Intertwine Summit 2024

At last year's Intertwine Summit, we focused on connections. Connections between each other, connections to our communities, and connections to nature. Please join us for on Wed, Sept. 25, at Hidden Creek Community Center in Hillsboro to continue creating impact and making change. We'll keep reimagining our investments, policies, designs and more—to create more access to nature for all communities in the Portland-Vancouver region.
Your Summit 2024 planning committee of Intertwine partners, led by event planner Karen Foster, has designed a day of fun, community building, learning and calls to action. Join us for:

• Optional tours of Hidden Creek Community Center in the morning. Come see the City of Hillsboro's state-of-the-art work developing one of the most accessible and inclusive facilities in the region. Tours will be 20 minutes with instructions for a self-guided tour of Hidden Creek Park West after. Please sign up for a specific time slot during registration.
  
• Bring a picnic lunch to enjoy on the beautiful grounds of Hidden Creek Park West between 11 am. and 11:45 a.m. with Intertwine Alliance friends new and old. The park is new, inclusive, and boasts a giant troll!
  
• The Summit program starts promptly at noon and includes your choice of two 1.5-hour break-out sessions: Advanced Community Engagement, Houselessness & Nature, & Transportation Justice. (See session descriptions below.) We'll host two rounds, with attendees choosing two of the three sessions. The sessions will be interactive and focused on taking action.
  

• Fun and delicious dessert truck offerings during a social hour from 5 to 6 p.m.

We might add an additional pre-Summit event or two—stay tuned for possible surprises as we work out the details.

When registering, please choose two of the three following sessions. We'll refine these descriptions and add list the presenters/facilitators in the coming weeks.

Transportation Justice -- Equitable access to nature, climate and our transportation system are deeply interwoven. An overhaul of transportation funding will be the big item in the 2025 Oregon state legislature session. The Intertwine Alliance is part of Move Oregon Forward, a campaign advocating for a transportation package that emphasizes safety, climate, fair & sustainable funding, and government accountability. One of our main roles will be to elevate trails as a critical part of transportation funding, policy and planning; off-street paths are currently woefully underfunded and underprioritized. Join this session to learn more about the connections between transportation and nature, the strategic actions partners are taking to improve outcomes, and find out how you can get involved.

Advanced Community Engagement - Community engagement is critical to the work of almost all public, private and nonprofit partners of The Intertwine Alliance. It’s become an encouraged, even required, element of all projects, strategic plans, etc. But how do we move past Community Engagement 101 into something with much more meaningful outcomes for underinvested and underserved communities, that includes real anti-displacement strategies, real shifting of power, and authentic, ongoing relationships with community members? In this session, some of our region’s experts on advanced community engagement will share their experiences and provide tangible, applicable strategies and tools.

Houselessness & Nature – Two Intertwine Summits ago, we began a coalition-wide conversation to understand the regional houselessness crisis, its impact on parks and conservation organizations’ work, and our role in healing the region. We launched a Houselessness & the Environment peer support space in partnership with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, which has been serving the region and beyond for 1.5 years. Adding further complexity, a recent Supreme Court decision has created uncertainty about how cities will respond to houseless camps and what impact that will have on our greenspaces, our work environments, and our collective humanity. So what now? Join this session to hear from peer support group participants about strategies & tools they have developed, discuss innovative policies and programs around the region, and discuss ways we can collaborate to avoid burnout while advancing policies that fix root causes.

In line with the Vision for Inclusive & Accountable Events that we developed in the months following last year's Summit, we've created Community Agreements and a Code of Conduct that we'll ask Summit attendees to read and agree to at check-out.

See you at Summit!

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Hidden Creek Community Center, 5100 Northeast Hidden Creek Drive, Hillsboro, United States