On September 19, 2018, the leaders of various Friends of Wilshire Park teams met to prepare for the installation of the NatureSpace and plan for future projects.
Volunteer recruitment for the three NatureSpace dates (26 September, 6 October, and 10 November) is going well and at this point there are sufficient volunteers to get the job done, although there is room for more people to join in, so recruitment should continue to allow as many community members who can to contribute to this project.
Sign post repainting for the off-leash dog park will take place on Saturday, October 13. If the weather is too rainy that day, then this will be bumped to Saturday, October 20. Any interested volunteers should arrive at the park at 9 a.m. and bring any craft brushes, plastic dish brushes, and paper towels that they are willing to contribute. The dish brushes will be used to gently clean out the recessed lettering, which will be repainted with small craft brushes.
The bulk of the discussion focused on how to begin fundraising to replace all of the broken equipment in the children’s play area. Portland Parks and Recreation allocated a little bit of bond money to replace the largest of the pieces, with work to begin any day now. This will provide a badly needed replacement so that babies and toddlers will have somewhere to play for the time being, but more work must be done to replace the other splintered and rotting pieces.
The leadership team went through a list of questions given to us by city representatives, which encouraged decisions on which fiscal sponsor to work with, what sort of fundraising efforts the Friends will engage in, and how to communicate with the public. This resulted in a to-do list that included reaching out to our preferred fiscal sponsor, writing op-eds for local newsletters and newspapers, applying for grant money, and recruiting committee members with experience and interest in this area. The PTAs of local schools seemed like a good place to start, and our goal is to have some PTA members attend our next meeting.
The next meeting of Friends of Wilshire Park was set for October 17.