Sidewalk Ambassadors: A New Street Roots Outreach Effort

For 20 years, Street Roots vendors have been a steady presence on Portland’s streets, selling a weekly tabloid that gives voice to the concerns of our unhoused neighbors and the people who care about them – and provides the vendors with a small income as well. But when the coronavirus pandemic hit in March, Street Roots stopped printing and selling the paper out of concern about spreading the virus.

But how could vendors replace their income? Street Roots created an innovative Coronavirus Action Team that began paying vendors to do essential jobs during this public health crisis. Over the next five months, more than 140 people received stipends for jobs such as outreach to unhoused people.

Now, thanks to a $50,000 grant from ninety-nine girlfriends, that initiative has become the Street Roots Ambassador Program. “The grant came at just the right moment,” says Raven Drake, Ambassador Program manager. Drake is a former medic who created a medical tent when the pandemic began at the edge of Interstate 5 to care for and isolate virus-stricken people from the tent camps. Drake began to advise the Multnomah County Health Department on how to communicate accurate information about COVID-19 to unhoused people and formed a team to deliver it. During lockdown, the team also delivered mail to hundreds who used the Street Roots address, signed people up for federal stimulus checks, assisted with the U.S. Census and ran pop-up voter registration centers.

Drake’s vision for the Ambassador Program is focused on developing income-producing work for Street Roots members by creating partnerships with organizations like the City of Portland, Multnomah County, Portland State University and the Joint Office of Homeless Services. An early success was conducting a survey on homelessness designed by PSU. Street Roots members’ canvassing resulted in hundreds more survey responses than in previous years, an increase in information that may lead to better public policy.

A contract is pending for hygiene-based surveys for the City of Portland Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative, and Drake is also pursuing partnerships with neighborhood and business organizations and others who can use the talents and skills of Street Roots members in communications, de-escalation training, art, theater and storytelling and other fields.

“People on the streets have as many skills and capabilities as anyone else,” comments Drake. “The grant from ninety-nine girlfriends is transformative. We are treating it as a project grant, to expand, diversify and build capacity for our Ambassadors.”

— Heidi Yorkshire

Forced in the Silence to Listen

Thank you to member S. Renee Mitchell for sharing her thought-provoking poetry with ninety-nine girlfriends and the world.

Forced In The Silence to Listen

when this threat of harm has passed whether through death disease or determined intention my goal is to be different more purposeful more aware

today I am allowing seemingly immaterial moments to become a mirror

inform me of the ways I need to

adjust fine tune & confess the names of people I should forgive

with this forced silence prompted by an invisible enemy I am learning

& eusocial insects

to serve as sages

with open heart to turn inward to discover wisdom

love

who would have guessed the clamorous buzzing of bees which once stirred fear frustration fury even could teach life lessons about whom I decide to allow into my life whom to let go of & who to just let be

more & more I am asking myself what can those who are annoying

disrespectful callous & unkind
teach me about the peculiarities within myself

healing & to graciously

let go of the habit

to go outside of myself

for self-soothing

in each moment I can allow myself to get caught up

in the insistence

irritation & distraction of someone else’s way of being

- or -

I can unattach to an outcome

decide not to uncomfortably shift deliberately swat

or demand they be different I am becoming better at recognizing that heated words

are emotional billboards

hiding in plain sight displaying a longing to be seen

heard to feel safe & anger absence annoyance is sometimes / most times

ALL times just an expression of distress tightly wrapping itself

around the weight of anxiety or the horror of relentless ruminations

your buzzing about is rarely ever about me

& not even a worldwide crisis will prompt some folks

like most humans bees cooperate in the caring for one another each bee’s existence leverages an intentional interconnectedness an individual contribution toward the collective good

as they collect nectar to make honey their rapid wing-beats stir vibrations that agitate a plant’s pollen which fertilizes the next visited flower

eventually bees return to the hive carrying reserves to feed the larvae & even though most die before the fruit of their labor is realized reciprocity is mutual survival

