Parks, Learning, and Community Enhancement

Neighborhood PLACE

There are resources all around us, if you have a little imagination to find them. When most people look at a vacant lot, they see unusable space. We see a place that can be transformed into a summer day camp environment that can change lives. With a small amount of space and some materials to make it our own, we can give urban youth the support they need. We will take an area of land that is currently not meeting its full potential as a usable space, and transform it into a community PLACE — Parks, Learning, and Community Enhancement.

We believe that every kid should be able to go to camp. The opportunities for growth and social development are endless in a mere five days at day camp — but often this is a luxury many families can't afford. TCC's newest initiative, Neighborhood PLACE, would provide as many low-income families as possible with free childcare and the ability to build their own communities within specific Portland neighborhoods.

TCC will bring its professional camp staff to partner with various neighborhood associations in the Portland Metro area, searching for underutilized or unused spaces that could be transformed into a community place. In addition to providing a thoughtful curriculum for neighborhood youth, we will encourage the participants to decide how to improve their own communities — through a beautification project that could include landscaping, gardening, and artwork. Not only do we hope to impact the families of kids in our Neighborhood PLACE camps, we want to leave a positive mark on all of the communities we encounter. By beautifying the vacant lots and other unused space as a part of the day camp curriculum, we will be helping the neighborhood improve itself.

Once we have beautified our space, we would implement a day camp program that would use Portland, Oregon as the backdrop - utilizing the city and surrounding landscape to engage kids in a unique day camp program. Everything about traditional summer camps would stay the same — only maximized. With a thoughtful curriculum, we believe we can make day camp a meaningful tool for exploration and community building.

Please consider making a donation through our Neighborhood PLACE paypal today. Every dollar earned will go directly towards sending a child to camp. With your support, we can make Portland a better PLACE to live — one neighborhood at a time!