcism, a portrait of a ne’erdo-well, a black comedy about the FBI’s birth, and a ballad for those who didn’t see modernity coming. It is also about movies, as Scorsese reminds us with a brilliant closing comment on the nature of true crime and mass media. If this is one of Scorsese’s last films, behold the bracing reflection of a murderer, a nation, and a legendary artist all asking: “What have I done?” R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Academy, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Cinemagic, City Center, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin, Studio One.

SCRAPPER

Georgie (Lola Campbell) gets along OK by herself. Secretly living alone after her mother’s death, the 12-year-old cleans her suburban London flat, hauls out the trash, and nicks bicycles to make the rent. It’s a sad state made nearly adorable by zippy filmmaking and Georgie’s precocious yet hard-bitten energy. In Scrapper, Campbell channels the soul of a grifter in ways not seen since teenage Kaitlyn Dever on Justified, but before neighbors and teachers detect that Georgie lives unsupervised, her long-lost father Jason (Harris Dickinson of Triangle of Sadness fame) surfaces after years of partying in Ibiza.

In her dad, Georgie finds her reflection—sometimes identical, sometimes inverse. He may look like a soccer hooligan, but he shares Georgie’s industriousness and has a child’s kooky sense of humor, bringing out the dubious adult in his daughter. Scrapper director Charlotte Regan, who hails from this working-class London milieu, effortlessly captures how the community wildly crisscrosses in the shared spaces around their pastel, candy-colored flats.

While sudden detours into mockumentary, magical realism, and surveillance aesthetics make it seem like she’s emptying a bag of styles in her feature debut, Regan still manages to succeed by empowering her actors—whether they’re the star of last year’s Palme d’Or winner or 12 years old. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

WHEN EVIL LURKS

Ed and Lorraine Warren (of Conjuring fame) once hypothesized that demons operate in three progressive stages: infestation, oppression and possession. Alternatively, When Evil Lurks is more of a “wham, bam, demon already swelling inside 400-pound man” kind of picture.

That’s the immediate inciting grotesquery of director Demián Rugna’s depiction of a demonic force—or “a rotten” as the amazing Spanish translation goes— infecting humans and beasts in the Argentine backcountry.

Adult brothers Jimmy (Demián Salomón) and Pedro (Ezequiel Rodríguez) initially hope they can mercy-kill their bedridden neighbor who’s hosting the evil, but it won’t be that easy. As the contagion’s power emerges, Rugna’s first two acts soar with constant “out of the frying pan, into the fire” logic and pacing. It’s all tumors and mouth sounds and child endangerment expressing the dire emotional state of Pedro in particular, grounding the film’s no-prisoners shock value. Granted, When Evil Lurks can’t quite sustain its impressive escalation (Jimmy and Pedro’s third-act meeting with a “rotten” expert slows the climax to something more procedural). But if your Halloween watchlist needs a sick new heart and brain breaker, try a movie that’s liberal with its entrails and where a demon hunter professes with a straight face: “Evil likes children, and children like evil.” NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Shudder.

DICKS: THE MUSICAL

There is a moment in Dicks: The Musical when a no-bullshit corporate titan (Megan Thee Stallion) launches into a BDSM song-and-dance routine, which earns the approval of none other than God (Bowen Yang). “Bitch, that was fun,” the Almighty declares. Far be it from me to disagree with a deity, but he and I clearly have different definitions of “fun,” given that the musical number is like every scene in Dicks—tuneless, witless and so mechanically directed that you will pray to be teleported to an alternate timeline where John Waters directed this mess instead of the depressingly serviceable

Larry Charles (Borat). Based on the musical Fucking Identical Twins, Dicks stars Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp (who wrote the play and the film) as manic Wall Street bros who discover they’re twins and scheme to reunite their divorced parents, Harris and Evelyn (Nathan Lane and Megan Mullally). If Charles knew how to film a musical, he might have been able to redeem the movie’s barely melodic songs, but you never feel movement of the music or the characters.