to show affection beyond

their capacity to love themselves folks can’t give you something they don’t possess

or graciously receive something

they don’t believe they deserve

so I am listening better now yesterday I could easily

so consider, if you wil

the next time you are confronted with an irritating animation of energy you have a choice, you know

each encounter with another

have found blame

and assigned it a home

is an opportunity for an unfolding of a new truth an invitation to re-see reality

but today I chose to choose differently I decide to see purpose

& pose a self-reflective question which can shape one’s becoming:

in our crossed paths

a deeper reason

for our relationship a richer purposefulness for our friendship

am I hearing or am I listening?

© 2020 S. Renee Mitchell

A Different Harvest

This August, in the loneliness of quarantine, I sold the farm in Yamhill County where I had lived for almost thirty years and moved into the city. The fruit trees my toddlers helped me plant were in the bountiful glory of their maturity. Livestock sheds, pasture rotations, and manure management had all been honed to clockwork function. Planning and labor and more than two decades of growth had brought the farm and me to the time of harvest, but instead of pressing cider and filling the basement pantry with jams and pickles, I filled two dumpsters with the odds and ends a farm and family collects.

I had thought I would always live there, and I relished the accumulation of seasons and my ever-growing intimacy with the old forest at my back. But my children grew up and moved on, and my husband and I reached the end of our road together. For the last five years, I managed the farm alone. Feeding animals twice a day, cleaning the barn and keeping up with the weeding and pruning and the maintenance of a large old house became harder to sustain and justify. Still, every plant in the sprawling garden had been placed by my hand. The wildflowers that bloomed in the forest persisted because I kept the ivy at bay. What real distinction was there between me and my place? How could I ever leave?

As if I would live forever. As if the farm would last forever. The truth was, I would leave that farm one way or another. Dead or decrepit or sooner, through catastrophe or thoughtful design.

I chose thoughtful design, and I think of this radical change in my life as practice for the changes I will meet in a radically changing world. We all face a future we might not have imagined, one that is different from the future we had planned for. We can hang on, pretending until circumstances end the game, or we can take stock and seek new opportunities and a new way of doing things.

Do I miss the farm? The way I miss childhood, fondly but with no real desire to return. I’m cultivating a new love and a new household, in a strange new neighborhood filled with people and dogs wearing raincoats. For now, the farm still grows in the shape I gave it. May it prosper! The farm will always live in me as I ripen the seeds planted by my engagement with it. I saw an owl in the middle of the afternoon down on 22nd and Johnson. A pack of crows pointed it out, those perennial tattle-tales. The owl, imperturbable despite the scolding, was not to be turned away. But as I age, I grow less fierce and less determined. My harvest is different than I once imagined, not the comfort of hearth and home but the ripe experience that bears new seeds. I hope to be ready, with an open heart and open mind, for whatever’s next.

— Jane Carlsen

Unbridled Joy

Yesterday, I was letting my dog out for the twelfth time in less than 30 minutes so she could chase a squirrel in our backyard.  I was muttering about this not helping me get my work done.  I was thinking about the paw cleaning that would be required (again) when Cindi  wanted to come back in.  

I also realized I was smiling.  Not grinning; a full-on, whole face smile--because Cindi approaches squirrel-chasing with unbridled joy.  Unfettered  jump, wriggle, run, bark each and every time.  It doesn’t matter if it is the first chase of the morning or chase 25 of the day, she is equally and gloriously excited.

Most days I seek contentment, calm, a sense of purpose, a way to stay grounded as time continues to be wobbly and the world swirls out of my control. I have actively happy moments of dancing while making dinner or singing  or laughing at something one of my kids just said...   But unbridled joy isn’t something I experience ofen, and living it vicariously through my dog is a gift.

Cindi isn’t shy about seeking her joy.  If she doesn’t feel we are paying enough attention to her requests to go out (or come back in) she jumps repeatedly on the sliding glass door.  We have paw and nose prints going up to four feet high on both sides of the door.  If that doesn’t work, she will seek you out, dance on you or around you.  

