PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland Timbers today announced the awarding of $55,000 in grants to nine educational, youth and environment-focused nonprofit organizations in the greater-Portland area through the Portland Timbers Community Fund (PTCF). The recipients were selected by the Portland Timbers Community Fund Advisory Board, consisting of partners adidas, Alaska Airlines, Portland General Electric and Providence Health & Services.
The Portland Timbers Community Fund presented grants to 4 Worlds United Soccer Alliance, Adaptive Sports NW, the Boys and Girls Club, Ecology Outdoors, I Have a Dream, NW Association for Blind Athletes, NW Family Services, Oregon Zoo Foundation and Reading Results.
Since the club’s inaugural MLS season in 2011, the Timbers have given more than $2.7 million in cash and in-kind donations, including their philanthropic work through the PTCF, the club’s field-grants program and various experiential and charitable activities.
4 Worlds United Soccer Alliance, which serves as a program coordinator for 200 fourth-world kids, will apply its grant to support 20 individual players to join local soccer clubs, both in recreational and club soccer.
The funding Adaptive Sports NW receiveswill be used for adaptive sports equipment, gym rentals and tournament fees to help youths with physical disabilities to play adaptive sports and overcome participation barriers.
The grant awarded to the Boys and Girls Club will support its “Summer Brain Gain” program, which employs projects during the summer to prevent learning loss and the ability to meet grade-reading benchmarks in communities with high poverty.
Ecology Outdoors, which empowers students from low-income communities to connect to the natural world by providing hands-on ecology enrichment programs, will apply its grant toward developing a curriculum kit to include STEM and literacy at their schools in Portland.
The funding that I Have a Dream receives will help to add new components for academic and literacy programs for elementary school students, including “Bookmobile,” which provides children with culturally specific books during the summer months.
NW Association for Blind Athletes will utilize its grant to launch “Camp Abilities,” a one-week comprehensive and developmental sports camp for blind and visually-impaired children ages 8-15 in July 2016.
With the funding that it receives, NW Family Services will use its grant toward providing four free summer camps and a tournament for 100 low-income and minority youths, while providing full equipment for soccer programs in four middle schools.
The Oregon Zoo Foundation, which inspires the community to respect animals and take action on behalf of the natural world, will use the funding toward “Urban Nature Overnights,” a program that allows underserved students ages 8-11 to camp and explore the outdoors.
With its grant, Reading Results will partner with schools serving low-income students to provide a proven reading intervention program.
Each of the nine organizations will be recognized at Providence Park during halftime of the Timbers match against New York City FC on Sunday, May 15.
The PTCF, an advised fund of the Oregon Community Foundation, supports charitable, nonprofit organizations that are registered as a 501(c)(3), with a tax-exempt status from the IRS and are located within one of the four surrounding counties of the Portland metro area: Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas and Clark County in Southwest Washington. Grant-seeking organizations must fall under one of the following areas of focus: youth education; youth activity; environmental awareness and activism with youth and families.
Through the club’s community outreach platform, Stand Together, the team is committed to furthering its community mission to harness the power of sport to improve the lives of children and families in the region through targeted programs, deep partnerships and philanthropic giving. For more on the Timbers community outreach programs and partners, visit www.timbers.com/stand-together.
