Tsagaglalal

Greetings Friends of Wisdom,

We hope this finds you all well and enjoying your summer. Happy Summer Solstice! Wisdom has been very busy picking up our team and programs after this pandemic, and we are grateful to be back up and able to share!

We want to say thank you to all who have sent in donations throughout this year to help sustain the work we do here at Wisdom. Your support is vital to our programs as it helps us continue to build and refine our educational curriculum, produce more films, and restore the archived materials we have so we can share them back to the Tribes, as well as educational institutions and the general public at future film screenings.

We would like to express our gratitude to the following new funders and partners who have joined us in our mission:

WWD Summer Internship

WWD: LLC & ITEK Internship

The ITEK Spring internship just wrapped up! Congratulations to interns who graduated, each completing over 150 hours of classroom learning in Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge and ecological fieldwork.

Some of the highlights from this spring include:

  • The interns planted butterfly garden seedlings as gifts for community members for the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons.
  • Throughout the spring, the interns worked with partners in the field, planting and caring for the First Foods Garden at Zenger Farms, with plants and instruction provided by East Multnomah Soil and Water Conservation District and Kyle Leslie-Christy.
  • The interns had the opportunity to spend a day at Tsagaglalal, “She Who Watches,” in partnership with the Confluence Project and Forest Park Conservancy internship. Special thanks to Ken Smith, Heidi Katchia Van Vliet, Heather Gurko, Confluence Project, and Clifton and Christine Bruno for sharing their knowledge and teachings.
  • The interns worked with LCEP and the Confluence Project at the Sandy River Delta, learning about habitat restoration, planting, and removing aggressive plants, and exploring career pathways in restoration work.
  • The interns also spent a day with Ground Culture at Wapato Island Farm, learning about and making Bokashi Balls (little microbe mudballs) for restoring the environment by cleaning toxic waterways, improving soil health, and supporting the expansion of existing mycelial networks.
Wisdom Multimedia

Wisdom Multimedia Programs

The Wisdom of the Elders multimedia department is thrilled to unveil the relaunch of its highly anticipated multimedia internship program for 2023. This unique program provides aspiring Native and Indigenous multimedia professionals with a unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience and valuable skills in a dynamic and collaborative environment. Building on the success of previous internships, the department is proud to announce its partnership with Open Signal, a renowned organization known for its commitment to empowering underrepresented voices through media and technology.

The collaboration with Open Signal brings an added layer of expertise and resources to the internship program. Interns will have the chance to work closely with industry professionals and mentors who are passionate about multimedia production, storytelling, and community engagement. This partnership aims to foster an inclusive and diverse environment where interns can explore various facets of multimedia, including video production, audio editing, graphic design, and digital media distribution.

The Wisdom of the Elders multimedia department recognizes the importance of providing opportunities for emerging talent to thrive in the media landscape. The internship program not only equips interns with technical skills but also encourages them to think critically, push creative boundaries, and amplify marginalized voices. Through this partnership with Open Signal, the department is dedicated to empowering the next generation of multimedia professionals and nurturing a more inclusive and equitable media industry.

Graduates of the program will become certified multimedia producers through Open Signal and also have the opportunity to work on the relaunch of the Wisdom of the Elders TV program “Discovering our stories - Generations”

The program will start in mid-October and last for 3 months. Stay tuned for open applications.

Wisdom Job Opportunities

Wisdom of the Elders, Inc. / Environmental Field Instructor

How to Apply:

Email your resume to teresa@wisdomoftheelders.org with Environmental Instructor in the Subject line. To view the full job description please click this link

Wisdom of the Elders, Inc. / Multimedia Production Assistant

The Multimedia Production Assistant helps produce, manage, and facilitate media production responsibilities for Wisdom
How to Apply:

Email your resume to tim@wisdomoftheelders.org with Multimedia Production Assistant in the Subject line. To view the full job description please click this link

Unity and Shared Purpose

It is indeed through unity and shared purpose that we can all grow and thrive while building each other up for a brighter future for ourselves and this amazingly beautiful planet we share.

Continue to take care of yourselves and each other.

My best to you,

Teresa Montana

Exec. Dir.

Wisdom of the Elders 2026 Summer Newsletter A paid internship, now enrolling. Plus elders' voices, mapped to the land they came from.
Wisdom of the Elders, Inc

What We Plant, We Pass On

Wisdom of the elders Multimedia Services

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.


Stephanie Craig


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.


Watch The Featured Video
ITEK Partners

It Takes Many 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.


Wisdom Digital Archive Initiative 

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.


2026 ITEK Fall Internship

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!


ITEK VIDEO

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


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Copyright @ 2026 Wisdom of the Elders, Inc, All rights reserved.

3917 NE Shaver st. Portland, Oregon 97212