At Central City Concern, we believe that one of the most immediate, tangible ways to celebrate Black History Month is to support and attend events organized by and/or featuring Black Portlanders. There are dozens of amazing events scheduled for the Portland metro area throughout February, many of which are free and appropriate for all ages!

To help you easily find events you can attend, we’ve collected links to several calendars of Black History Month events. We encourage you to explore the richness of (and diversity within) Black history and culture by attending some of these events!

Black History Festival NW Calendar: Wildly popular last year, this month-long festival brings a jaw-dropping array of performances, exhibits, lectures, pop-up markets, food events and more to various locations all over Portland. The theme for 2019 is Our 2019 Theme is “Black Migration: The State of Black Love.” (Link)

Red Tricycle’s Black History Month Calendar: A popular resource for activities, Red Tricycle lists eight particularly family-friendly ways to celebrate Black History Month in Portland. (Link)

Annual Cascade Festival of African Films Calendar: In its 29th year, this film festival is the “longest running annual, non-profit, non-commercial, largely volunteer-run African Film Festival in the United States.” All films are shown at Portland Community College’s Cascade campus (with a few exceptions). All shows are free and open to the public. (Link)

City of Portland Calendar: Four events sponsored or organized by the City of Portland, city employees or Portland bureaus. ( Link)

Black History Month is a time for celebration, reflection and hope for the future. Yet as we celebrate the beautiful, vibrant and resilient Black (African-American) culture, we cannot forget the struggles Black people have endured and continue to endure today.

Black people experience discrimination and racial profiling, and are disproportionately impacted by homelessness. This is why Central City Concern (CCC) invests in programs such as the Imani Center and Flip the Script to increase services to this community historically underserved by organizations that help people find housing, behavioral health services and employment opportunities. Afrocentric programs are a great start for our organization, but we know there is more we can do: not only to celebrate the history of the Black community inside and outside our organization, but also to identify and address the ways in which white supremacy drives care inequities. Recognizing our responsibility, CCC is committed to being a diverse, anti-racist, equitable and inclusive organization, with this promise reflected in our organizational leadership, as well as institutional practices and policies that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).

We are stepping closer to this goal. Freda Ceaser, previously CCC’s Director of Equity and Inclusion, is now CCC’s Chief Equity Officer (CEqO). Freda leads with vision, skill and innovation to inspire and push the organization forward. She will build on her current work, setting and implementing an overarching vision of DEI—both at the programmatic and administrative levels—that promotes inclusive practices in our structures, culture and leadership.

Afrocentric programs are a great start for our organization, but we know there is more we can do: not only to celebrate the history of the Black community inside and outside our organization, but also to identify and address the ways in which white supremacy drives care inequities.

CCC has also made additional investments in the Office of Equity and Inclusion, hiring Associate Director Mariam Admasu to provide support to the director’s leadership team. Mariam will hire an equity specialist in the coming months to add an additional layer of support to CCC staff. In order to ensure that the Office of Equity and Inclusion has the bandwidth and resources to move work forward, we have also engaged two Portland State University School of Social Work interns, Shaun Cook and Clarice Jordan.

CCC will invest as needed to follow through on our commitment to becoming more diverse, anti-racist, equitable and inclusive by building institutional infrastructure and capacity to do the work. In the coming year, CCC will work with a local consultant to capture a wide snapshot of where we are today with regard to equity and inclusion through interviews and listening sessions with CCC’s board, clients and staff. This assessment will result in an equity lens, DEI governance model and DEI organizational roadmap.

Lastly, CCC’s advancing equity strategic goals were made as a roadmap to ensuring the best, most responsive services possible to Black people and people of color, with a focus on intentional efforts to have our staff reflect the communities they serve.

While Black History Month presents an opportunity for CCC to celebrate Black culture, we also look ahead to the many opportunities during the remaining 11 months to make a difference!

For the first spotlight of 2019, we’re featuring one of Central City Concern's On-Call Administrative volunteers, Christopher Schiel. The on-call volunteer position is one that allows folks who don’t have consistent time available throughout the week the chance to volunteer on an as-needed basis and support various departments throughout CCC.

