Green Dreams Field Day: Peninsula Park

Park advocates and community organizers are invited for an exploration of Peninsula Park’s placemaking projects and the meaning of memory.

Parks hold more than your favorite tree, reading bench, or basketball court. Parks hold memory. They are often the site of public art, sculptures, and monuments. Parks and green spaces are our shared living rooms. Whose pictures do we hang on their walls? What gets remembered?

We are inviting parks advocates, volunteers, and creative community organizers to join us for an examination of Peninsula Park’s recent placemaking projects and to explore ways to honor community-led history work.

Peninsula Park houses Portland's first rose garden, and a historic community center which has become a hub of community growth and experimentation, stewarded by members of the Friends of Peninsula Park Rose Garden (FPPRG). FPPRG’s vision is to preserve, protect, and enhance this world-class public garden of great beauty and rich historical legacy.

Touring Community-Led History Project

For the first half of our field day, join FPPRG members Mark Smallwood and Pat Frobes and local environmental historian Dave Hedberg for for a tour of Peninsula Park’s community spaces and peek behind FPPRG’s ongoing sign project. Learn more about the project’s process — from community-engaged art projects to collaborations with students and historians— and discuss what it means to honor the complex history of public spaces.

Crafting Collective Memory

After the tour and discussion, participants will explore how stories can be remembered through a creative expression activity led by Julie Hammond. During this hands-on session, we will practice collaborative creative interventions to inspire new understanding of our public parks. Participants will explore public history and collective memory through personal stories, leading to practical and poetic interventions.

This is Portland Parks Foundation’s first event of our 2025 Green Dreams series entitled "On the Nature of Monuments," and is presented in partnership with the Portland Monuments Project. Together we seek to understand Portlanders' opinions on how we should approach monuments and memory-making in our city. Survey support offered by the PSU Regional Research Institute. Learn more about the full series here.

This event is free and open to the public, however registration isre quested for supply planning purposes. Light refreshments will be served.

We will meet at the gazebo at 10:00 AM to gather and get situated.

Accessibility Info

Peninsula Park is located at 700 N Rosa Parks Way, and is accessible at all entrances, with a mix of paved concrete, gravel and brick paths throughout. Ramps are available at the rose garden and at the community center entrances. The park is along bus lines 4 and 44.