What is Community Engagement at the Kitchen Table?
Oregon’s Kitchen Table creates community engagement opportunities to allow Oregonians to influence the decisions that impact their lives. We believe in offering many different ways for people to participate in these decisions, from activities that require little time or effort to activities that invite people to come together over longer periods of time and deliberate with one another. We also believe that no one way of participation is better or more important than another.
Here are examples of some of the ways we have involved Oregonians in the decisions that impact them:
- Community conversations: we host conversations - always with food if we are gathering in person! - open to any member of the community where the project is taking place. These are discussion-based and aimed at allowing people to hear from each other as well as for decision makers and OKT to hear from people.
- Culturally and linguistically specific community conversations: we work with community organizers and partners to invite people to gather and share in the spaces and languages in which they are most comfortable.
- Culturally specific activities: OKT community organizers gather input from members of their communities in the ways that work best for them. Some examples are: A parents group that regularly meets to talk about their children’s education. A trivia night for Slavic community members. A sewing circle for Somali mothers. A Zumba class attended by Spanish speaking adults.
- Survey tools: For some people, answering a set of questions about the topic or decision via an online survey they can complete at a time and place convenient to them in 10 minutes works best. For others, filling out a paper survey at the weekly lunch they attend at their local senior center is most convenient.
- Games, art, or craft activities: We often employ some kind of game, art, or craft activity to spark conversation or allow people to contribute their ideas in a more playful way. We’ve used these activities to engage youth as well as adults.
- Tabling at cultural and community festivals, events, and fairs: We set up tables with activities and opportunities to give input. We’ve conducted one-on-one or small group conversations, brief surveys, and storytelling.
Decision makers and public managers have turned to Oregon’s Kitchen Table to gather input at the state, local and regional levels on a range of topics, including state budgeting priorities, county budgeting, kindergarten readiness, school boundaries, regional economic development priorities, and natural resource management.
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Past Engagement
Baker County Health Care
In 2023, St. Alphonsus Hospital ended acute care services at St. Alphonsus Hospital. This includes its Intensive Care Unit and Baker City birthing center. Now, Baker County officials and other community leaders are considering possible ideas for providing health care and public health services.
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Past Engagement
Oregon's Immigrant and Refugee Student Success Plan
In 2023, the Oregon State Legislature passed Senate Bill 1532 directing the Oregon Department of Education to develop and implement a statewide plan for students who are immigrants and refugees. The purpose of the plan is to address disparities in academic success, historical practices that have led to disparities, and the educational needs of immigrant and refugee students. The plan will include strategies to improve the learning and experience of immigrant and refugee students at school. As part of the plan, ODE will form an advisory group and will give grants to organizations and districts to implement the strategies in the plan.
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Past Engagement
Birth Through Five Literacy Plan
In 2023 the Oregon Legislature passed a bill called the Early Literacy Success Initiative. This law directed the Department of Early Learning and Care (DELC) to develop a Birth Through Five Literacy Plan. The plan will offer ways for partners, program staff, and community groups to support families to help children ages birth through five develop language, early writing, and listening skills.
Previous Engagements
August 2022
Hillsboro City Council Ward Redistricting
In the decade between the 2010 and 2020 U.S. Census of Population, the City of Hillsboro’s population increased by over 16%. Due to buildable land availability and other factors, the change in population affects the three city council wards differently. The City sought to rebalance the ward boundaries on the principle of equal representation.
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July 2022
Clatsop County Comprehensive Plan
Starting in 2018, Clatsop County began a multi-year process to update the County’s Comprehensive Plan. County staff, citizen advisory committees and the Clatsop County Planning Commission have been working for more than two years on updating the policies for each of the 18 goals in the County’s Comprehensive Plan.
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July 2022
Oregon's High School Graduation Requirements
In 2021, the Oregon Legislature asked the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) to review the state’s high school graduation requirements. The goal: to better understand how well they are working for students, families, employers, and educational and training institutions after high school.
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March 2022
Mid-Coast Water Action Plan
In fall 2021 / early 2022 Oregon’s Kitchen Table conducted a second phase of community engagement activities with the Mid-Coast Water Planning Partnership and communities in Lincoln County to hear what people thought about the Partnership's Water Action Plan, focusing on what actions people prioritized and ways they might also play a role themselves.
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March 2022
Portland State University Reimagine Campus Safety Engagement
In October 2021 PSU's Reimagine Campus Safety Committee and Oregon’s Kitchen Table supported community conversations on campus safety and belonging and hosted an online survey to hear from members of the PSU community about what is most important to them about campus safety and feeling welcomed on campus.
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Clatsop County District Boundaries
Oregon’s Kitchen Table worked with Clatsop County to conduct a public engagement process to hear from residents of Clatsop County about what was most important to them when considering changes to the county’s district boundaries. In order to reach a number of different communities in different parts of the county, we designed a multi-faceted approach that also took into account existing COVID restrictions.
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October 2021
Safe Medicine Return in Oregon
In spring 2021, MED-Project USA began working with the state of Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality to help implement Oregon’s new law on safe medicine disposal. MED-Project partnered with Oregon’s Kitchen Table (OKT) to conduct a statewide public engagement process focused on historically and currently under-served communities to better understand what would make it easier for families to be able to return their unwanted medicines.
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October 2020
Oregon Citizen Assembly on COVID19 Recovery - Report from Oregon's Kitchen Table Survey
In summer 2020, Oregon’s Kitchen Table and Healthy Democracy co-convened Oregon’s first Citizen Assembly. 36 Oregonians from all walks of life met seven times via Zoom to discuss, deliberate, and develop a set of recommendations for Oregon’s recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and economic and social aftermath.
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October 2019
Levee Ready Columbia
In summer 2019, Levee Ready Columbia (LRC) conducted a public engagement process to hear from people who work in, live in, or own a business in Multnomah County and its surrounding areas about their knowledge of and values, and beliefs about the Columbia River levee system from North Portland to the Sandy River in Troutdale.
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June 2019
Mid-Coast Water Planning Partnership Values and Beliefs
In late fall 2018, the Mid-Coast Water Planning Partnership conducted a public engagement process to gather input from people who work in, live in, own a business in, or often visit Oregon’s Mid-Coast about their knowledge, values, and beliefs about water and the future of water in the region.
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April 2018
City of La Pine Downtown Vision
In winter 2018, the City of La Pine, in partnership with Oregon’s Kitchen Table (OKT) and Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council, conducted a public outreach and engagement process to hear from people who work in, live in, or visit the City and its surrounding areas about their hopes for downtown La Pine.
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December 2017
City of Hood River Housing
In fall 2017, the City of Hood River sought to hear from community members - particularly from underengaged populations - about their values and beliefs around housing affordability and availability in the City of Hood River. Nearly 1,000 people who work in, live in, or would like to live in the City of Hood River participated, including over 200 Spanish speakers.
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