Once outside, the best description I have to offer is an antelope or Max, the dog in “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” when he is leaping and soaring. Gravity seems to disappear, overtaken by boundless happiness and zeal.

What amazes me most is that her happiness is not tied to achieving a goal or novelty. She revels in the activity itself. She doesn’t care about catching the squirrel. Honestly, it doesn’t even matter if there even is a squirrel. Sometimes she chases invisi-squirrels.  Sometimes she runs to the wrong tree, stands looking up and barking. Meanwhile the squirrel looks on with  disdain from a different tree. She chases the same three squirrels who live in our yard (PJ, Gus and Mr. Blue Sky) up the same three trees and down the same fence every time.   

Cindi has something to teach us all. Here’s to more unbridled joy in each of our lives.

— Kaye Gardner O’Kearny 

If We Each Do Our Part

Are you doing your part for the planet?

Lisa Adatto, member and environmental activist, credits her father, a scientist at the University of Oregon, with first sparking her interest in the Greenhouse Effect, and later in the broader sustainability movement. Now, says Adatto, “it’s my children and grandchildren who keep me involved.” 

Lisa is passionate about increasing accessibility to the sustainability movement because, “We need everyone pitching in. It’s a matter of survival.”

Luckily, she continues, this is an easy movement to take part in because it offers so many entry points. Most schools have a Green Team. Many houses of worship host an  Environmental Committee. Sometimes, it’s as simple as working together with your family or friends to see how you can make changes that impact the planet in a positive way. The NW Earth Institute has challenges and discussion resources that show how changes in everyday habits can make a difference. 

“For over 200 years we’ve been depleting and dirtying our resources to the point where sustainability has become an urgent issue,” Lisa notes. “But it’s not insurmountable if we each do our part.” 

The idea of saving the planet is finally gaining some traction with the masses even though scientists and climate activists have been raising the alarm for decades. Are you doing your part? If not, why not spend 10 minutes reading the Green New Deal to learn more about what’s needed or listen to the podcast How to Save a Planet or, better yet, listen to climate activist Greta Thunberg at the U.N.’s 2019 Climate Action Summit. She’ll tell you how it is in about five minutes and she does it with heart.

If we each do our part...

— Tammy Wilhoite

The Roman Empire and the Post Office: Lessons

A recent story on OPB’s “Marketplace” about the importance of the post office made a reference to a book by Winifred Gallagher called “How the Post Office Created America.” The book turned out to be a fascinating read.

An excerpt in the story struck me: “As radical an experiment as America itself, the post was the incubator for our uniquely lively, disputatious culture of innovative ideas and uncensored opinions. With astonishing speed, it established the United States as the world’s information-and-communications superpower.”

As imperfect as this country is, our ability to connect and move is fundamental to our ability to understand each other, to pursue our dreams and to remain connected to our communities. We have built interstates and roads and trains and bridges and the post office--all of which have connected people and allowed greater access to knowledge.

The U.S. Postal Service was established in 1775. In 1792, the Postal Act passed by Congress emphasized its public role by setting low rates for mailing cheap, uncensored newspapers (subsidized by more expensive letters). Over the next 150 years, the post office responded to the needs of the public – adding home delivery in cities and rural areas by 1899 and parcel delivery in 1913. Not only did parcel delivery give millions of Americans access to new products, it allowed a few enterprising parents to send their children by post, since it was cheaper than a train ticket. Despite a $40 million deficit in 1914 (today’s equivalent of $1B), the government continued to subsidize the post office because it was essential to connecting and informing people.

Which brings me to the Romans. The Romans were engineers, innovators and builders. They invested massively in creating and building transformative infrastructure. They built more than 250,000 miles of roads (the equivalent of the National Highway system in the U.S.) and thousands of  aqueducts that brought running water to cities. Over time, because of constant wars, overspending, a widening gap between the rich and poor and political corruption, they stopped inventing and investing. They relied on what they had done instead of finding new technologies. They did not adapt.

