IMAGINE WHAT WE COULD ALL DO TOGETHER...
Over the past seven years Love City has had lots of events; spring carnivals, parties on the porch, Christmas parties and Thanksgiving dinners for the community. The events had multiple goals; first to build trust in the community, second to provide an opportunity to listen to our neighbors and third, for neighbors to come together and build their own community. At the beginning of Love City, we would plan the event, and volunteers would come from all over town to help run the event for the community. As the years went by members of the community would also come to volunteer and help run the events. In January 2022 we started a weekly gathering, we invited only a few members of the community, mainly people that had lived in the community their whole lives, and just had dinner and enjoyed each other’s company. As the months went on, we provided the space and the main course for the meal, but community members would come and help cook, and bring desserts.
From the top: The buffet line at the community dinner; appetizers and desserts made by Mighty Oak Academy students for the community dinner.
This past Tuesday, we held a thanksgiving style dinner for our regular community gathering. The kids from Mighty Oak Academy had been working in culinary class to make desserts and appetizers for the dinner, and the entire school was invited. The students from the school worked Monday and Tuesday to make all the desserts and appetizers, the Might Makers helped bring down tables and chairs, and set up everything in the old Porkland space, one family from the school donated a whole hog for us to smoke and multiple parents came that Tuesday afternoon to help finish with cooking and set up. The time for the dinner had arrived and Shawn and I walked into Porkland and witnessed probably one of the greatest scenes we’ve seen since we moved to Portland seven years ago. There were parents and community members working the buffet line, serving their neighbors, there were kids from the school cleaning tables and helping to take out the trash, there were more parents working the kitchen and doing dishes, and even more that had made desserts to add to the dessert table. Shawn and I sat at a table and said hi to neighbors as they waited in the buffet line that snaked through the dining room.
Once the line had died down, Shawn and I also went and got plates and sat down to eat. Many people came up to us to say thank you, but it was really the community that did all the work. Then KG owner of the auto body shop just up the street, whose two daughters attend Mighty Oak came up to talk. He shook Shawn’s hand and leaned over and said, “you know, some of the guys and I were just talking, and we said, if two people could do all this, imagine what we could all do together?” Shawn and I both didn’t really have anything to say to that, we could just not in agreement. I could not think of a better way to sum up the last seven years, or the goal of Love City. The intention was always to empower our neighbors to build their own community. And on Tuesday night that’s exactly what they did. They came together and put on that dinner for their own community. They did the work and it was beautiful to see the restoration and elevation of a community. Imagine what we could all do together…
NO FISH FRY THIS FRIDAY!
In honor of Thanksgiving we will not have a fish fry this Friday. We hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends and we'll see you next week!
If you are interested in volunteering or to find out more information about supplies needed please email: info@lovecityinc.org or call (502) 272-078.
Please consider partnering financially with Love City. We are looking for sponsors for students at Mighty Oak Academy as well as partners to help fund construction of our new preschool. Click the button below to donate today.