What ideas do you have to reduce nutrient pollution in the water in your community and keep water safe and clean? The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) wants to hear from you today over at Oregon's Kitchen Table!
Group photo at the Hatfield Futures Project 2024 Showcase
Applications are now open for Hatfield Futures 2025! Using the year 2050 to spark our collective imagination, the Hatfield Futures Project invites up to six teams of high-school students from across Oregon to envision Oregon’s future and generate proposals to address important social, environmental, and economic issues.
Group photo at the Hatfield Futures Project 2024 Showcase
On Saturday, March 23rd, 2024, Oregon's Kitchen Table held the second Hatfield Futures Showcase and it was amazing! We gathered at the Native American Student and Community Center at Portland State University. Over 120 elected leaders, principals, college students, community organizers, and friends and family from across the state who joined us to listen to students’ ideas for shaping Oregon’s future.
Many people use the Upper Rogue River (specifically between the old Gold Ray dam site, river mile 126, to the Lost Creek Dam, river mile 157) for a whole variety of activities. Some people fish and swim or want to protect fish and animals in the river. Some people enjoy the river using boats, either with paddles or motors. And there are several businesses that take customers up and down the river, some in rafts and some in power boats, like jet boats.
In 2023 the Oregon Legislature passed a bill called the Early Literacy Success Initiative. This bill directs the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to help community groups and families support young children develop reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills. This is to take place both in the community and at home.
After several years of hearing from some community members about conflicting uses of the Rogue River in a stretch roughly between the now-removed Gold Ray Dam and Lost Creek Dam, a collaboration of four state agencies–Oregon Department of State Lands (DSL), Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), Oregon State Marine Board (OSMB), and Oregon Parks and Recreation Department (OPRD)--have come together to learn more about the community’s values, needs, and concerns related to this stretch of the river.
The Oregon Department of Forestry and the Board of Forestry oversee many forests in Oregon. Now they are updating their strategic plan for the forests. ODF and the Board’s plan includes the mission, values, and goals that they use to make decisions about our state’s public and private forests. It was last updated in 2011.
In Oregon we have a plan for our water: the Integrated Water Resources Strategy. This Strategy helps us understand what water we have available in Oregon and what we need for people, plants, animals, and the land. Now it’s time to update that plan. The Oregon Water Resources Department (OWRD) and 13 other state agencies are working with Oregon’s Kitchen Table (OKT) to hear what Oregonians want to see in the update to the Strategy.
Come for the free food, stay for the community and conversation! Please join the City of Portland's Office of Community & Civic Life and Oregon’s Kitchen Table for PEP Talk, a 3-day workshop that will discuss how we can create an equitable engagement model for the City of Portland. This event is part of the City's Portland Engagement Project.
We're excited to host an opportunity at Oregon's Kitchen Table for all of us in Oregon to share what we think about high school graduation requirements.
Oregon’s Kitchen Table worked with Clatsop County to conduct a public engagement process to hear from residents of Clatsop County about what was most important to them when considering changes to the county’s district boundaries. We heard from about 300 people through different engagement methods. County staff shared the results of the community engagement and provided recommendations on district boundary changes to the Clatsop County Board of Commissioners in December 2021.
Last fall, PSU President Percy announced the creation of a new Reimagine Campus Safety Committee (RCSC) - made up of students, staff, and faculty - to understand the array of safety needs of the campus community and to reimagine an approach to meeting those needs that reflects our commitment to racial justice and human dignity.
The state of Oregon has a new program to make sure people have ways to get rid of their family's unwanted medicines safely. The program gives people places to turn in unwanted medicines rather than throw them away or flush them. This program is called the Drug Take Back Program. And now it's time for you to share what would make it easier for you to participate.
We're so excited to share with you the recommendations from the first Oregon Citizen Assembly - a group of Oregonians from across the state and all walks of life who came together for 7 weeks this summer (over Zoom) to discuss and deliberate on COVID-19 Recovery. Their report includes both Core Principles and Policy Recommendations. The project was a partnership between Oregon’s Kitchen Table and Healthy Democracy. Panelists were randomly selected from across the state of Oregon, to reflect a microcosm of the state on age, gender, race/ethnicity, geographic location, political party registration, educational attainment, and voter frequency.
Your fellow Oregonians on the Oregon Citizen Assembly invite you to join them in helping shape recommendations to decision makers on Oregon's recovery from COVID19 and the economic crisis.
We want to share with you a new effort we are launching this summer with our friends at Healthy Democracy - the Oregon Citizen Assembly. This summer Oregonians from all walks of life will participate in our state’s first virtual Citizen Assembly to weigh in on what could be some of the state’s most important policy considerations in a generation as the state recovers from COVID.
If you live in, work in, or own a business in Multnomah County, now is the time to help shape important decisions that will affect our region! Along the Columbia River - from Smith and Bybee Lakes near Historic Vanport to the Portland Airport and to the Sandy River in Troutdale - a levee is protecting us from flooding.
Water and water supply affects all aspects of life in the Mid-Coast region - and now's your opportunity to weigh in on planning for the region's water. The Mid-Coast Water Planning Partnership is made up of people with many different water interests from Cascade Head to Cape Perpetua and is working to balance a number of water needs and factors in our region. And now - they want to hear your thoughts and ideas.
Calling Portland Metro residents! The Portland metro area is hosting its first-ever Citizens’ Initiative Review (CIR), facilitated by Healthy Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit based in Portland. Up for review: the Metro Region Affordable Housing Bond Measure.
This winter and spring, we've been spending lots of time with Central Oregon communities and our partners Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council and Let's Talk Diversity Coalition. Thanks to funding from Meyer Memorial Trust, our partnership group - led by COIC and also including the Ford Family Foundation’s Ford Institute Leadership Program alumni, the communities of La Pine, Sisters, Madras, and Prineville, as well as other partners - has been supporting Central Oregon communities to increase and broaden community engagement around economic development issues, priorities, and projects in each city.
On January 30th, Oregon’s Kitchen Table is launching a crowdfunding campaign for the restoration of the iconic network of trails that are around Multnomah Falls. We're inviting you to join us and Be There for The Gorge!