This election season, I think we were reminded anew how important our postal service is. Millions of people get their prescriptions by mail, it is often the only delivery option in rural areas, and it is allowing many, many millions of people to vote safely during a pandemic. Yet, our government is neither investing in maintaining nor evolving the service it provides.

To me, the lesson from the Romans is not in their decline and subsequent lack of investment in infrastructure. What I ponder is what we could learn from an empire that thrived for 1,000 years by investing in new ways to improve lives and connect people.

— Kaye Gardner-O’Kearny

Be Afraid and Do It Anyway

Several years ago, I started using this motto, “Be Afraid and Do It Anyway.”  A friend  had stage 3 cancer, and you know what happens when you get that wakeup call that says, “What am I waiting for?” It’s served me well, especially when I listen to my heart. 

Most recently my partner and I purchased a farm in Gaston, Oregon, and we have been busy making it our own. We both want to learn to grow our own healthy food in hopes of being able to share it with the community. There are hundreds of reasons to grow locally, organically and sustainably, and not a darn one that I can think of not to do it. Except, of course, that it involves a lot of unknowns and is a lot of hard work. Hence the motto. We pushed through the soggy spring with muddy boots to make sure we had a garden area ready for summer. We bought 20 baby chicks in April and raised them to be egg layers. We are putting in a goat barn and fence with the goal of one day offering an eco-friendly goat-brush-clearing service.  

I’m happy to report that we now have more tomatoes and squash than we can eat. We’ve offered up our excess on the Forest Grove free classified Facebook group and the community has responded with a demand that I find both heartwarming and heartbreaking. People want organic, fresh produce and there are hungry families out there. It was scary to put the offer out there - will they come? They did. We will keep going. We are already talking about what we will do differently next year.

 We’ve also eaten our very first three eggs, and they were yummy. We don’t have enough to share yet, but by October we should be getting about a dozen a day. We are looking at how those eggs find their way to deserving customers. We will sell some in order to give some away. Raising chickens feels a bit scary, too.  It’s a big responsibility, taking care of them, keeping them safe from predators and getting up every day (early) to let them out. I love watching them and learning their chicken behaviors and the funny thing is I find them very calming. Maybe there is a chicken therapy offering in my future? 

In my spare time, I’m an Executive Leadership Coach and I also work for Social Venture Partners Portland running the Encore Fellows Program. My partner is an Early Childhood Education teacher at Adelante Mujeres. When the garden and chickens are all quiet we also collect toys and shoes for Latino kids in need in Oregon and Mexico. It’s not a nonprofit yet, but someday maybe it will be if we follow the motto, “Be Afraid and Do It Anyway!”

Grateful and constantly inspired to be a part of Ninety Nine Girlfriends.

— Linda K. Williams

Finding Purpose and Pleasure in the Pandemic

Photo by Deborah Edward

I’m a relatively unruffable person. When COVID-19 lockdown began I got ready. My closest family and I, living blocks apart, figured out how to organize our worlds where they could get groceries for me, I could hang with my 5-year old grandson, and together we could let the story unfold. I started a few good habits, like reading Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American” each morning and doubling my meditation time. But time began to work differently, and the wrong things began to creep into my thinking: fear, doubt, despair, alarm, suspicion, grouchiness. So I turned to finding things that could distract me, engage me, inspire me, and allow for action, results and success. And there was ninety-nine girlfriends’ calendar - waiting for me.

When the COVID-19 lockdown began. Ninety-nine girlfriends was in the midst of lots of what I call high-touch membership recruiting--meaning in-person events where we could shake hands and hug. Our calendar of activities  scheduled out the work of my committee – Member Education. We’re charged with presenting programs around an annual learning question as well as offering other favorite programs.  Over the course of four years, the education calendar had settled into a rhythm of a few spring events, a summer break with assorted social activities and then a ramp-up of autumn programming. Wrong calendar for COVID-19.  The prescience of other girlfriends who had friends, family or personal experiences giving them a better forecasting sense about when we’d reopen made it clear quite quickly that in-person activities would not be happening  anytime soon.  

