‘Emergency Resilience Indigenous Event’ hosted in Parkrose

Here’s why organizations came together recently at the Historic Parkrose NPI offices in outer East Portland …

Native American traditional foods, medicines, and crafts — potentially helpful in an emergency — are here, on display, at the Emergency Resilience Indigenous Event.

Story and photos by David F. Ashton

Outside the Historic Parkrose Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative offices, as well as within – on Saturday morning, September 14 – vendors and representatives of organizations were busysetting up their displays as the first outer East Portland Emergency Resilience Indigenous Event, just getting underway.

With this backpack filled with emergency aid items, we found Stand Up for Racial Justice volunteer Phyllis Steinhauser, event organizer Lluvia Merello organizer, and Historic Parkrose Interim Executive Director Annette Stanhope.

“We were fortunate to get some funding from the East Portland Action Plan to put on this demonstration,” explained the event organizer, Lluvia Merello with Portland Indigenous Marketplace.

“We’ve created this because we know that the community needs more resources for emergency preparedness,” Merello told East Portland News.

“Historic Parkrose was generous enough to offer us the space, as well as volunteer time gathering resources to put in the backpacks and then for packing them,” Merello pointed out.

To “spark the thought of considering emergency preparedness” as Merello put it, those who came through were able to avail themselves of an abundance of educational materials – as well as one of the free backpack kits given ti the first 100 people who checked in there, that day.

Showing her hand-painted elk hide drum is Melody Marquez of Rhythm Art.

“We’re grateful that Eastgate Masonic Lodge members provided the actual backpacks; and that Mad Bear LLC was able to present on plant medicine identification and providing indigenous knowledge that we also recognize can be helpful in time of emergency,” Merello acknowledged.

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