Christopher has been one of CCC’s most motivated on-call volunteers and has taken on a broad range of tasks throughout the agency. His consistency, reliability, and unflappably positive attitude have been appreciated by many CCC staff. Read on to hear what Christopher has appreciated and learned and how administrative work has enriched his broader understanding of CCC.

• • •

Peter: What is your name and volunteer position?

Christopher: My name is Christopher Schiel and I am an on-call administrative volunteer.

P: How long have you been with CCC?

C: I believe it’s been about a year.

P: How did you become familiar with CCC?

C: I knew about the agency from seeing the vehicles around town, but also being aware that there were residential buildings downtown. And I had a superficial awareness of the organization, but not an understanding of what they did besides housing.

P: How did you find out about the volunteer position here?

C: I was actively seeking some volunteer position within the city and I was feeling like housing was at the front of minds, so CCC was at the top of the list. And I found [a position that] I thought was perfect for my skill set, which was project management and organizational stuff.

P: What about admin work was more attractive to you than a role that involved more direct contact with clients?

C: At the time, I was feeling a motivation to do something without really knowing where to start. The housing crisis is something that is very visible on the streets, but there isn’t much of a conversation about why that is beyond reactions on the news, Nextdoor, or from NIMBY folks who are corralling people around the city from one place to another.

My motivation for volunteering was the kind of acknowledgement that I knew that I didn’t know what was going on, really, so I wanted to get involved in some way, not only to volunteer my skills, but to greater understand or explore what is actually happening and admin seemed like the perfect way to do that.

"I’m understanding that the success of the whole mission revolves around a coordination of these services that isn’t obvious on the ground and certainly wasn’t obvious to me before I started"

P: And do you feel that you have learned more about housing and services within housing during your volunteering?

C: Oh, absolutely, yes. My very first task was to interview one of the heads of OHSU and the CEO of a job transition placement group to get their thoughts on the functioning of CCC, as well as their input on [CCC’s] strategic plan. That particular conversation turned out to be very enlightening about the way that this organization collaborates with other ancillary nonprofits throughout Portland. It started to get me thinking about how each of these missions can be compartmentalized and taken by collaborators to a certain degree of good.

Right after that I was doing survey entry for [satisfaction] surveys that were given to clients in various parts of CCC and just doing data entry, but to observe that feedback loop, to see how clients are coming thought the system, going from Old Town Recovery Center to different residential buildings, hearing what is going right what is going wrong, how all these things are cooperating to make not only this organization better but what the greater mission of tackling houselessness and the housing crisis is has been insightful.

P: Do you feel that the role has given you that chance to see how the different parts of the agency feed the greater mission?

C: Yes. My background of project management and data entry led me to believe that a lot of this volunteer role would be sitting at a computer, and some of it has been. But probably some of the more surprising and enlightening parts of this position have been those things that don’t involve a computer aspect.

By being in front of clients, being in the admin office, and working with Quality Management, I’m starting to get a sense of how intricate client-facing services are. I’m understanding that the success of the whole mission revolves around a coordination of these services that isn’t obvious on the ground and certainly wasn’t obvious to me before I started. The intricacy [of coordinating all these services] is kind of infinite.

"To just see the sense of community within that residential building; to see the cooperation, camaraderie and community; and to engage with clients at the level was personally meaningful."

P: Has there been one project in particular that was the most interesting?

C: I’m going to give you two answers. The most insightful experience was the strategic planning interview project, in that I got to hear specialized input about specific collaborations and projects and then I got to engage in conversation on some very high level stuff. So from an admin perspective that was the most insightful. But the most meaningful was serving Thanksgiving dinner. To just see the sense of community within that residential building; to see the cooperation, camaraderie and community; and to engage with clients at the level was personally meaningful. So it’s nice on the one hand to have the 30,000 foot view of admin, and then the ground-level view of daily life.

P: When you talk with others about this experience that you’ve had, what is it that you share with them?

C: I start with the range of services that are provided. I never knew what those trucks were doing, for one. But also that CCC isn’t just housing, it’s not just these buildings in the downtown core, but also the medical and rehabilitative services, counseling, job transition support, culturally specific programs. I emphasize the breadth of those service to people I speak with. It’s not just a bed to sleep in, it’s a range of support systems that allow people to get on their own two feet and eventually build a life.