Early in lockdown the Women’s Foundation of Oregon invited  ninety-nine girlfriends to join a zoom seminar about a relief fund for those affected by the early implications of COVID-19. The new Relief Fund was supporting domestic violence shelters needing to find safe alternative housing for their clients, the child care centers losing business but trying to retain jobs and others who were at immediate risk of having to close critical social fabric services. We jumped at the chance, and got a quick lesson in Zoom technology. The event reached more than 150 members. This response showed us there was a thirst for connection, for information and for ways to take action. It provided evidence that we needed to do more. Our Member Education Committee quickly pivoted to embrace the virtual technology. We produced our Discovery Forum online, and  created new summer programs that could be online, but would also be interactive, informational, supportive and fun.

Being a member of an all-volunteer women’s group with a very fluid structure means doing things differently than I did as an Executive Director, a consultant or a college teacher. I was guided by a few maxims that reflect our ninety-nine girlfriends culture and decision-making style:

• Always learning

• Err on the side of generosity

• Strive for consensus, but majority rules

• Recognize that although we all have different lived experiences, we share common values

• Build on strengths

• Diversity in perspectives creates deeper, richer, better results

When the news cycle made me despondent, I signed on to Linked-In and sleuthed the backgrounds and interests of new ninety-nine girlfriends, to find potential candidates to share their passion, expertise or experience in our “Let’s Talk About….” Series.  When I awakened with a sense of impending doom, I’d pop onto my computer and clean up files and folders related to ninety-nine activities. I read up on what was happening across the world in other collective giving circles and supported my colleagues as they created new paths to get things done in our grantmaking and communications. I was lucky that I kept being invited to run a seminar, to answer a question, to speak with a new member – all worthwhile endeavors that could help me feel my agency, my worth, my value, that what I was doing was helping someone else.

Turning my despair to action resulted in a lively calendar of programming for ninety-nine girlfriends this summer. One of the most enjoyable activities was working with Kathy Masarie and her husband Chip to organize our “Unconference” – a delightful medley of online activities one summer Sunday afternoon that invited members to share their passions with other girlfriends, to co-create together and to appreciate the amazing energy that comes from being together. That experience, watching Chip write code to make our Unconference work, inspired me to sign up for an online class to learn the “python” coding language.

This summer I didn’t reach my goals in long-distance bike riding. I didn’t become a better piano player or learn to knit or crochet. My bread baking still falls flat, although my attempts to harvest my backyard fruits and make jam turned out well. My attempts to learn basic computer programming ended in tears. But my ninety-nine girlfriends activities yielded pleasure, pride, and purpose.  

--Deborah Edward

Philanthropy-R-Us

Imagine the surprise of Washington Women‘s Foundation founder Colleen Willoughby when the headline “Charity Belle” appeared on a 1998 People magazine article about the group’s 25th anniversary.

“She was horrified,” said her friend Paula Liang, a founding member of the Women’s Giving Alliance in Jacksonville, Fla.

Sexist headlines notwithstanding, print still carried some heft back then. People magazine enjoyed eternal life in dentists’ offices and hair salons. Women from around the country began contacting Willoughby, telling her about their collective giving circles or asking her how to establish one. After about 10 years, it became clear that a network was afoot.

After an initial meeting in 2009, the Women’s Collective Giving Network was born. Sometimes it takes a while to get the baby’s name right, and when the group was unable to trademark the name “Catalist,” the canopy organization that represents more than 17,500 women worldwide and more than 75 member affiliates, also worldwide, was rechristened as Philanos.

Liang, the board chair of Philanos, bristled slightly at the suggestion that the new name sounds like a pharmaceutical company, or maybe one of those prescription drugs whose side effects include scarier conditions than the reason you’re taking it. In fact, she said, “Phila” is the Greek root for “philanthropy,” and “nos” means “us” in Greek. Get  it? Philanthropy-r-us.

