This weekend brings plenty of opportunities to develop your green thumb. The Northeast Portland Tool Library's sponsoring a seed swap on Saturday, and the Concordia neighborhood's hosting a tree stewardship workshop tomorrow too. Read on for all the details:

Come join us at the Northeast Portland Tool Library on Saturday, February 27th, for a free seed swap and library stock-up event to kick off the new gardening season!  We have a wide range of seeds available that you can take home to start or supplement your garden for 2010.  You may find some interesting local varieties that you wouldn’t see at the store!  If you have seeds of your own that you’d like to share with others or with the library, now is a great time to bring them in. The event will be from 11AM to 2PM at the Tool Library (in the basement area of the Redeemer Lutheran Church – 5431 NE 20th Ave).  In addition to swapping seeds and stories, we’ll also have info about upcoming gardening and seed-saving workshops.  For more information, please contact Chris Price ( chris// @ //digitalnotions.com ).  Hope to see you there!

Tree info below the cut...

Spotted these neighborhood news tidbits on the Eliot and Woodlawn Neighborhood Association sites:

Community Garden Proposal:  Jackie Sandquist-Wrangham reports that there is a vacant lot on the corner of MLK and Morris.  She would like to convert this property to a community garden.  Property Owner Bill Wainwright agrees to carry insurance on the property but is looking for a formal proposal.  The lot has no water.  A water hook-up alone costs $4,000-$8,000.  Fundraising would need to be done.  Jackie attends to garner support for the idea and to see if the neighborhood’s 501 (c)(3) number could be used so donations are tax-deductible.  Jackie’s contact info is jackienige@comcast.net and 503-231-2748. 

More below the cut.

At a Concordia Neighborhood Association meeting last month, residents expressed their concerns about crime, squatters and especially abandoned houses. The neighborhood’s January newsletter cited a statistic that Concordia ranks fifth out of Portland’s 95 neighborhoods in 211 calls about foreclosures (see below).

Belinda Clark, co-chair of the association, thinks that the reality could be worse than the statistic suggests.

“A lot of what we hear from the public is, ‘We don’t know who to call,’” Clark says. “There were a lot of people here who were not reporting it because they didn’t think anything would come
from it.”

Officer Wayne Schull of the North Precinct Neighborhood Response Team thinks that Portland’s perception of the problem may be greater than the reality.

On the corner of Northeast 13th Avenue and Holman Street there is a tiny park.  It houses one pine tree, a bench, a broken sprinkler system, and an odd play structure/sculpture that some call the “horse saddle.” But this unassuming and often neglected little patch of soil and concrete has been the centerpiece of a neighborhood caring, protecting, and providing for itself one little block at a time.

Car-free citizens rejoice! The city's Office of Transportation just announced the 2010 dates for Sunday Parkways, Portland's people-powered festival of fun that connects the city's parks on non-motorized routes and celebrates the many Earth-friendly ways we get around Stumptown. Northeast's Sunday Parkways is on May 16, and North's is June 27. Like last year, the Northeast route will connect Wilshire, Fernhill and Alberta parks; unlike last year, Woodlawn Park is now a stop on the route. North's route remains the same, connecting Kenton, Arbor Lodge, and Peninsula Parks.

The Arbor Lodge Neighborhood Association is holding a meeting on Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. to discuss how residents can be involved in the planning of Sunday Parkways. Stay tuned for more info on how you can be a part of this awesome event.

 Northeast Portland nonprofit The Pangaea Project, a leadership development and international service-learning program for local low-income youth, is throwing a party to celebrate 2009's achievements and start 2010 with a bang. (See our story about Pangaea's unique partnership with Alberta Street businesses.) 

From press release:

The Pangaea Project rings in 2010 with all-are-welcome party at Zaytoon Bar

The Pangaea Project, a leadership development and international service-learning program for Portland at-risk youth, is starting 2010 in style with an all-are-welcome party at Zaytoon Bar on January 21 from 5-7:30 p.m.

The evening’s festivities will include free samples of Middle Eastern fusion cuisine, Latin music, door prizes, and an opportunity to win a free roundtrip plane ticket.

The Pangaea Project has much to celebrate this year. Another group of high school students, all of whom come from low-income families, graduated last November from Pangaea’s unique program, which took them into the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest and the rice paddies of Thailand to engage in service learning projects and learn about grassroots social change.

This just in, like tonight, right now!

Tree Lighting: A tree lighting will take place at the Alberta Co-op (15th & Alberta) with music and hot cocoa/cider provided by the ASBA. We hope to also have an appearance by Santa & Mrs. Claus. The tree lighting will be at 5:15 pm with music until 7:00 pm. We will be inviting the Local New Media to come by and will have a brief holiday greeting by Co-president Stacey Matney.

The Cannabis Cafe on Northeast Dekum Street opened on Friday, Nov. 13 amid a flurry of anticipation and controversy.

As this paper went to press,  just over a week into the cafe’s operation, it appears the worst fears of neighbors have not come to pass. One business owner on Dekum, who originally worried his store might be burglarized, commented that his business has not been affected by the presence of the cafe. “Everything seems to be cool, as far as I can tell,”
he said.

On opening day, another neighbor complained that the cafe’s location was inappropriate given its proximity to an elementary school. She also worried about the noise, an issue that had come up frequently in the past with events hosted upstairs in the Village Ballroom. A week later, her spirits were noticeably higher. In an interview she was relieved to say that there was “no activity to report,” and that “[the cafe] has been really quiet over there.”

In the early afternoon on November 21, 2009, Ejiria Walker called an informal meeting of concerned citizens, including Woodlawn residents and board members of the Woodlawn Neighborhood Association, to discuss issues surrounding the Cannabis Café. The meeting was held at In Other Words Bookstore on North Killingsworth.

Although not a Woodlawn resident, I attended the meeting as part of ongoing coverage on the opening of the café, and the ensuing controversy. Coverage began on November 13th, when the café first opened its doors at 4: 20 pm, and continues today as Woodlawn residents continue to debate the newest addition to their neighborhood. .

Walker stated that the intention of the meeting was not to personally attack Eric Solomon, but rather to discuss issues surrounding the Cannabis Cafe as a business. Nonetheless, discussion was centered almost entirely around Solomon.

Attendees engaged in a free-flowing conversation describing their feelings on the cafe, and recounting their interactions, past and present, with Eric Solomon, the leaser of the building which houses the Cannabis Cafe.

“It’s been great,” Benajamin Koenigsberg said of his medical marijuana treatment. “It really reduces pain, and anxiety, and irritation in my butt, which is where I was having the most discomfort.”

Koenigsberg suffers from complications due to hemorrhoids, which qualifies him to participate in Oregon’s Medical Marijuana Program. He is one of 23, 873 cardholders in the state.

He is also one of many such cardholders that came to the opening of The Cannabis Cafe at 700 NE Dekum this afternoon. Although the doors did not open until 4:20 pm (of course), cardholders began lining up outside the cafe hours in advance.