On Wednesday, September 11th, Portland City Council gave the Gateway Green project permission to bid for a construction contract. This is routine business at the City, but to the project team and park supporters, it’s thrilling. It means the many years of advocacy, public engagement, and design work will take one more step towards becoming a reality.

Gateway Green is a 25-acre site located at the confluence of two major freeways in East Portland, a historically park-deficient area of the Portland Metro Area. Since 2012 GreenWorks has been involved in the project and most recently produced a master plan to guide future work centered around restoring habitat, improving access, and enhancing recreational opportunities, specifically off-road cycling. We asked landscape designer Kelly Stoecklein, who has been spending a lot of time on the project over the past two years, about the significance of last week’s events.

We really enjoyed turning our local parking spot into a tiny park for #PBOTparkingday today. What is Park(ing) day?

PARK(ing) Day happens across the world in September and gives people the opportunity to re-envision how we use our public spaces. The City of Portland has been participating in this international event since 2006. - Portland Bureau of Transportation

Every Monday morning at GreenWorks we have a meeting to kick off the week. A portion of this meeting is dedicated to ‘sharing’ which can include anything from photos people have taken while on vacation, family and personal updates, images of projects through the phases of design and construction, events and conferences attended, or stories of how people spend their time volunteering. This last part is something special at GreenWorks; as individuals and as GreenWorks employees, we are dedicated to our communities and the environment in so many unique ways. Here are a few ways people at GreenWorks volunteer their time: