We have a new Executive Director!

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Community! I am so excited to share that we have hired a new director for Our Village Gardens! Ida Lombardozzi will be joining our community in our work to cultivate creative solutions to food issues in our neighborhood. Over the many years of food justice work in this community and elsewhere in North Portland, Our Village Gardens has been catalyzing action alongside community leaders to put the people and the land at the center of the neighborhood food systems that support us. We are proud to welcome Ida to step into this work with us.

“As a passionate, radical advocate and an anti-racist leader, I am really energized to join the OVG community and continue the food justice work you have worked hard to build. Through your programs, materials, and from the beautiful things I've heard from the staff and board, OVG bravely acknowledges that the oppressive structures we exist in are not working.  Healthy food is a human right and yet right here under our noses, food is operating as a commodity that is gate-kept and withheld, especially from BIPOC communities, single-parent households, folx in poverty, and many other groups.  Our Village Gardens has radical solutions and ideas to create a new structure where healthy food can be easily accessed by all of us.  That radical work that points to the systems as the problem is something that feels so wonderful to me and I can't wait to dig into the work and to warmly connect with all of you.”

-          Ida Lombardozzi, incoming Our Village Gardens Director

Ida will join us in mid-July with years of experience organizing for justice, enacting structural changes for equity in the workplace, and community building. We made the decision to hire Ida in a group of 25 of our board and staff members after a rigorous months-long search process and consensus building process. Being able to come to this decision with everyone on board is immensely encouraging, and a testament to Ida's demonstrated ability to successfully step into this role.

“I am grateful beyond words for the mindfulness and the many efforts that lead to hiring Ida as our next director. Both her experience and character set her apart and undoubtedly prepared her for this opportunity. I am excited to partner with her as we continue to center our community, Our Village Gardens, and our mission-driven work.”

-          Joemil Santos, Our Village Gardens Board Co-Chair

Ida’s experience managing large budgets, recruiting and supporting a diverse staff, fostering partnerships, and creatively building teams makes her the perfect person to continue our work within the community. We look forward to you meeting Ida and welcoming her to the community.


A Farewell from our Director

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Dear Friends,

As I approach my last day of work at Our Village Gardens (February 15th) I am filled with so many emotions.

When I look around at who is here today - my coworkers, our Board of Directors, Community Leaders, our partners, donors, and friends…I want to shout “we did it, we’re doing it, we’re going to keep at it”.  I am so grateful to be able to close my personal chapter knowing that our organizational story has so many more chapters to come. And I can’t wait to witness and cheer and support from the sidelines. I hope you will too!

Our Village Gardens is in good hands. Our values, our programs, our health as an organization is held with care by our Board and Staff. We do the work every day to orient and re-orient towards our community, towards equity, and towards a way of being that centers relationship.

It has been incredible and so affirming to watch the Board and Staff work together to formulate such a thoughtful and inclusive process for hiring the new Executive Director to support our next chapter as an organization.  We have come together to build trust, understand the different and complementary roles of Board and Staff, identify what we need in new leadership, and name what we can do as a community to support a new leader. We also came to consensus on a new and exciting Executive Leadership structure. After first hiring our Executive Director, we will then create and hire 2 Associate Director roles. This three person Executive Leadership structure gives us so much more capacity to build our base of support and organize for food justice and economic resilience within our own community. In our current phase, the Recruitment Action Committee (made up of 4 Board Members and 4 Staff) are working closely with two consultants (Kathy Kniep and Kathleen Holt)  to prepare and post the Executive Director position. It's coming soon!  In parallel, Lee Melaugh, who has been with us for almost 7 years, is stepping in as Interim Director and will help to provide stability and consistency during this transition.

As for me, I leave Our Village Gardens with so much gratitude and pride. So much thanks to folks who welcomed me into this community seven years ago and affirmed that I had a place to belong. So much appreciation for all the leaders since 2001 who dreamed and worked this organization into being.  Thank you for trusting me to steward this organization through some hard and bold changes. Today I stand alongside our Board, Staff, and Community Leaders with a sense of collective pride. This is what it looks like to build programs that ensure we all have access to good food and jobs that sustain us.  This is what it feels like when the work we do is rooted in relationship and care.  Indeed..we have done so much good work together over these years. And there is so much more to come.

Here’s to growing, sharing, learning, and building together towards a nourished and thriving Village.
 
With warmth,

Kris Soebroto

Our Village Gardens

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I’m so excited to share some news with you. Let’s make this official! On July 1st we’re
going to be setting out as an independent nonprofit — Our Village Gardens.

You might know that Village Gardens has been a program of Janus Youth for 20 years. During those years, we’ve been able to build our resilience as a program. We have also come to know that as a
neighborhood grassroots program, working towards food and economic justice, we needed to be more
authentically led by our community. For two years, we have been working very intentionally toward that … and here we are!

Over the next 3 months, we will have lots more to share with you as we get closer to celebrating and launching this transition.  We’re so grateful that you’re walking this emerging path with us.

With warmth,

Kris and all of us at Village Gardens

 

Here we stand.

