Flower power coming to Old Town
Agency brings art, youth together to transform dicey area
In a ratty, vacant lot in the heart of skid row at Northwest Fourth and Burnside, flowers are about to bloom. In the quarter block last occupied by Right to Dream Too, a self-governing homeless camp, there will soon be raised garden beds growing everything from sweet peas, to poppies to delphiniums.
Prosper Portland recently green-lighted Flower Works, a project developed by an Old Town youth agency called P:ear. P:ear stands for Project: Education, Arts, Recreation. The 24-year-old agency mentors homeless teens and young adults between the ages of 15 and 24. They do that in part through work programs, including its latest — Flower Works.
The city’s development agency, Prosper Portland, owns the lot and is requiring P:ear to merely cover the costs of utilities, maintenance and security.
Beth Burns, a former English teacher, co-founded P:ear 24 years ago with a mission of helping young people decide who they are, what they want to do and how to get there.
“I’m always looking to expand ways for young people to develop skills and find what their passion is,” Burns said, “and I feel like a connection to the land and being around cultivating something so beautiful can be deeply healing and inspiring for young people. “
The Flower Works program is run by Marianne Copene, who came up with the idea. Copene is mentoring P:ear interns through the process of planting and growing, “from seed to soil to bouquet.”
She will also teach them flower-arranging, and they will learn about the business of flower-selling. You will be able to buy these flowers in pop-ups around the city.
Copene brings 20 years of experience in both rural and urban farming to the job, plus a commitment to help improve the neighborhood.
“I mean, honestly I think all of Old Town has its own really kind of very strong current of just — it’s very sad, it’s very desperate and I feel like it’s heartbreaking in a lot of ways,” she said.
Copene says everyone — no matter what their circumstances — deserves beauty, and beauty can be transformative.
Flowers are nourishing in their own way: “I remember the first time I put flowers into someone’s hands and I was like, saw what it did to their whole being. And I was like, oh, this is exactly the thing to do.”
The flower beds won’t rise up on Burnside for a few months, but the planting season has already begun in a 40-by-80 foot greenhouse in Northeast Portland’s Cully neighborhood.
We visited the greenhouse recently where 23-year-old Gabe Lenig was planting dara cartoa — a black Queen Anne’s Lace type of flower. Lenig is one of two paid interns working on the project. Like many young people who find their way to P:ear, he was once homeless and jobless. He is now in transitional housing.
“So I’ve done a bit of gardening experience, not exactly large-scale farming or flower farming,” he said, “but I’ve had quite a few years of gardening, and then horticulture and botany are just things I’ve been interested in a while, so I was like, wow, this is a really cool opportunity that continues along with things that I’m already passionate about.”
Lenig spends 12 hours a week in the greenhouse, and is already beginning to sound like Farmer Gabe: “You can keep it really simple where it’s like dirt and water make plants grow, or you can get really advanced with it. These plants grow throughout different seasons and different bloom times and different base life. And so there’s quite a bit from starting to finishing that. I don’t even think you can finish. There’s always going to be something new.”
Copene thinks Flower Works may be life-changing for interns like Lenig. And while she is idealistic, she is not naïve about Flower Works efforts to beautify Old Town. She acknowledges there could be vandalism, but she thinks when people in Old Town start seeing a neighborhood eyesore turning into something lovely the reaction will be profound.
“There’s something around physical labor and people witnessing physical labor that really, people hold respect for that,” she said, “I think anyone seeing that labor results in transformation … and I’m so excited for the youth to be able to experience that, because I want them to recognize that their consistency in their work has the capacity to be transformative.”
Maybe the expression “Flower Power” isn’t so outdated after all?
P:ear will celebrate spring with a Flower Works pop-up event on Thursday, March 12, 2-5 p.m., at P:ear headquarters, 338 NW Sixth Ave. More information on P:ear is at: www.pearmentor.org/
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