Partnerships and Community Healing
thank you, CareOregon!
Welcome, new subscribers! Many of you are here because of a WCA email announcement last week that we’re working on a 5NP law for Oregon. You can read more about 5NP here and here (and please stay tuned, more updates are coming.)
As one of our students put it recently, a 5NP law is all about the complex intersections between small businesses, nonprofits, legislation and regulation. We believe that the best way to navigate that complexity is through organizational partnerships — and that’s what this post is about. The most important asset we have at WCA and POCA Tech are our relationships. That statement can be a business cliché but in our case it’s literally true: Community acupuncture is pretty much nothing but relationships.
Which brings to me to some relationships we’re especially grateful for as well as some very good news: our friends at CareOregon just gave POCA Tech a $10,000 grant to work on our partnership with the Native American Youth and Family Center (NAYA) and its legislative arm, NAYA Action Fund.
We first met NAYA as a result of their outreach efforts to small businesses in Cully during the pandemic. Both WCA and POCA Tech received rescue funding that we wouldn’t even have heard about without NAYA’s intervention. I was so grateful that I volunteered for one of NAYA’s Community Economic Development projects, the Cully Boulevard Alliance, whose goal is “to promote and foster opportunity for economic prosperity that cultivates diversity, nurtures community and empowers the neighborhood.”
One of the distinctive characteristics of NAYA is how deeply they believe in community prosperity. It’s hard to put into words how different it feels to approach prosperity in terms of the collective instead of just the individual. Volunteering for the Cully Boulevard Alliance has been a great experience for me as a small business person — it’s like a regular infusion of both hope and perspective, both of which can be hard to hold onto when you’re immersed in the day-to-day challenges.
In 2022, Cohort 8 of POCA Tech had the bright idea of using their Capstone project to work towards a 5NP law for Oregon, which is by far the most ambitious Capstone our school has ever had. Because I had no idea how to approach this, I asked NAYA for help — because that’s what they do, they help small businesses — and they connected me to Will Miller of the NAYA Action Fund. As Will put it:
“NAYA Action Fund works to serve community as a political resource hub in the region. We provide educational opportunities and support skill building and development for people who wouldn’t otherwise have access to their lawmakers, or who don’t know how to navigate the process. We see ourselves as a convener and thought partner in political spaces, working to uplift community for seven generations to come. We uplift and support the Native community toward political acumen, development, and using their voice in the political process. We want to create opportunities for growth and prosperity for those in our community, not just the Native community.”
Spoiler alert, I’m planning to write a whole other post about what an amazing experience it’s been working with Will on 5NP. For now I’ll just quote an earlier interview with him about working together:
“This partnership is really natural because our values align and the vision we have for community healing aligns. Our organizations are about working to take down structural barriers, using our tools to the best of our ability. NAYA Action Fund centers health and healing and so does WCA/POCA Tech. We’re in lockstep to provide healing opportunities for members of our community.
The work that we’re doing together builds synergy and opportunity for community to work through community’s deepest issues, like trauma and addiction. Offering opportunities for community holistic healing -- we want people to thrive and grow and heal from things that hold them back.”
Right around this time last year, we realized that we needed help with something else — our school’s physical space. Because POCA Tech does everything it can to keep tuition costs down for students, and because we built the school as a DIY project that runs on a shoestring budget, all of our facilities have been shared. We rented classroom space from a local church and student clinic facilities were provided by WCA. The school had never had any space that was all its own. But last fall, it became clear to us that for POCA Tech to grow, it needed to learn how to stand on its own feet, in its own space. (I kept getting the image of a wobbly baby deer standing up for the first time.) We needed to level up — and that meant we needed to move.
So once again, I asked NAYA for help. Sonya and I met with Edy Martinez and Matt Faunt of NAYA about possible spaces for POCA Tech in the Cully neighborhood, because we really, really wanted to stay in Cully and we knew that finding the kind of space we wanted would be a long shot due to our shoestring budget. They promised to help us look.
Then, on November 28th of last year, I attended a steering committee meeting of the Cully Boulevard Alliance that was held in NAYA’s new Economic Development office, munk-yeʔlan sax̣ali, [moonk-YEH-lǔn SAH-hah-lee] meaning “to help up, to boost” in the Chinook language. munk-yeʔlan sax̣ali is in the Jane Dough building on NE 42nd Ave., so named because it once housed Delphina’s Bakery (one of Portland’s first artisan bakeries). It’s right next door to one of NAYA’s culturally specific apartment buildings, Mamook Tokatee. Basically, the whole block is beautiful.
One of the other steering committee members happens to be Carolyn Westerfield, who co-founded Delphina’s Bakery in 1982 and who owns the Jane Dough building. During the meeting I was looking around at the room we were in, admiring the big windows and the high ceilings, thinking, “This is such a lovely space. I wish we could have a space like this. It feels so good in here.” After the meeting we all walked out together, chatting. As we were about to turn the corner, we paused in our conversation and I realized we were standing next to a door I hadn’t noticed before; there was actually another space next to munk-yeʔlan sax̣ali that I’d walked right by on the way in. Carolyn said, a little sadly, “Yes, this was Bolt Fabric’s space; they just moved to Alberta Street so it’s empty.” “Huh,” I said, and while everyone else went on to their cars I turned around and hurried back in to munk-yeʔlan sax̣ali. “Edy!” I said, “the space next door is EMPTY?” He grinned. “Want to see it? I have the keys.” (Edy was the property manager for Jane Dough at the time.)
It was love at first sight. Thanks to Carolyn being flexible and Edy and Matt continuing to support the process, we signed a 10 year lease in April and we moved in July, making NAYA our next door neighbor.
Two of our big goals for the new space are to use it to promote our 5NP outreach efforts and to run a student clinic, the very first one that isn’t shared with either WCA or another community clinic. We applied for a grant because CareOregon has generously funded POCA Tech events in the past (including our 2023 re-accreditation site visit). This grant will allow us to provide free acupuncture in our new student clinic to residents of NAYA’s apartment buildings, as well as all NAYA staff. We already have two residents who’ve become regulars in the clinic, and we’re hoping for many more. A number of NAYA staff have gotten treated as well. We’re so grateful for everyone who supports our interns by showing up for acupuncture! And as the 5NP process moves along, we’re looking forward to hosting educational events for the public and legislators in our new space.
As recent events have shown, it’s no small thing to keep an acupuncture school up and running. POCA Tech is only sustainable in the context of a web of relationships, including community partnerships. Thank you CareOregon for your support in weaving that web, and to NAYA and the NAYA Action Fund for boosting us up to a new level. It means the world to us.