Staffers, Partners Receive Honor for Efforts Towards Equity and for Delivering Needed Services to Underserved Communities

(Portland,OR) –

Six Portland Parks & Recreation (PP&R) employees, along with new Parks Commissioner Amanda Fritz and several community partners, will be honored with 2013 We Are Portland Awards from the City’s Office of Equity and Human Rights.

Honorees will be recognized on Friday morning, July 26, 2013 10:00 a.m. at IRCO (the Immigrant and Refugee Community of Oregon), 10301 NE Glisan St.in Portland. The We Are Portland Awards honor civic activists and City employees who have worked to further the City of Portland’s immigrant integration initiatives. Special recognition will be given to Commissioner Amanda Fritz and retiring Police East Precinct Commander, Michael Lee.

The public is invited to attend the ceremony which runs from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m.

The Office of Equity and Human Rights’ We Are Portland awards honor authentic partnerships designing and delivering valuable City services to families new toPortland. Awards go to community elders and activists engaging City bureaus, and to bureau staff learning how to better servePortland’s approximately 80 ethnic, national, and language groups.

“I feel tremendously honored to be presented with this prestigious award,” says Portland City Commissioner Amanda Fritz. “It was a privilege to be part of the coalition achieving the gains made in recent years. Much more still needs to be done in our city to achieve equity and to further access for all Portlanders. I remain committed to social, environmental, and economic justice, working in partnership with individuals in our wonderful communities. That is one of my top priorities as Commissioner of Parks & Recreation and the Bureau of Development Services.”

PP&R employees who will receive We Are Portland awards are

Alicia Hammock, Director Park Event Coordinator

Elizabeth Kennedy Wong, PP&R Community Engagement Manager

Jeff Milkes, PP&R East Zone Manager and Summer Free for All Coordinator

Kim Calame,Sellwood Community Center Recreation Supervisor and Mobile Playgrounds Supervisor

Alejandro Vidales, PP&R Outreach Coordinator

Michael Walsh, Director of PP&R’s Multnomah Arts Center

City Commissioner Amanda Fritz is the current Commissioner-in-Charge of Portland Parks & Recreation. She is the former Equity and Human Rights Commissioner (that office is now in Mayor Hales’ portfolio).

“PP&R has two programs, along with two venues, engaging in remarkable, authentic partnerships with immigrant and refugee community associations,” says Ronault Catalani, New Portlander Programs coordinator for the Office of Equity & Human Rights. “The Summer Mobile Playgrounds program, the Portland World Cup ,Multnomah Arts Center and Director Park, design and deliver valuable City services to Portlanders not served so well in the past. We honor their work. We celebrate our partnerships’ successes.”

A number of PP&R partners and community activists will also receive We Are Portland awards for their work in designing and delivering valuable City services to our neighborhoods.

They are:

Natalya Sobolevskaya, Russian Speaking Network

Rosa Hernandez, Latino Learning Community

Claudia Carrillo, Latino Learning Community

Zuzana Molcanova, Impact NW/Portland State University

Ronault LS Catalani, representing Bhutanese, Somali, Zomi, Karen Burman mutual assistance associations; IRCO Africa House and Asian Family Center

Arlene Kimura, Hazelwood Neighborhood Association

Linda Robinson, Hazelwood Neighborhood Association

Lore Wintergreen, Office of Neighborhood Involvement

Tom Lewis, Centennial Community Association

Laura Lirette, Human Solutions

Luke Bonham, Rose Community Development Corporation

Eliza Lindsay, East Portland Neighborhood Office & Office of Neighborhood Involvement