Confluence awarded $30,000 from Collins Foundation
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Confluence Environmental Center is proud to announce the receipt of a two-year grant of $30,000 from the Collins Foundation to support Confluence’s work in the Lents-Foster area of outer Southeast and East Portland. The program is also supported by The Meyer Memorial Trust and Oregon Volunteers, and will launch in January 2015.
The Confluence Fellows program will build the capacity of Green Lents, the Foster Green EcoDistrict, and the Livable Lents initiative, which operate at the intersection of a healthy environment, community livability, and social justice. Confluence will place fellows with these organizations for eleven months to build organizational strength, expand their programs, nurture leadership, and spur deep community involvement and cross-organizational collaboration.
The Confluence Fellows program was created through collaboration between Confluence and the three community initiatives. “These initiatives have enormous promise to deliver community benefits, and they’ve done it with volunteer leadership. The Fellows will inject capacity for them to deliver at scale and grow,” says Neil Schulman, President of Confluence’s Board of Directors. “That’s doubly important in places like outer Southeast and East Portland, where there’s a history of environmental and social inequities. Support from the Collins Foundation helps make this work possible.”
“Grassroots, community-led initiatives are a critical part of fostering thriving, sustainable communities,” says Jalene Littlejohn, Co-Founder of Green Lents. “Partnering with Confluence will help us implement projects such as the only tool library serving East Portland neighborhoods, and a new community orchard that will improve access to healthy, fresh food in an area surrounded by convenience stores.”
Confluence Environmental Center is a non-profit organization who’s mission is to bring together streams of thought, action, and people to make the environmental movement more robust, inclusive, and effective.