OEC Partners With Hacienda CDC to Expand Access To Eco-Healthy Home Kit
The average American spends 90% of their time indoors, and this has only increased for Oregonians during the winter months with the new COVID-related shutdown restrictions across the state. How do you maintain your home to protect against viruses, while also minimizing the amount of toxic chemicals you come across in cleaning products in a healthy, affordable manner?
OEC has partnered with Hacienda CDC, a community development corporation that provides affordable housing for Portland’s LatinX community, to help provide tailored solutions to those challenges. We know that people of color and low-income communities are disproportionately exposed and affected by toxics in consumer products and outside sources. And, we believe it should not cost anyone an arm and a leg to obtain environmentally healthy, non-toxic, and sustainable cleaning and personal care products.
The partnership between Hacienda CDC and OEC seeks to jointly identify toxic threats in home and personal care products, identify affordable non-toxic alternatives, and identify barriers to obtaining these alternatives.
The setup!
As part of this pilot project, OEC worked with Hacienda CDC to host focus groups and conduct surveys in Spanish and English with Hacienda’s residents. The intent was to listen to what would be the most effective and helpful for our most vulnerable communities to minimize the use of toxic chemicals, and what non-toxic products they were most interested in obtaining.
We jointly developed an affordable and easy eco-healthy home guides in English and Spanish that provided effective recipes and tips to disinfect your home and treat your skin. And just in time for the holidays, on Thursday evening, OEC, Hacienda CDC, and our intern from Portland State University organized a socially-distanced event (complete with appointments) to pass out food donations and 75 eco-healthy home kits with non-toxic ingredients/supplies to complement the home guides.n without the use of harsh chemicals.
Kits all ready to go!
The event was a success, and we plan to check in with the residents who participated in this program later in the New Year!
OEC is thrilled to be featured in KGW’s Good Energy, a partnership with OnPoint that’s all about the benefits of clean transportation, converting to clean renewable energy, and supporting organizations that are committed to protecting Oregon’s environment. The OEC Team had a blast riding e-bikes, sharing our work on EVs, and leading a green cleaning workshop with the OnPoint Team!
Guest blog by ELB Member Jessie KochaverBetween planning three awesome events coming up this fall (don’t miss the details at the bottom of this page!) and exploring Oregon’s incredible natural places, OEC’s newest Emerging Leaders
Maria is OEC’s 2022 summer Marketing and Membership Development Intern through The Contingent’s Emerging Leaders Internship (ELI) program. ELI removes barriers to access by connecting talented students of color with leadership-track, paid internships at top companies throughout the Greater Por
One of OEC’s newest members, Greyson, will be 30 in 2040, when Oregon transitions to 100% renewable electricity, fuels produced in-state will be more eco-friendly than ever, and climate pollution from oil and fossil-fuel gas utilities will be cut almost 90%!
At OEC, we believe that a high-quality transportation system is one that offers people healthy and safe choices to meet their transportation needs. Electric bicycles and other kinds of small electric mobility devices, like scooters and skateboards, are potentially transformative because they can meet many of the same needs as a car, but with fewer costs, and a lot less
July 16, 2021
Governor Kate Brown
Office of the Governor
900 Court Street NE, Suite 254
Salem, OR 97301-4047
Director Richard Whitman
Department of Environmental Quality
700 NE Multnomah St. Suite 600
Portland, OR 97232
Cc: Chair
July 14, 2021
Oregon Transportation Commission
355 Capitol Street, NE MS 11
Salem, Oregon 97301
Dear Chair Van Brocklin and members of the Oregon Transportation Commission:
Our organizations write this letter as communities around the state are reporting dozens of deaths in the wake of a record-breaking heatwave while preparing for another summer and fall of destructive wildfires. Climate change is already bringing enormous human suffering to
As Oregon emerges from 16 months of shut downs and people begin to return to stores and restaurants with a sense of safety, we at OEC want to bring some more good news for the Summer. We are thrilled to have been chosen as the Impact Partner for the next 6 months with a local Portland, OR boutique called Foundation: Fashion and Philanthropy.
Oregon Environmental Council started our intentional diversity, equity, and inclusion work in 2012. We started this journey by listening and acknowledging that the environmental movement has caused harm and not been as inclusive as it needs to be. In saying this, we want to acknowledge the diverse voices in the movement and not erase their accomplishments. There have always been incredible BIPOC leaders doing environmental and environmental justice work, and we are grateful for