We research, implement, and improve emerging and critical-response initiatives, education, and pilot projects to cultivate wellness in individuals and communities living with the traumas of systemic racism.

Listening Circle—Green Spaces In Your Community

What has your experience been with green spaces in your community?
We want to hear from you! Brown Hope and the City of Portland's Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) are gathering information about BIPOC experienceswith their local community green spaces—parks, gardens,playgrounds, woods, walking trails, and other spaces.

Registration Process

a) Take the initial survey*—3 minutes*
b) Participate in a Listening circle—1 hour 45 minutes*
c) Receive $50 for completing the process

Take the Listening Circle survey

*Virtual attendance options available

Ancestral Abundance

Ancestral Abundance is a planning project in partnership with the City’s Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) to support the development of a community healing garden and workforce training program. The initiative focuses on neighborhoods where Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities are most affected by social and economic trauma, and incorporates regenerative agriculture practices to capture carbon, improve air quality, and rewild our urban landscape. Through the reintroduction of native plants and medicinal herbs, we can bring the connection to nature and ancestral ways of healing to reverse the systemic exploitation that disproportionately targets Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. Our highest ambitions include the creation of an economic development venture to recruit and train community members to create herbal medicines and sell products within the community in order to help sustain the maintenance of the garden and our workforce program for the long term. Learn more about PCEF.

COVID-19

With Brown Hope’s focus on healing from racial trauma, we’ve witnessed how COVID-19 continues to be the single most traumatic event of the past 2 years, jeopardizing the mental and emotional resilience of Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities nationwide. Brown Hope has spent the last 20 months organizing direct and immediate relief to ensure that communities disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 and racial injustice have the opportunity for a more resilient future. Here is some of what we’ve accomplished:

• Facilitated over $1,000,000 in direct rent assistance to Black, Brown, and Indigenous Oregon renters who lost income due to COVID-19.
• Distributed 200+ technology access kits, which included free chrome books and internet assistance cards.
• Supplied over 13,000 food boxes to food insecure Black, Brown, and Indigenous neighbors in the Portland metro region.
• Organized over $200,000 in direct wrap-around services (groceries, utilities, rent assistance) to Black, Brown, and Indigenous neighbors who tested positive for COVID-19.
• Provided mental health and behavioral health services to over 400 Black, Brown, and Indigenous Portlanders facing the dual traumas of social isolation and economic uncertainty.

**Black, Brown, & Indigenous

Community Healing Resource Guide**

This guide was designed to support Black, Brown, and Indigenous community members along their wellness journey. Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities have long been separated from their healing modalities. The listed providers offer culturally specific opportunities to reconnect with our healing roots.