Biggest funding yet for Cully Park...!!
Very, very good news last night. City Commissioner Amanda Fritz announced a $1.25M allocation of System Development Charges for Cully Park.
This means we have raised nearly $3.7M (roughly 80%) of the funding needed to open Cully Park in the fall of 2015. By building Cully Park, we transform a brownfield into a new environmental asset that educates youth, provides local green job and business opportunities, restores habitat, improves water quality, creates open space, and establishes a replicable community-based model for Park development.
There is a great deal of thanks and credit to be shared on/for this occasion – to our hardworking nonprofit and for-profit partners, to our brave funders, to the many government agencies who have come to the table.
Briefly, we’d like to highlight the following:
Community residents and organizations. From students at Scott School, Rigler School, Community Transitional School and at Hacienda CDC’s Expresiones program, to the hundreds of adults that have participated in the Park’s outreach and design activities, to partners outside the neighborhood like Portland Community Reinvestment Initiative and the Urban League of Portland, to the steady, confident advocacy by the Cully Association of Neighbors and the Central Northeast Neighbors, we thank you. Special recognition to the Inter-tribal Gathering Garden Design Group and to all the gardeners at the NE 72nd Avenue Community Garden. You all made this happen.
The City of Portland. Commissioner Fritz, her staff, and our strong partner Portland Parks & Recreation have stepped up to deliver the largest single investment in Cully Park, in support and celebration of our community-based model for Park development. To you, and to the many other City agencies that are making investments at Cully Park, we thank you. You all made this happen.
- Living Cully. Let Us Build Cully Park! does not stand alone, it leverages additional environmental investments for Cully because it is a Signature Project in "Living Cully: A Cully Ecodistrict,” a collective impact initiative established by Habitat for Humanity, Hacienda CDC, the Native American Youth & Family Center and Verde. This award speaks to the power of the Living Cully model: the community set the agenda; Verde and its Living Cully Partners aligned systems and pursued resources in response to the community’s voice; and the resulting investment makes a real difference in the lives of Cully’s low-income people and people of color.
So, please join us in celebrating this great occasion and the good work of the many people and groups who made it happen.
Now: Let Us Build Cully Park...