Greetings, Friends of Wisdom,

The summer season has a way of moving fast, and this season has been no exception. Between fieldwork, new partnerships, and the everyday work of listening and preserving, our community showed up for each other and for the land we share.

We're grateful for every hand that helped make this season count, and we're glad to share a bit of it with you here. 

Our Wisdom of the Elders archive continues to grow, with new conversations from our tape collection making their way online – elders speaking in their own words, no interruptions, no filters. There is something about hearing a story the way it was actually told, at the pace it was actually told, that no summary has ever managed to hold.

We've also been out in the field this summer with our Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (ITEK) crew, capturing the land stewardship and ecological knowledge work that grounds so much of what we do.

We spent time with Stephanie Craig, a 7th-generation Kalapuya weaver and an enrolled member of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, documenting her basket-weaving practice for an upcoming series, Seven Generations of Knowledge, carried in a pair of hands.

We're also proud to be part of the BRANCH Coalition, a group of organizations working together on invasive species removal, native plant restoration, watershed stewardship, and care of urban green spaces across the Portland area.

Our partners in this work include Portland Parks, Urban Forestry Project, Connecting Canopies, The Blueprint Foundation, Depave, Friends of Trees, Verde PDX, Columbia Slough, POIC, APANO, BPI PDX, and the City of Gresham. It takes many hands to care for this land well, and we're grateful to do so alongside organizations that share the same commitment.

Multimedia: Putting 30+ years of Archival footage on the Map

Behind the scenes, we're preparing our full video library for a larger public home so more people can access this work. Our web team is also building out a major piece of our Digital Archive Initiative: an interactive online story map that will let visitors explore our archive by place, connecting oral histories, video, photographs, and traditional ecological knowledge directly to the land they come from.

The stories will no longer live in a list. They will live where they happened so that someone can open the map, find a place they know, and hear an Elder speak about it. It's one of the more ambitious projects we've taken on, and we can't wait to bring it online.

Board of Directors and our Wisdom Radio Program

We're also working closely with our Board of Directors on a full relaunch of our Radio Program, with plans to bring it to every major platform, making it easier than ever to listen wherever you are. Stay tuned; this one's been a long time coming, and we're excited to share more soon.

Fall 2026 Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge Internship Enrollment is Now Open!

We're excited to announce that enrollment is officially open for our Fall 2026 ITEK Internship, and we can't wait to welcome our next cohort! We're accepting applications from anyone passionate about Environmental Conservation & Restoration and how Wisdom integrates Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge (ITEK) into our work.

This paid 12-week program combines hands-on fieldwork with partner organizations, along with in-person and online sessions covering ITEK, STEAM-related concepts, and Native American cultural arts and plant knowledge. Interns earn $19.00 an hour. It's a hands-on, heart-forward opportunity to build real skills while deepening your connection to land and community.

Spots are limited, so don't wait! 

You can read more about the program here and apply here. 

Questions are always welcome. Contact 

dawn@wisdomoftheelders.org and carmelina@wisdomoftheelders.org

We can't wait to see who joins us this Fall!

Save the Date 

Wieden+Kennedy: Dec 5, 2026 

Seeds of Wisdom Event

There's one more thing we've been building toward, and we're glad to finally share it.

Later this year, we'll gather in person for Seeds of Wisdom, our end-of-year fundraiser, hosted at Wieden+Kennedy here in Portland. Wisdom of the Elders is creating an event centered on Indigenous storytelling, environmental stewardship, and workforce development the same three threads that run through everything you've just read. It felt right to bring them into one room.

We're looking for partners who want to support meaningful community impact while helping amplify Native voices and leadership in Portland and beyond. If that sounds like you, or like an organization you're part of, we would love to hear from you. We're building our partner roster now, which means there's still real room to help shape what this evening becomes.

***As a note for those who have supported us through Willamette Week's Give!Guide in past years, we're not part of Give!Guide this season. 

We've Joined Earth Gives

Earth Gives is a nationwide platform connecting donors with organizations advancing solutions for people and the planet.

It is a natural fit for us: our work has always lived where cultural preservation and ecological stewardship meet the archive and the watershed, the storyteller and the seed, and Earth Gives puts that work in front of people across the country who care about both. 

Our end-of-year giving runs through Seeds of Wisdom and Earth Gives and we hope you'll join us there instead.

If you've been looking for a simple way to support what you've read about here, this is it.

Want to stay closer to what we're up to day-to-day? Find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube; more is coming there soon, including TikTok and Threads.

There's more coming this fall. Thank you for being part of it.

Wisdom of the Elders, Inc.

Portland, Oregon

wisdomoftheelders.org