Time to Party…
Over a year ago, a small group of us neighbors started meeting together on Tuesday nights to just be in community together and talk about whatever was going on in our neighborhood. We would have dinner and people would bring desserts and drinks and we would just spend time together. This small group grew into a weekly attendance of around 60 people. The ages ranged from babies to people who had spent 50 plus years in Portland.
Mighty Oak’s Admin Assistant spending some time with students at our Westonia Dinner
This time that we spent together was intended to develop our relationships within this group, and allow the dreams of our elders to pass on to the younger generations to see through to completion. It was for wisdom, news, and laughs to be shared. We never advertised this night, it was just spread by word of mouth. We did not want people coming for free food, there are other places that do that, we wanted people coming for intentional community.
In the early days of Love City we used to do something called Party in the Park, where we would just go down and grill out in our adopted park, Westonia. Then during the Covid pandemic we started doing Party on the Porch, a weekly cookout on the porch of the Mackin building. These events were to release Love into the community, lower tensions, and bring together neighbors.
Westonia Park
These parties and our dinners both served important purposes, one to spread Love into the community and the other to grow closer together in a smaller group. Over the past year, our weekly dinners have grown our tight knit group closer than ever. During this time, we kept hearing of reports of trouble around our park, shootings, carjackings, chaos. So we knew it was time to shift gears. The weather was becoming nice again and so we decided to move these intentional dinners to the park and spread the sense of Love and community that we had developed amongst ourselves.
So for the past month we have been grilling out at Westonia again. Sharing burgers and laughs. More kids from Mighty Oak come then ever before. There have been no more reports of any trouble going on over in that area for the past month. This is because chaos thrives on divisions, differences, confusion, loneliness. In community, there is oneness, unity- commUNITY. In communities, there are differences still, but they grow and strengthen the group and not divide it, there is communication not confusion, and there is connection and not division.
Communities reclaim places where chaos has tried to reign. In the future we will return to our intentional dinners, to strengthen our bond even more. But for now, we are going to party the chaos away.
Ethan
While our 1,000 neighbors giving $25 a month campaign has officially ended, we are still looking for partners to help sponsor students at Mighty Oak Academy. If you can join in and partner with us please click the link below.
Today we released the Mighty Oak Academy Spring Apparel Collection, designed by students to our parents. Keep an eye on social media as it will be released to the public for preorder on May 13th.
Kemet with her shirt design
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.