And while there’s no denying the film’s wholesome intentions—a little incest aside, it’s mostly a bighearted fable about self-acceptance—Jackson and Sharp’s frantic, almost literally eye-popping performances suggest that their theater and television work failed to prepare them for the subtler demands of the big screen. Lane, however, manages to modulate his explosive energy, despite being saddled with the film’s cringiest scene: Harris chewing meat and spitting it into the mouths of inbred creatures called Sewer Boys. Needless to say, food, like humor, is a matter of taste. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cascade, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Vancouver Mall.

PRISCILLA

Sofia Coppola didn’t just make a masterpiece called Lost in Translation—she’s become contemporary cinema’s reigning expert on lostness. She shows us what it is to be adrift, alone, yearning—the way Priscilla Presley (Cailee Spaeny) is when she wanders through the luxuriant chambers of Graceland in Coppola’s flawed and entrancing biographical film. Elvis (a superb Jacob Elordi) spends most of the movie preoccupied with his celebrity and his infidelity, though he’s slightly more attentive to Priscilla when they meet in Germany in 1959 (when she’s 14 and he’s 24). In these scenes, the film’s best, Elvis bewitches his future bride with his manly brooding over whether he’ll have a musical career when he completes his military service. “Sure you will!” Priscilla insists, her face radiating belief. Yes, Elvis will have a career, but she won’t be a part of it. Instead, she’ll be reduced to a virginal plaything for him to gaslight, neglect and abuse (in one scene, he hurls a chair at her head). Rapturously alive with desire but unflinching in its portrait of Elvis as a predator, Priscilla shreds the mythmaking of Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. It is a superior film in every respect, but once it gets to Graceland, the beautifully measured pace of the Germany prologue evaporates. Rushing through years of betrayal and bliss, the film starts to feel as if it’s checking boxes on a timeline rather than evoking Priscilla’s experience. As always, she’s lost in her own story. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Vancouver Mall.

LETTERBOXD

GET YOUR REPS IN

Clearcut (1991) There’s a way of summarizing Clearcut as the journey of white environmental lawyer Peter Maguire (Ron Lea) toward truly understanding the stakes of an Indigenous community’s fight against logging barons. But forget that. If you’re watching Clearcut, you’re there to see Graham Greene.

The legendary First Nations actor plays Arthur, a rifle-toting tribesman who decides that the time for court appeals (Maguire’s specialty) and civil disobedience has long passed.

The earliest sign that Arthur isn’t playing around arrives during a boat ride when Maguire lectures Arthur about written versus oral storytelling traditions in Indigenous cultures. Arthur responds by biting the head off a snake, spitting it into the lake, and quipping, “That’s oral tradition.”

In an equally exquisite moment, Greene reclines tranquilly in the boat’s nose, his fingers kissing the black water on either side. It’s the first of many times Polish director Ryszard Bugajski visually communicates Arthur’s near-ghostly unity with the wilderness. It’s not only his land; it’s his movie.

Just one year after Greene starred in Dances With Wolves, his performance in Clearcut is a subversive retort to Wolves’ brand of Hollywood-safe white saviorism. Arthur is as playful as he is brutal, with such gravitational force as to consume the framing narrative and compel Maguire and the audience into a spiritual war. Clinton, Nov. 4.

ALSO PLAYING: 5th Avenue: Monsters University (2013), Nov. 3-5. Cinema 21: Goodfellas (1990), Nov. 4.

Cinemagic: Demonic Toys (1992), Nov. 3. Hollywood: Romeo + Juliet (1996), Nov. 6. Programmed to Kill (1987), Nov. 7.

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TRUE SCENES FROM THE STREETS! @sketchypeoplepdx

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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 1, 2023 wweek.com

by Jack Kent

JONESIN’

FREE WILL

B Y M AT T J O N E S

"A Mild-Mannered Introduction"--sounds like I've heard this before.

