Building Community Through Plywood
Portland, Oregon was a fascinating place to live in the summer of 2020. It has always been a city passionate about progressive issues. However, the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on May 25 of that year, combined with ongoing concern about abuses by Portland’s local police force, sparked more than 100 nights of protests. The mostly Covid-safe crowds were generally peaceful while being very vocal, but as with any crowd there were a few people interested in vandalism¹, including breaking glass display windows at some downtown stores. After disproportionate response² by the Portland Police Bureau, the agitated crowd escalated in targeting the Multnomah County “Justice Center” and a Federal courthouse in the center-city for graffiti and sidewalk fires. When our previous president sent poorly-trained DHS and Federal Protective Service officers — among whose tactics were snatching people off sidewalks into unmarked cars — passions were yet more inflamed.
Many businesses responded by installing plywood sheets over their windows. Plywood is not friendly, and as a visible architectural feature, it’s just ugly. Some stores painted their window-coverings in a solid color which, while absolutely an improvement, mostly provided a more accommodating space for graffiti.
The First Christian Church of Portland is situated 6 blocks from the epicenter of Portland’s protests. We installed plywood to protect the beautiful (but difficult and expensive to repair) Povey stained-glass windows. On an architecturally-beautiful building that houses a historic downtown church in the center of Portland’s Cultural District along the South Park Blocks, the plywood stuck out like a sore thumb.
As a member of the church who lives nearby, I talked to the pastor and lay-leaders about painting the plywood with messages that would reflect the church’s social justice positions on Black lives mattering, homelessness, LGBTQ equality and spiritual validity, economic justice, and immigrant rights. With their permission and a generous donation of “reject paint” from a local paint store, we got out the paintbrushes and rolled up our sleeves.
Armed with good ideas and multiple hundreds of square feet of installed plywood, we recruited helpers. Given the state of Covid that summer, many older and/or immuno-compromised church members were not able to come and breathe shared air even outside. So, in the first aspect of community-building, we called on friends from the neighborhood: a young Muslim family from the high-rise apartment building next door, a couple young women who had come to Portland to protest and were thrilled to see queer-affirming rainbow banners on our church, and a local troop of Girl Scouts. When we needed some quick muscle, we asked some homeless people from the park across the street if they’d be willing to help out. Especially since the city was freshly — e.g. just a few months — into Covid-lockdown, there was a tremendous aspect of community just in being together and sharing some labor.
One of our panels involved handprints to reinforce the “#AllMeansAll” hashtag we share as an affiliated ministry with the Disciples LGBTQ+ Alliance. We had already struck up conversations with passers-by interested in our work, so we decided to rest a bit and ask people if they’d like to contribute a handprint (we had water and rags to wash up). This was another beautiful way to establish community! People young and old, professionally-attired, Portland State students, homeless-appearing — so many people were thrilled to let us paint their hand and apply it to the board. A young woman named “Stray” mentioned that she periodically took the bus from a forest camp to take a shower and wash her clothes at our church, and how delighted and proud she was to contribute a handprint. Also, a young woman living on the street with her infant son asked if we could do a footprint, and if you look closely in the picture below, you’ll see some adorable little chartreuse footprints just under the hashtag.
The messaging itself was perhaps the most enduring aspect of community-building with our plywood. FCC Portland has long interpreted Christ’s teaching as requiring social justice (sometimes contemporarily called “progressive theology”), which has been embodied in feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, protecting the marginalized, and agitating for equality in race, sexual orientation and gender identity, economic status, etc. The church is not evangelical (e.g. requiring certain beliefs) or capital-E Evangelical (e.g. intertwined with conservative and/or hateful politics), so the messaging was intended to be illustrative and uplifting rather than being “church advertising”. We left the plywood up through the presidential election, and then through the inauguration, and even beyond that. Throughout everything, including a rainy Portland winter, passers-by stopped to read the signs and take selfies with the plywood on this random church building in downtown.
The summer of 2020 was rough… Civil unrest, racial unrest, political unrest, plus a novel virus ravaging the populace. But even under such circumstances, given a friendly face and a little bit of plywood, true community and lasting connections formed as we helped brighten the neighborhood!
Robin Knauerhase is recently retired from a career as Research Scientist with the Intel Labs, and is enjoying a “career intermission” spending time volunteering with several causes in advocacy for LGBT and other marginalized people. She is an active member of Portland First Christian Church, but does not speak for the church or the congregation as a whole.
¹ While some call this “violence”, it’s worth distinguishing property damage from human damage, or as the signs and chants said, “buildings don’t bleed.”
² PPB’s use of CS gas, tear gas, and “less-lethal” munitions are generally considered excessive, and in violation of a restraining order. Litigation is still underway.
