Peninsula Elementary School

May 7

On May 7th we held our Crew Leader training at Peninsula Elementary. The first half of the day was spent in the classroom covering topics of environmental justice from the history of redlining and the Urban Heat Island Effect, and the context for Depaving. We then moved outside to demonstrate how to depave and safely monitor volunteers at events and apply trauma-informed practices for working with the public. Together, we removed 1,189 sf asphalt to expand existing tree wells. We trained five new crew leaders who will help us with future events. We endured some quick downpours, but ended with a sunny day.

On August 13, we returned for a small event with a few staff, board members and crew leaders to remove 1665 sf asphalt to make way for planting area with raised beds. This Depave event was sponsored by Patagonia Work Wear, as staff and Crew Leaders were supplied with workwear and Dave Coy photographed the event (see photos below).

Depave has begun working this winter with Elbow Room artists to design the garden beds which will replace the depaved area in the courtyard at the school. Elbow Room is a budding arts nonprofit in Portland whose programming is focused on supporting artists with intellectual and developmental disabilities to develop their own unique artistic practice and to connect in meaningful ways with the community. Elbow Room inherited a connection with a community driven agricultural space, the “Sideyard Annex”, which is in the Cully neighborhood, and was built-out with accessibility in mind by the volunteers and founders of Public Annex, a predecessor of Elbow Room. The Sideyard Annex garden has been renovated with raised beds to make them more accessible including grading to create an earthen ramp to bring electric wheelchair users into the garden, which is why we turned to their organization to collaborate on this project.