ASTROLOGY ARIES

(March 21-April 19): "Our bodies sometimes serve as the symbolic ground where order and disorder fight for supremacy," writes storyteller Caroline Kettlewell. Here's good news, Aries: For you, order will triumph over disorder in the coming weeks. In part through your willpower and in part through life's grace, you will tame the forces of chaos and enjoy a phase when most everything makes sense. I don't mean you will have zero problems, but I suspect you will have an enhanced power to solve problems. Your mind and heart will coordinate their efforts with exceptional flair.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I recently endured a

three-hour root canal. Terrible and unfortunate, right? No! Because it brought profound joy. The endodontist gave me nitrous oxide, and the resulting euphoria unleashed a wild epiphany. For the duration of the surgery, I had vivid visions of all the people in my life who love me. I felt their care. I was overwhelmed with the kindness they felt for me. Never before had I been blessed with such a blissful gift. Now, in accordance with your astrological omens, I invite you to induce a similar experience—no nitrous oxide needed. It's a perfect time to meditate on how well you are appreciated and needed and cherished.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Unless you are very

ACROSS

55. Show with a libretto

1. Sulk around

58. Yemeni port

30. Game using a rope

5. Quid pro quo

59. "Coldest drink in town" brand

31. Spy's collection

9. Fictional college in "Animal House" 14. Ugandan dictator exiled in 1979 15. Prefix meaning "half" 16. Vibrant 17. South African cash 18. One requiring tech support

60. Stand-up kind of person?

61. "The Legend of Zelda" hero 62. Calls, in poker 63. Tree part 64. Calls at Wimbledon

23. More than important 24. Pet diversion 25. "Ghosts" airer, originally

36. To the back of the boat 38. K-_ _ _ (big name in record compilations)

DOWN 1. 1970s Lincoln Continental 2. Sultanate inhabitant

32. Two-dimensional figure

4. Dove's stance

33. Fictional (or is she?) conductor Lydia

5. Avoid

35. College freshmen, usually

7. Pt. of MPAA

40. Desirable brownie parts, for some

34. Burning desire

44. Actress Stephanie of "Everything Everywhere All at Once"

3. White wine grape that's usually harvested early

37. Silent W?

33. Annoying pest

39. Subj. for new citizens' night classes

28. More abrasive

36. Watchful

32. _ _ _-weekly (newspaper category)

65. Prefix with while

19. "For real" 20. Silent K?

29. It might be unsweetened

6. Sunset direction 8. "Our Flag Means Death" craft 9. Like Michelin-starred restaurants

45. "Forrest Gump" actor Gary 47. Food on a short plane ride, maybe 49. "Head, Shoulders, _ _ _ and Toes" (_ _ _ and toes) 50. Get rid of, metabolically 51. Joker's permanent look 52. Actress Falco 53. Well-mannered bloke 54. Squid sprays 55. Pumpkin-carving mo.

41. "Ocean's Eleven" job

10. Additive in some moisturizers

56. _ _ _ favor (please, in Spanish)

42. Calendar page, sometimes

11. Ballpoint pen maker

57. Flightless ratite

43. Stir turbulently 44. In dire straits 46. Paid player 47. Abbr. on maps, until 1991 48. Romantic poet Rainer Maria _ _ _ 51. Silent G?

12. Actress Mendes 13. Sales position 21. Best of the best 22. Conjunction with neither 25. Bakery device 26. "It's deja vu all over again" sayer 27. Spiteful

last week’s answers

unusual, you don’t sew your clothes or grow your food. You didn’t build your house, make your furniture, or forge your cooking utensils. Like most of us, you know little about how water and electricity arrive for your use. Do you have any notion of what your grandparents were doing when they were your age? Have you said a prayer of gratitude recently for the people who have given you so much? I don’t mean to put you on the spot with my questions, Gemini. I’m merely hoping to inspire you to get into closer connection with everything that nourishes and sustains you.

Honor the sources of your energy. Pay homage to your foundations.

CANCER

(June 21-July 22): Cancerian singersongwriter Suzanne Vega has had a modest but sustained career. With nine albums, she has sold over three million records, but is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She has said, "I always thought that if I were popular, I must be doing something wrong." I interpret that to mean she has sought to remain faithful to her idiosyncratic creativity and not pay homage to formulaic success. But here's the good news for you in the coming months, fellow Cancerian: You can be more appreciated than ever before simply by being true to your soul's inclinations and urges.

LEO

(July 23-Aug. 22): "Everything in the world has a hidden meaning," wrote Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis. Did he really mean everything?