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Staff gathered together (tightly) pre-COVID

Staff gathered together (tightly) pre-COVID

Here we stand.
In our North Portland neighborhood of New Columbia.
Our community, our neighbors, our kids, our selves, all digging deep and relying on the connective roots that we have been growing in this place to hold us, ground us, heal us and move us.

Many of us are living through a shared context right now, but with vastly different experiences that are unfolding based on our identities and lived experience. For some, it is a replaying of the violence and anti-black racism and racism against Indigenous people and people of color that pervades our lives. For some, it is an unsettling acknowledgment of how we have been, and continue to be, complicit in white supremacy. For some, it is the weight of just trying to keep our families and loved ones healthy, fed, safe. For some, it is a resounding call for change and a commitment to not settle for anything less than justice for all people. And for some, it is all of these things at once.

There has always been racism and white supremacy permeating every space that we move through whether we have recognized it, been directly impacted by it or been in denial of it. It is always with us, limiting all of us while directing sustained violence on the humanity and bodies of black and brown people. But what we have in this moment...are all the people, families, communities, leaders, institutions, and systems that are saying - enough! And what we are beginning to see are cracks in these structures that have been built on power, fear and capitalism. What we are beginning to see is a powerful upwelling of collective leadership, love, and hope in the spaces that we occupy together. We are in awe of the people, this movement, working for change at every level of this system. This push needs to be relentless and exists with ourselves, within our family units, in our organizations, in the streets, with leaders.

At Village Gardens, we know well the work of caring for each other, of deep listening and supporting, of making space for pain and joy in the tension and beauty of community. And in this global moment, we first turned within - to care and to tend to each other. And as we finally land, we stand here together to bring our voices, our resources, our power, our community to the whole. In all the ways that we can amplify voices, redirect resources, rebuild structures of power and decision making in our organization - we will. In all the ways that we can stand in solidarity, in humility, in strength with our partners - we will. In all the ways that we can hold organizations, leaders and funders accountable - we will. We will continue to show up for this work in the way we know best - standing deeply rooted in relationship with one another.

We hope you all feel able to take the extra care you need to ground, connect, engage, disengage...whatever it is for this moment and the next.

with love,
Kris and all of us at Village Gardens

Food Works, in gratitude

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Dear Friends,

We want to thank you and all the Food Works youth, staff, interns, donors, funders, partners and advocates who have poured passion and hard work into this program for the past 18 years. We have seen a youth vision for food access, leadership development, and economic resilience evolve, thrive and now - shift. Over the past couple of years, our capacity to support Food Works at its fullest potential has diminished. We have worked creatively to scale back, and rethink the program and have come to realize that we need to close this chapter of our work. With deep appreciation and bittersweet reflection, we say goodbye to the Food Works program.

Food Works emerged 18 years ago as a small and visionary project nurtured along by the youth in North Portland’s St Johns Wood neighborhood. From growing salad mix in a community garden plot to planning and running a 2.5 acre farm on Sauvie Island, the heart of Food Works has always been the commitment and leadership of youth. Since 2001, over 200 youth have poured their hard work, laughter and straight talk into managing and curating this project. The youth have grown more than 134,000 pounds and sold over $150,000 of fresh organic produce over the past 18 years with supporters and customers across the city purchasing Food Works organic produce.

There have been generations of youth jumping in to grow vegetables and then stepping up into leadership roles to mentor their peers. So many incredible young people have joined us to play games, cook and share food, present at conferences, and host volunteers. We have had incredible staff, youth and interns build a social justice and a farm planning curriculum that has been the heart of the Academic Year Program. So many youth have had their first jobs as Summer Crew, gaining basic job skills while learning (and getting passionate about) where their food comes from. Through Food Works youth have gained tangible job and leadership skills,  built a sense of self, deepened their social justice framework, figured out what they are passionate about, and built community. Food Works has grown up and grown out in response to all the youth and adult support staff who have believed that we all benefit when youth thrive and are heard.

This summer was the final season of Food Works and we want to thank the leadership of Lupita, Ev and Sophia during this time of change and uncertainty. Building on a legacy of youth who selected the Sauvie Island farm site and have been leading the work there since 2006, 10 AYP youth planned and planted the farm and Lupita, Ev and Sophia cared for it over the summer season. We will wrap up the work of this season in early October and moving forward, Village Gardens Community Leaders and staff will be inviting new partners to determine the future of the farm. As we create this path forward we would love to hear from you. Donated by Metro, the Sauvie Island farm site is an incredible resource that we have been sharing with dedicated community farmers and partners. This season, Happiness Family Farms has been growing amazing produce on 1 acre of our Sauvie Island farm. We are excited to continue to partner with new growers on this site. The Food Works learning curriculum is an incredible resource that we will continue to lean on and share, please reach out if you have questions and ideas about how to engage with it.

Though we will work with youth each summer through the Summer Works program, we are not sure what that work will look like as the seasons pass. We do know that we are committed to growing opportunities for authentic and invested leadership for both youth and adult neighbors. We will keep you posted and hope you stay in touch.

Please reach out if you have any questions, ideas or stories to share. And again…a heart full of thanks for all the folks who have touched Food Works and impacted all of us.

With respect,

Kris Soebroto and the Village Gardens team