Volunteers Celebrate Rose Garden

The Kenton neighborhood of North Portland has a small rose garden in one of those difficult, what-to-do-with triangular spaces between streets and train tracks. But long-time community activist and gardener Alta Mitchoff did something about it: turned it into a lovely rose garden, and today we celebrated its first 30 years. Alta organized, inspired, and put in countless hours of work. I helped prune and cleanup the garden as part of my old garden club, other community groups did the same, but some volunteers have made the garden a real priority and their consistent, hard work really showed today as over 30 gathered to dedicate its new sign and a bench honoring Alta. I loved seeing old friends, meeting Alta's daughters, and being part of a strong community; a real feeling of accomplishment, and heart-warming sense of the passage of time.