Your dream last night, your taste in shoes, your favorite TV show, the way you laugh? As a fun experiment, let's say that yes, everything has a hidden meaning. Let's also hypothesize that the current astrological omens suggest you now have a special talent for discerning veiled and camouflaged truths. We will further propose that you have an extraordinary power to penetrate beyond surface appearances and home in on previously unknown and invisible realities. Do you have the courage and determination to go deeper than you have ever dared? I believe you do.

VIRGO

(Aug. 23-Sept. 22): How many glowworms would have to gather in one location to make a light as bright as the sun? Probably over a trillion.

And how many ants would be required to carry away a 15-pound basket of food? I’m guessing over 90,000. Luckily for you, the cumulative small efforts you need to perform so as to accomplish big breakthroughs won’t be nearly that high a number. For instance, you may be able to take a quantum leap after just six baby steps.

LIBRA

(Sept. 23-Oct. 22): In the 17th century, John Milton wrote a long narrative poem titled *Paradise Lost*. I’ve never read it and am conflicted about the prospect of doing so. On one hand, I feel I should engage with a work that has had such a potent influence on Western philosophy

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and literature. On the other hand, I’m barely interested in Milton’s story, which includes boring conversations between God and Satan and the dreary tale of how God cruelly exiled humans from paradise because the first man, Adam, was mildly rebellious. So what should I do? I’ve decided to read the *Cliffs Notes* study guide about *Paradise Lost*, a brief summary of the story. In accordance with astrological omens, I suggest you call on similar shortcuts, Libra. Here’s your motto: if you can’t do the completely right thing, try the partially right thing.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Who would have

guessed that elephants can play the drums really well? On a trip to Thailand, Scorpio musician Dave Soldier discovered that if given sticks and drums, some elephants kept a steadier beat than humans. A few were so talented that Soldier recorded their rhythms and played them for a music critic who couldn’t tell they were created by animals. In accordance with astrological omens, I propose that you Scorpios seek out comparable amazements. You now have the potential to make unprecedented discoveries.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Sagittarian novelist Shirley Jackson wrote, "No live organism can continue for long to exist under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids dream."

Since she wrote that, scientists have gathered evidence that almost all animals dream and that dreaming originated at least 300 million years ago. With that as our inspiration and in accordance with astrological omens, I urge you to enjoy an intense period of tapping into your dreams. To do so will help you escape from absolute reality. It will also improve your physical and mental health and give you unexpected clues about how to solve problems.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Capricorn writer

Kahlil Gibran believed an essential human longing is to be revealed. We all want the light in us to be taken out of its hiding place and shown. If his idea is true about you, you will experience major cascades of gratification in the coming months. I believe you will be extra expressive. And you will encounter more people than ever before who are interested in knowing what you have to express.

To prepare for the probable breakthroughs, investigate whether you harbor any fears or inhibitions about being revealed—and dissolve them.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): November is Build

Up Your Confidence Month. In the coming weeks, you are authorized to snag easy victories as you steadily bolster your courage to seek bigger, bolder triumphs. As much as possible, put yourself in the vicinity of people who respect you and like you. If you suspect you have secret admirers, encourage them to be less secretive. Do you have plaques, medals, or trophies? Display them prominently. Or visit a trophy store and have new awards made for you to commemorate your unique skills—like thinking wild thoughts, pulling off one-of-a-kind adventures, and inspiring your friends to rebel against their habits.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I’m glad we have an

abundance of teachers helping us learn how to *be here now*—to focus on the present moment with gratitude and grace. I love the fact that books on the art of mindfulness are now almost as common as books about cats and cooking. Yay! But I also want to advocate for the importance of letting our minds wander freely. We need to celebrate the value and power of NOT always being narrowly zeroed in on the here and now. We can’t make intelligent decisions unless we ruminate about what has happened in the past and what might occur in the future. Meandering around in fantasyland is key to discovering new insights.

Imaginative ruminating is central to the creative process. Now please give your mind the privilege of wandering far and wide in the coming weeks, Pisces.

Homework: What is the kindest act you ever did? Care to do it again? Newsletter.

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