It might have been a cloudy August day but that didn’t stop nearly 40 volunteers from having one of our most productive and enjoyable neighborhood cleanups of the summer!

Together with SOLVE and our new friends at Human Access Project, volunteers collected 70+ bags of trash across Peace Memorial Park, the Eastbank Esplanade, the Convention Center area on August 30th.

Skip to the bottom to see many pictures from the day!

A big thank you to everyone who helped out to make progress on cleaning up the area. A special shout out to Kevin Hughes, who helped to coordinate the event with SOLVE. Also, thank you to the Oregon Convention Center who helped us dispose of all the collected garbage.

Visions for the Peace Memorial Park and Nearby River Access

Peace Memorial Park was established as a public place to honor victims of war, both military and civilian. Since Lloyd EcoDistrict joined in partnership with Veterans for Peace, the vision of the space has expanded to honor the intersection of conflict, climate and social justice.

We envision a small public park that has a multiplicity of narrative layers happening at once—just as all places do—and that these layers weave together to help tell a story that explains, validates and offers hope for our collective future.

Learn more about the community’s vision of the park and ongoing redesign efforts here.

Kevin Duckworth Memorial Dock improvements are just one of the many initiatives that the team and volunteers at Human Access Project (HAP) are working on. HAP’s mission is to transform Portland’s relationship with the Willamette River and creating river access and a human habitat that people love and protect is what drives them.

The Duckworth Dock is located on the Eastbank Esplanade, a short walk from Peace Memorial Park. Years ago HAP learned that it had the makings of a world-class swimming hole with a U shape for protected swimming. It’s 300 feet long – overlooked and underused. There was only one thing missing – ladders. In the years since HAP has advocated for the dock’s protection and this summer was able to install swimming ladders (thanks to a donation from our friends at Go Lloyd).

The history and potential of this dock in the Lloyd neighborhood’s SW border are fascinating. From HAP’s website.

If nothing more happens than the addition of the ladders and the right to fish from this dock, this will be a tremendous underdog success story. Kevin Duckworth loved to fish. This dock finally and legally will permit people fishing from it, as it should have always been to honor Portland’s beloved Trail Blazer.

But this story is not over – more work lies ahead to make the Duckworth Dock a star Portland attraction and world-class swimming amenity. Thank you for your support by using and loving what is now, in our opinion, Portland’s best place to swim downtown.

Read more about Duckworth Dock on the Human Access Project’s website here.

Thanks for partnering with us, HAP! We look forward to working with you more (and taking a swim at the new neighborhood swim spot)!

What’s Next?

Missed this event? Stay tuned as we’ll likely be adding a 1-2 more parks and neighborhood cleanup events to the calendar later this fall.

Pictures from the August 2020 Cleanup

Tags: Human Access Project, Neighborhood Cleanup, Peace Memorial Park, SOLVE, volunteer, Willamette River