eNewsletter from Wisdom of the Elders
December 13th 2018

Wisdom Workforce Partnership with the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services

For the past six months, Wisdom’s social and economic venture, Wisdom Workforce LLC has partnered with the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services to conduct valuable conservation work in local parks and other ecosystems. They have learned much from the guidance and direction that Lora Price continues to provide to our team. Lora serves as Project Director for Wisdom Workforce Development and WWD LLC.

The crew worked in partnership with Damion Coe and Christa Von Behren, Ph.D., with the Watershed Revegetation Team at the Bureau of Environmental Services. Damion is Natural Resource Ecologist for the Portland BES Watershed Revegetation Program. Christa is also Program Development Coordinator at the Rae Selling Seed Bank & Plant Conservation Program which is consulting with Wisdom to pursue a potential partnership. Christa also serves as Instructor for the Department of Environmental Science & Management at Portland State University.

At Westmoreland Park, the team performed monitoring and restoration maintenance of the park’s recently installed natural area.  Removal of invasive and nuisance plants included Teasel, Birdsfoot Trefoil, Canadian Thistle, Purple loosestrife, English Ivy, Bindweed and Norway Maple plus other volunteer tree saplings. This has been a successful effort to keep invasive vegetation from taking hold and maintain a diversified balance of native vegetation. We are grateful that BES chooses not use herbicides or pesticides at this location where many young children and pregnant moms congregate.

At Brookside Wetlands, the team performed landscape maintenance including mowing, hedging and pruning of shrubs and then broadcast and mulched native seeds in cleared areas.  At Bundy Park, the team cleared Ivy and blackberry at this abandoned house site. The Crew also removed Black Locusts, an invasive tree in Vermont Park.

With Christa the team has performed seed collection and seed cleaning. Seeds were collected from Rushes, Sedges and Piggyback plants at Riverview and in Forest Park. They also work at the Oregon State University Experimentation Center in Aurora planting seedling sedges and perennials from flats into the ground.

Our crew is grateful for the direction they received while building their skills in seed collection and the different methods used to clean different seeds collected. Damion and Christa appreciated. Wisdom crew’s work ethic and their sharing of traditional knowledges.

Wisdom of the Elders Launches its Documentary Film Fundraiser

Wisdom’s Multimedia Team is inviting you to join us in completing a pair of hour-long television programs about the effects of the warming climate on traditional Native foods and resources in Oregon. On December 12^th, we will launch a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo to prepare the films for broadcast.

For thousands of years, we Native Oregonians have been deeply connected to the land, our source for food, medicine and the things we need to live. We consider these to be gifts from The Creator. But today, these traditional gifts are threatened. As the climate warms up and development encroaches on our lands, our fish are getting sick, our forests are burning and our wild game is struggling to survive.

You can help bring this important story to a national audience through two hour-length video programs: ”Native Wisdom: The People of Oregon’s Coast” and “Native Wisdom: The People of Oregon’s Interior.” While most of the shooting is done, additional funding is needed to complete these programs and ready them for broadcast on national educational television and for distribution to schools, libraries and film festivals. Post-production editing, music, sound design and mastering take lots of time and money.  We hope to raise $10,000 to do the job right.

Please consider supporting Wisdom’s film project. Contributions of any size are welcome. There will be lots of great perks for you to enjoy in appreciation of your gift: free downloads, DVDs, signed original art prints and tickets to the premiere. Even if you can’t contribute, you can join us in getting the word out. Change is coming. Let’s make it the right kind of change. Watch for news of the campaign!

Larry Johnson and Rose High Bear filming “Native Wisdom: The People of Oregon’s Coast.”

Robert Kentta, Cultural Resources Director, Confederate Tribe of Siletz Indians of Oregon, with Rose High Bear, Executive Producer of the Native Wisdom Documentary Film Series at Wisdom of the Elders.

Coos and Coquille Tribal Members practice with a traditional NW Coast canoe

Click here to support. 

Native Wisdom Documentary Film update

Wisdom’s multimedia team is continuing its recording work on the Native Wisdom Documentary Film Series last week with a trip to the Warm Spring Indian Reservation. We conducted interviews with veteran Hotshots/Warm Springs Fire Management officers Luther Clements and William Wilson, who spoke about tribal and federal fire outlooks and Native fire management vs. current models. Here’s some behind the scenes photos of our trip to the Warm Springs Indian Reservation. The team is headed to conduct recordings on the Umatilla Indian Reservation later this week.

Our End of Year Fundraising Drive:

Wisdom is recruiting!

Wisdom Workforce Coordinator, Marissa Spang (Crow, Northern Cheyenne) is currently planning the new Wisdom Agricultural Business Incubator. She is recruiting the project Crew Leader as well as six Native American adults who will serve as interns at Wisdom’s Native Plant Nursery Academy.  See poster and WABI Crew Leader in this newsletter. Interested applicants can apply at our website.

Beyond our Reach Conference this week

Wisdom staff are attending the Willamette River Initiative’s Within Our Reach Conference this week in Salem and participating in a poster session with the Green Workforce Collaborative. Within Our Reach is a gathering of river restoration and protection professionals, funders, landowners, public agencies, scientists, students and community members. All are united in the pursuit of a healthy river system for our future. The conference being held at Salem Convention Center provides a space to reflect on the challenges facing the river and its tributaries, learn about restoration, protection and community-building efforts within and beyond the Willamette, and craft strategies to realize our vision of healthy ecosystems and healthy communities. More information is available at http://withinourreach.net/

Oregon Cultural Trust benefits from your contributions to Wisdom:

As an eligible cultural nonprofit, most of your individual donors can participate in and claim the Cultural Tax Credit. This is a special benefit unique to Oregon cultural donors; it prioritizes Oregon’s cultural organizations at the state level. Surprisingly, studies have shown that the single greatest obstacle to directing tax credit dollars to culture is lack of awareness by cultural donors! This giving season, we ask you to collaborate with us and take action to communicate the value of your work and the value proposition of participating in the Oregon Cultural Tax Credit. We have developed some ready-to-use tools like a printable flyer (right) and a digital ad (below). View and download all the tools here.

Discovering Our Story Television Program schedule

The Sunday, January 6, 2019 showing of Wisdom of the Elders’ Discovering our Story Television Program will be a re-run due to the Holiday closure at our partners Open Signal, but we’ll be back live in February! Here are the Comcast show times and channels for the next three months:

1/6/19-  Channel 11      1pm

1/8/19-  Channel 22      10pm

1/6/19-  Channel 23      9am

2/3/19-  Channel 11      1pm

2/5/19-  Channel  22    10pm

2/3/19-  Channel 23      9am

3/3/19-  Channel 11      1pm

3/5/19-  Channel 22      10pm

3/8/19-  Channel 23      9am