The Rosewood Initiative

Thanks again to Dave Schrenk for helping us document the making of “The Eyes of All,” by muralists Antwoine Thomas and Addie Boswell, painted by the Rosewood community.

Rosewood could use a few things right now, who can help out?

Here’s a list of things we need in the short term, and as everyone knows, we always need volunteers and cash to support the work we’re doing! Construction is just around the corner…we promise!

*popsicles

*dry erase markers

*sidewalk chalk

*liquid hand soap

*light bulbs

*window paint

*paper cups

*juice

*ping pong balls

*art supplies

*beads (especially letter beads)

*new t-shirts/hats/bags (for printing Rosewood gear!)

Stop by to drop off donations at our mural celebration this Saturday at 1pm!

We are almost done painting our first ever Rosewood community mural…

Come celebrate with us this Saturday, August 11th from 1-4pm!!!!

Artists Antwoine Thomas and Addie Boswell will share what this work means to them and we would love to hear from you, too!

We’ll have hot dogs, snacks and juices compliments of Moe Farhoud and Stark Firs Properties, donations are much appreciated.

See you there!!!

A year ago, we met local Rosewood artist Antwoine Thomas and began planning a community mural on the 76 Gas Station at SE 162nd Ave and Stark. Antwoine designed an incredibly powerful piece with the community, we found an experienced mural artist, Addie Boswell, to assist us, and we raised money through two grants from East Portland Neighbors (Graffiti Abatement Community Grant) and Regional Arts and Culture Council to do the work.

And now…we are painting!!

The design went up last Thursday evening:

Here is the progress as of today:

We’ll be painting throughout the week, stop by and grab a brush! The community celebration of the completed mural will be the afternoon of Saturday, August 11th (more details on that soon).

Another magical day in Rosewood! Agape Church volunteers and local residents stepped up to help prep the 76 Gas Station property for the community mural.  Special thanks to Kurt Albright (owner at Patia’s Corner) for power washing the entire building, it’s looking so fresh! We pulled weeds, planted flowers, painted pots and  ate popsicles and pizza together.  Tomorrow we’ll prime the wall, set up scaffolding and test the projector to get the design onto the wall. Stop by, say hi and help out!

ROSEWOOD:

It was great to see so many of you at our July community meeting this past Wednesday! If you missed out, our next one will be on Wednesday, August 15th at 1pm at Rosewood (609 SE 162nd Ave).

There are a lot of activities happening before then, so keep checking the blog and our FaceBook group page for the latest.

Mural painting will start next week!!!! A work crew from Multnomah County is coming on Wednesday to clean up the 76 Gas Station property, and then artists Antwoine Thomas and Addie Boswell will begin the design projection and painting on Thursday, July 26th.  Because of this big project, we are going to have to cancel youth night for a couple of weeks. Sorry, everybody!

On August 18th from 11am-5pm, Papa’s Pizza is hosting the first ever ROSEWOOD COMMUNITY CARNIVAL (at Papa’s Pizza, 16321 SE Stark) with food, games, prizes and a bounce house! Games and food start at $.50 -all proceeds will benefit The Rosewood Initiative and our work in the community. Come celebrate our amazing local talent with performances by Rosewood community members! Please contact us if you can volunteer to help out that day, we need your help with games, set-up, clean-up, etc.

We are taking a month off from holding the East Youth Violence Prevention meetings while we figure out some logistics.  If you have any input on that topic, let us know!

Come by and see us, and get involved! Open summer hours, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 2-6pm and Thursdays from 10am-8:30pm.

Portland Parks and Recreation, Oliver Elementary School, and community leaders from East Portland are hosting a mobile playground EVERY Monday morning from 9:30am-12:30pm in the Oliver field.  The school’s address is: 15840 SE Taylor St

Bring your kids and tell your friends, this is a great resource that we’ve coordinated to serve the youth in Rosewood this summer and we want to make sure the word is out!! Also, Oliver Elementary SUN program has FREE LUNCH and fun activities for youth every day at the school at 12:30pm

Thanks to Multnomah County support we are getting closer to building out Rosewood Cafe!! While we patiently wait for funding and construction logistics, you can find us at Rosewood this summer:

Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday 2pm-6pm and Thursday 10am-8:30pm

There will be occasional exceptions to our schedule, but we’ll do our best to keep this consistent starting June 26.  Stop by and see us!!

Austin shining up the Rosewood storefront with our new window washing kit, thank you Betty!

Rosewood:

We are ecstatic to announce that the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners has approved funding to help us build our community space, Rosewood Cafe!!

The funding will be used for construction and operations for one year.  This comes at a crucial time for Rosewood, as we just received the funding from Portland Police Bureau to cover the costs of building permits and we needed the capital funds to move forward.  We are also receiving a $5,000 grant from the East Portland Action Plan to help supplement the costs of coordinating this big project.

This has been an incredible journey already and it is so encouraging to have financial support as well as the partnerships to do the work in the neighborhood.  Our patience and perseverance is paying off, it’s all coming together!

Today, we would especially like to thank our Multnomah County Commissioners for their support of The Rosewood Initiative!!!

Antwoine Thomas finished his design for the community mural, and it is amazing!  Thank you to everyone that gave Antwoine inspiration and ideas.  He did an incredible job of representing the diversity of our neighborhood, the youth, our connection to the region, and our positive momentum toward community change.  Painting on the south facing wall of the 76 Gas Station at SE 162nd Ave and Stark will start this summer, most likely mid-July. We’ll keep you posted so that you can come help paint.  And next time you see Antwoine, let him know how much we appreciate him sharing his talent to put this beautiful symbol of community up in Rosewood!

Speaking of graffiti abatement, we are partnering with Multnomah County community service work crews to do neighborhood clean-up and need your help identifying some areas where we have chronic graffiti problems.

Where should we send them??

On the list already:

*utility poles at Burnside MAX stops

*utility poles at SE 162nd Ave and Stark

*retaining walls and privacy fences along Burnside from 102nd Ave to Gresham