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LEE PERLMAN
THE MID-COUNTY MEMO
A collaboration between the Parkrose Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative, Parkrose Farmers' Market, their friends and supporters turned the old Rossi Farms barn into a fine dining establishment last month.
The $65 a plate event was a promotion for the market and a fundraiser for NPI which, like the other five districts, is seeking to raise $30,000 in the next few months. This, plus a matching grant from the Portland Development Commission, would allow them to hire a manager and be eligible for $1.2 million in funds over ten years for business improvements, small public improvement projects, and area promotion.
Indeed, if the event had a downside, it was that it was the choir preaching to itself.
Including NPI committee members and their families, about 70 people attended. Many more could have been accommodated, and there was a full table of empty chairs. NPI Stakeholders vice-chair Loretta Stites pronounced the turnout good “for a first-time event,” and said it would be repeated with better promotion in the future.
Ringside Glendoveer Executive Chef Christopher Turke prepared the dinner and explained the contents and preparation of each of the five courses.
The produce had been picked that day from the fields of participating Parkrose Farmers' Market farms. More of the goods, including peaches, plums and berries, were items in a silent auction.
Projected on the walls was a slide show of scenes from the early days of Portland Italian family farms; culled from a book Rossi is working on, he said they included pictures from 20 different families.
Other familiar faces were Parkrose School District superintendent Karen Fischer Gray, NPI Stakeholder Committee member Luke Shepard, Parkrose neighborhood activist Marci Emerson Peters, and Commissioner Amanda Fritz.
Servers included Rossi's partner Amy Salvador, her five children, Parkrose Neighborhood Association Chair Mary Walker and Russellville Grange Manager Dominic Moran.Stites ended the evening with a pep talk. “I can't begin to tell you what (NPI) will mean for the whole community,” she said. “It will bring us together, make us as beautiful as we all know we can be. It will make us the next Hawthorne, Mississippi or Alberta. We already have Elmer's and Parkrose Hardware.”
She said the intent of this and similar efforts are to “open minds and open pocket books.”
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