With help from Portland Parks & Recreation and SOLVE, team Hennebery Eddy organized a cleanup of O’Bryant Square on our Day of Service in honor of Juneteenth. Each year, the firm allows staff to spend paid time volunteering on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President’s Day, and Juneteenth. Opportunities to perform group community service were limited during the pandemic, but with weather and vaccine rates improving, our team created the perfect service activity in a spot close to our hearts.
O’Bryant Square is a public plaza adjacent to our Portland studio — one that has been closed and fenced off for safety reasons since 2018. Over the last year and a half in particular, trash has piled up and weeds grown over. Like much of downtown Portland, the space needed some love. Our Portland team is gradually returning to working in our studio full time, and we are committed to promoting the re-emergence of a vibrant downtown neighborhood. Over the course of a day, two clean-up crews gathered 800 pounds of trash and swept natural debris, making a significant improvement. While the park remains closed and needs more work, it looks a bit more like the green urban oasis that we remember.