This name seems bound to stick, as Liang reported that Philanos has just completed the first round of review with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, “the only functioning arm of the U.S. government.”

Earlier this year, just before large gatherings went dark with the arrival of the corona virus, Philanos held its ninth conference in Seattle. A delegation from ninety-nine girlfriends was among those in attendance.

Philanos estimates that its member organizations have granted more than $140 million to nonprofit organizations.

With her home community of Jacksonville smacked broadside by Covid 19, Liang and her husband hightailed it to their ski house in Vermont. In a phone interview from her mountainside aerie, she discussed both the changing face of women’s philanthropy and the stunning potential of collective giving.

Gone are the “charity belle” days when wealthy white women won admission to what amounted to sororities for grown-ups and earned their cred by selling fancy label castoffs in the groups’ thrift stores or sponsoring tables at black-tie galas. Or as Liang put it, “so much for bake sales.”

While many of today’s collective giving circles, such as ninety-nine girlfriends, set a substantial bar for joining in order to maximize grant amounts, “the goal now is to bring a lot more folks in at a smaller figure,” Liang said.

“You can have as much impact in the aggregate,” she went on, adding, “there’s a lot of talk about time, talent, treasure and testimony.”

Just this past April, Philanos itself became part of PhilanthropyTogether.org, an effort launched with $2 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Along with seeking to triple overall collective giving within the next five years, the new umbrella group is hosting webinars led by grass-roots organizations around the country. Among the topics: community practice around racial equity. Ninety-nine girlfriends’ members are eligible to sign up for these sessions, via www.philanthropytogether.org.

– Elizabeth Mehren

Your Brain on Walking

Remember the PSA “This is your brain on drugs”? I’ll never forget it. Commercials seemed so much better when I was younger. There were great jingles that have stuck with me for decades and those Rainier Beer spots were so clever. I think we need a new PSA: “This is your brain on walking.” 

Part of my wellness routine is a daily walk—alone or with others—rain or shine. It’s a habit that began in the mid-’80s when a knee injury ended my running habit. (Amen! Truth to be told, I did NOT enjoy anything about the running except the high I got when I stopped.) 

That’s why my friend Amy Varga’s recent LinkedIn post “Sorry, I have a walk scheduled then” really resonated with me. I know that I’m more alert, focused and creative when I get my walk in, but it wasn’t until I talked with Amy about her post that I got to thinking about how helpful it could be to share the benefits of walking. Hoofing it is an especially valuable activity during the pandemic if you are able-bodied and have access to a safe space outside with good air quality.

Amy owns The Varga Group, a Portland-based firm that offers leadership coaching along with other important services for non-profit organizations. These days, she is primarily being asked for leadership coaching. Amy sees this as an opportunity to help leaders ask how they are taking care of themselves. “For nonprofit folks, depending on their mission, everyone feels like the stakes are high and there is so much stress,” she explained. “Psychological boundaries can be especially hard for them because oftentimes they are asking themselves how they can prioritize taking care of themselves over providing services to others.”  

Amy suggests a different lens. So much leadership development focuses on the neck up, but our physical self has an impact on our ability to think and work. “We need to prioritize sleep, hydration, and physical exertion—they are as important as our other competencies. It’s crucial to recognize that, although we are all doing our best and working at our jobs and more, we are also doing this other body of work which is attending to the stress of the moment—and it’s no small task.” 

We cannot serve others as well if we are exhausted, distracted or depressed. And in this time of confinement, we all need some kind of escape valve. Amy suggests carving out some time to reflect on what is and is not serving you and your wellness. Do more of the prior and give the latter the boot. 

How are you taking care of yourself? Got time for a walk? it could benefit you in a multitude of ways and It doesn’t cost money, you don’t need any fancy clothes to do it, and if you’re keeping your distance from others you don’t even need a mask. 

— Tammy Wilhoite

Me with my friend Claire on a pre-pandemic walk

Amy and her workout partner, Gus