The Community Watershed Stewardship Program has won the first-ever United States National Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for Campus Community Collaboration. President Jimmy Carter presented the award at the World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia on June 4, 2008.

The Community Watershed Stewardship Program is a partnership between the City of Portland Bureau of Environmental Services and Portland State University. Through this partnership, more than 27,000 community volunteers have donated a quarter of a million hours planting 80,000 plants and restoring 50 acres of land along two miles of waterways. Individual projects have been led and supported by 700 students working as part of class projects, resulting in several graduate theses and faculty research publications.

The Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Award for Campus-Community Collaboration is one of the programs of the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Partnership Foundation and it honors one award recipient in a state where there is a program that addresses critical areas of public need undertaken by a college or university in partnership with a community group. The award is named for President and Mrs. Carter as a tribute to their lifelong efforts to develop and support safe, healthy and caring communities throughout the world. More information about this program and other programs of the foundation is available at www.jrcpf.org.

From left: Kevin Kecskes, Barry Messer, Emily Rice (Portland State University), Jennifer Devlin (Environmental Services), April Fong (Portland Community College), Rosalynn Carter, President Jimmy Carter