New grant allows Community Cycling Center to broaden its reach

[Publisher’s note: Please join me in welcoming our new News Intern Patrick Croasdaile. We’re excited that he has joined our team. This is his first article for BikePortland.]

A grant will help the Community
Cycling Center continue and expand
their work in communities like Hacienda.
(Photos: CCC)

The northeast Portland based non profit Community Cycling Center has received a grant from the Bullitt Foundation for $25,000. The grant will be used to strengthen CCC’s ties to their community partners and continue their work in under-served neighborhoods.

The focus of the grant funds will be the creation of a new collaborative advocacy program called Communities in Motion. This program seeks to build on past successes working with the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), community leaders from New Columbia and the Hacienda Community Development Corporation. Collaborative advocacy as a means of preventing problems and growing sustainable communities is a hallmark of the Bullitt Foundation’s granting process.

This guy approves.

The CCC says the grant will help them put their “collaborative advocacy concept into practice,” and “create a model that can be replicated in different neighborhoods or cities.” Communities in Motion will seek to build a Collaborative Advocacy Working Group from within CCC’s board as well as strengthen staff connections to communities in need of assistance. The program will also complement a standing Equity Committee at the CCC that is, “tasked to prioritize and address the findings of the Center for Diversity and the Environment’s Equity Audit.”

Communities in Motion will build on the success and knowledge of CCC’s ongoing Understanding Barriers to Bicycling project, which seeks to address a lack of racial diversity among those who ride bicycles in Portland (we covered the program back in April 2010). The CCC anticipates that Communities in Motion will better equip their organization to ‘work effectively within communities of color’.

Laura Koch, the CCC’s Program Director, told us this morning that, “We’ve gained a lot of momentum this past year. We’re glad to have increased support for our programs, and are very excited to continue working with our community partners.”

At a time when Federal and State budget restrictions will cut public spending on many social programs, it is refreshing to hear that organizations like the CCC are increasing their operational capacity to reach more Portlanders.