The Community Placemaking grant program awarded $450,000 to 23 projects across the Metro region for its 2025 grant cycle—the most funding distributed in the program’s history. Metro received 203 applications for the 2025 cycle requesting $4,297,754 in grant funding—more than twice the number of applications ever received in a cycle. The increased funding this year allowed for a wider geographic distribution of grant awards around the region.
With Metro’s support, Community Placemaking projects will take place in Portland, Gresham, Troutdale, Fairview, Lake Oswego, West Linn, Oregon City, Forest Grove, Hillsboro, Beaverton and Washington County.
Pathfinders of Oregon
The PATHfinder Club at the Center for Family Success, $15,000 (East & Northeast Portland)
Supports arts-based support club for teens impacted by incarceration, deportation and detention. Weekly sessions, facilitated by staff with shared lived experience, feature mindfulness, art, writing, community-building activities and meal sharing. Youth will learn to overcome the shame and stigma associated with familial incarceration.
Portland Chinatown History Foundation dba Portland Chinatown Museum
Building a Community of Care for Post-COVID Asian American and Immigrant Communities in Portland, $25,000 (Downtown Portland)
Supports a series of in-person workshops, events and an exhibit that address anti-Asian hate through healing, empowerment and safety. Involves a collaboration of community organizations and artists, educators and healing practitioners to create a community of care.
DAWN, Inc.
Home away from home for Ukrainian refugees, $25,000 (Hillsboro and Northeast Portland)
Supports programming that preserves and celebrates Ukrainian culture through traditional music, dance and arts. By cultivating safe spaces for self-expression and sharing of traditions, they support the healing and cohesion of the Ukrainian community.
ELSO Inc.
Roots n Threads: Empowering Black and Brown Youth in Albina Through Place-Based Design, $25,000 (Northeast Portland)
Supports wo programs that ensure Black and Brown youth are shaping the physical and cultural landscape of their neighborhood. The Youth Design Forum engages 85 youth with planners to reimagine Albina's future. Roots n Threads guides 15 participants in exploring Albina's cultural heritage through place-inspired, wearable art.
Iu Mien Association of Oregon
Rose City Girls Dance Program, $15,360 (Gresham, Fairview, Troutdale, Portland)
Supports and grows the Rose City Girls dance program to bring awareness to the culture and connect with other refugees, immigrants and communities of color. It allows for participation in events that are inclusive of other Southeast Asian communities in the Portland Metro area.
Ka Aha Lahui O Olekona
Piko To Piko, $25,000 (Beaverton, Forest Grove and Northeast Portland)
Supports the start of a third community garden to grow kalo (taro). There will be weekly and monthly volunteer opportunities and three events: a blessing that follows cultural protocols and to gain permission from the Indigenous community, an educational session to learn more about growing kalo, and a harvest celebration at the end of the growing season.
Cultivate Initiatives
Eat & Greets 2025-2026, $15,000 (Northeast, Southeast and East Portland)
Supports food gatherings for housed and unhoused neighbors at a safe rest village so they can see themselves connected to each other. Includes compensation for the unhoused neighbors on the planning committee and free food for all participants.
Filipino American Association of Portland & Vicinity, Inc
Filipino Cultural Immersion Program, $25,000 (East Portland)
Supports a Filipino Cultural Immersion Program focused on cuisine, language and story telling, music and arts to teach, honor and preserve elder traditions. It culminates in a July celebration.
Color Outside the Lines
Youth Empowerment through the Arts, $15,000 (Northeast, Southeast and Northwest Portland)
Supports foster and at-risk youth's collaboration with culturally responsive artist mentors on 3 murals, individually celebrating African American, Latino and Native American cultures. It includes art supplies for 500 youth with a journal to connect them with their surrounding environment and nature as means of wellbeing.
Arab American Cultural Center of Oregon
2025 Mahrajan Location, $15,000 (Southeast Portland)
Supports the Arab American Cultural Center putting on their largest community event that brings together thousands of Oregonian-Arabs and non-Arabs to celebrate their culture, foster relationships and educate Oregonians.
Art in Oregon
Terrain, $6,700 (Northwest Portland)
Supports fifteen artists creating works using natural materials and drawing inspiration from the landscape. The exhibit is meant to spark curiosity and environmental stewardship within the broader community. There's an emphasis on ecology, natural materials and lack of representation of people of color in outdoor spaces.
