Stories

We at United Way of the Columbia-Willamette believe Black History Month is every month (a helpful belief seeing as our All Staff event was canceled last month due to the snow!) Black Americans have had an indelible and beautiful impact on our nation throughout its history, despite the pains and prejudices they have endured. American history is Black history and the impacts Black Americans have had, through their resilience, curiosity, acumen and love, should be celebrated daily.

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Our Early Learning experts took advantage of a somewhat sunny day on March 11th to help put on the Spring Into Learning resource fair at Mount Hood Community College. The event included over 50 community organizations offering support with preschool and elementary school registration, as well as vocational training, financial education, health and wellness knowledge and much more. MHCC's gymnasium was quickly filled with families looking for some extra help, and our Early Learning team was quick to offer it.

Join United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, and a wide variety of other non-profits, in supporting a slate of bills working their way through our state legislature right now. We are a part of the Stable Homes for Oregon Families coalition that is supporting these bills in hopes of addressing the severe crisis in housing our state is facing, knowing that we need action now to reduce evictions and keep people safe and stable in their homes.

In 2021, United Way of the Columbia-Willamette developed a pooled fund to support efforts of community partners across Oregon in vaccine advocacy, access and education. This fund was focused on providing resources for communities of color, with an initial focus on Latinx working families and the Pacific Islander community. We officially ended this program at the end of last year.

In advocating and working toward a more just housing system, we often encounter a variety of misinformed opinions about the realities of people experiencing homelessness. Many of these opinions can come to dominate the discourse around the issue of homelessness, and can obfuscate the solutions and people working to achieve a better system.

United Way of the Columbia Willamette believes that housing is not a luxury, it is a basic human right, and that everyone deserves to have a safe and affordable place to call home. The information below is being provided with the intent to help inform, educate and empower our readers to take action in support of moving this vision closer to becoming a reality for everyone in our region. Look through these terms to gain a better understanding of this work and learn how to effectively communicate about and advocate for housing justice.

Creating inclusive learning opportunities is inherently a community effort. No one group or person can successfully assimilate the complexities of different cultures from around the world into a single, positive method for educating youth. That’s why we at United Way of the Columbia-Willamette understand and implement a diversity focused lens in all the work we do; it makes us better when we can support the experts and highlight the experiences of those from a diverse array of backgrounds.

At United Way of the Columbia-Willamette, we see ourselves as conveners, knowing that the issues we seek to tackle, and the systemic change they require, necessitates a diverse group of problem solvers. Our volunteer program, Hands On Greater Portland, highlights this organizational strength in a direct way, bringing volunteers from across the region to projects from a multitude of other nonprofits to ensure they have the hands on support they need to do the work they need to do.

Early learning is vital to children, families and communities. But significant cultural barriers amplify the systemic racism that undergirds our education ecosystem and makes it more difficult for communities of color to succeed and thrive. Our team at Early Learning Multnomah is dedicated to rectifying this injustice through brain-building interactions from birth and beyond.

Building confidence and expertise in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) is integral to a modern education. Our latest endeavor to increase equitable access to this necessary aspect of education involves a collaboration to train expert, culturally significant Master Trainers and Community Trainers who can work with children from a variety of backgrounds. The purpose of this ambitious project is to grow the pool of these multilingual trainers in Washington County, allowing them to best develop STEAM content for early learning education.

For more than two decades, our Hands On Greater Portland team has hosted numerous volunteer projects during Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend known as the MLK Weekend of Service. This year, we decided the best way to honor MLK was to amplify the work of other nonprofits dedicated to his work and shift our signature volunteer event to the fall. We are proud to introduce Community Impact Week which took place October 4 to 8, 2022!

Portland, Ore. – United Way of the Columbia-Willamette is pleased to announce Kelly O’Lague, MSW, LCSW as the organization’s new president and chief executive officer. Kelly brings more than 25 years of non-profit experience and is deeply committed to serving people from systematically excluded and underserved communities.

A red, geometric pattern encircles the modern-looking, four-story podium building found in the Cully neighborhood of Northeast Portland. This pattern, emblazoned into slats of wood, represents friendship and comes from the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians. It rings a newly constructed housing unit that seeks to embody that friendship, offering affordable housing to Native Americans and artists in Portland.

With back-to-school season in full swing, families across the state are preparing the wrap up their summer fun and return to classes for the 2022-2023 school year.