Bag & Baggage Productions
WY'EAST: A New Musical, $15,000 (Multnomah and Washington County)
Supports the creation of a theatre piece that answers the question, an acknowledgment is one thing, but what are you going to do next? It will invite audiences to think about how they can learn the history and the myths of the land they live on and how to celebrate Indigenous land honoring traditions.
Oregon Cambodian Buddhist Society
Wat Dhammarangsey Restoration, $15,000 (West Linn)
Supports creation of a community garden that honors Khmer cultural heritage while promoting environmental stewardship, engaging the Khmer community--many of whom are refugees or descendants of refugees--in hands-on activities such as gardening, educational workshops and farm-to-table events.
Pacific Northwest Council of Water Protectors
PNWCWP Annual Medicine Gathering, $25,000 (Gresham)
Supports a gathering that brings together the Native community and its allies for cultural teachings, traditional foods, medicine and healing via workshops, talking circles, ceremony, art and music. The gathering hosts cultural performances and sacred ceremony to bring folks together to cultivate and foster sacred relationships to the water and community.
Marianas Alliance for Growth of Islanders
Marianas Festival 2025: Cultural Celebration and Community Empowerment, $25,000 (Fairview)
Supports expansion of the Marianas Festival's reach and impact by enhancing cultural programming, increasing community engagement and improving the overall festival experience. It celebrates and preserves the cultural heritage of the Marianas Islands communities.
Prismid, Inc.
Prismid Sanctuary Project, $25,000 (North Portland)
Supports new hires to manage and implement place-based and grief-oriented programming that expands the impact and capacity of their BIPOC-centered community space and provides a free, accessible and welcoming place for creative wellness programs and social justice-oriented, eco-social practices.
Respond to Racism in Lake Oswego
Events Celebrating BIPOC Culture In and Around Lake Oswego, $25,000 (Lake Oswego and Oregon City)
Supports a series of cultural events in multiple locations developed and delivered under the guidance of steering committees connected to each culture being celebrated. It emphasizes the importance of BIPOC community members feeling celebrated and seen in Clackamas County, leading to a sense of place.
The UPRISE Collective
Community Stories are Community Survival: The Selah Series, $16,140 (Northeast Portland)
Supports the Selah Series is a BIPOC storytelling space that supports healing, knowledge sharing and cross-community power building within a system that benefits from collective disconnection and un-wellness. The four events will feature ASL, BIPOC vendors, full ADA accessibility and compensation to community members for the gift of their stories.
Tigray Community of Oregon
Leadership and Capacity Building for Cultural Preservation, $25,000 (East Portland)
Supports skill development and leadership training to empower Tigrat community members to participate in civic activities as they prepare to host their largest event to date, Wa'Ela Tigray 2025, which will showcase local leadership within the Tigrayan community to others in the US and set the stage for future initiatives, including the establishment of a community center.
Filipino Bayanihan Center
Kultura at Bayanihan: An Arts and Culture Program for Collective Action, $25,000 (Southeast Portland)
Supports workshops for writing, music, video production and community-based discussions and will culminate in a theatre production and documentary that sheds light on the Filipino migrant experience.
New Year in the Park planning committee
2025 New Year in the Park, $15,000 (Northeast Portland)
Supports the most important traditional cultural festival for the peoples of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar (formerly Burma) and more, providing an opportunity to offer blessings and honor community and share traditional performances, crafts, activities and food.
Seven Vision
Voices of Wisdom, $21,800 (Multnomah and Washington County)
Supports a series of 3-day workshops for youth aged 13-21 with an emphasis on underserved indigenous, Black and Latinx youth and students less likely to thrive standardized educational settings. Participants will learn media-production and each create a music video or storytelling piece with the mentorship from guest artists, with the goal finding their voice and becoming empowered self-directed creators.
Vibe of Portland
Discovering St. Johns, $10,000 (North Portland)
Supports youth engagement around the untold history of St. Johns from a BIPOC perspective. Includes historical research, community outreach and artistic collaboration and will result in a series of prints, videos and music that celebrate St. Johns' communities' diverse heritage and contributions.