The following is from the 107IST Board of Directors:

The Delta variant is here and it is having a significant impact on our community already. Hospitals are full and the Governor is deploying support in anticipation of the situation getting worse. While local officials are working to develop public policies to combat the spread of Delta, the 107IST board is urging our members to mask up, wash your hands, keep a safe distance, and get vaccinated if you are able. 

If you are going to the stadium, it is especially critical that you are masking up throughout, even in your seats. 

The 107IST, Timbers Army, and Rose City Riveters have many medical and research professionals in our mix and they have been advocating for our community to follow the most recent OHSU recommendations issued in a statement this week.

OHSU is asking for Oregonians to take immediate action by changing our behaviors back to mask-wearing, social-distancing, and getting and encouraging the vaccine.

… both vaccinated and unvaccinated people who need to interact with the community should follow at least two of these three precautions:

1. Wear your mask indoors in all public spaces or with people outside of your household; wear your mask outdoors where physical distancing is not possible.
   
2. Limit gatherings; if you do gather, do it outside.
3. Physically distance whenever possible.

We support the PTFC Front Office’s proactive approach to have a mask mandate as opposed to the mere recommendation to wear masks. This is a good first step but the board feels this policy should apply throughout the stadium, including in your seats. The 107IST board has asked the PTFC Front Office to extend the current mask protocols by requiring masks be worn throughout the stadium and at all times. We should follow OHSU’s recommendations for individuals to wear masks during outdoor activities when social distancing is not possible. With the stadium open at full capacity, social distancing is not possible.

The 107IST is advising its members, the Timbers Army, and the Rose City Riveters, to wear masks throughout the stadium. We have face masks available at the Fanladen pre-match for those who need one. Starting this weekend, the seats closest to the capo nests and the main stage will be taped off to give our volunteers more clearance from other supporters. Please respect this buffer. 

In addition to the mask mandate, we have let the PTFC Front Office know we support a vaccination requirement for all upcoming matches. Variants of the virus continue to emerge; as long as the stadium operates at full capacity, there will be a risk of a major outbreak. For those who are not medically able to get a vaccine, we asked that they are able to provide refunds or credits to accounts. By maintaining this protocol for the rest of the year, it also alleviates the need to repeatedly update procedures and minimizes confusion for attendees.

The 107IST is also putting a hold on additional Away Day planning at this time. We are facilitating refunds as needed for any matches that are actively on sale if your plans have changed. Please email awaytravel@107ist.org to request a refund to any upcoming match for which you have already purchased tickets.

We have updated our 2021 Matchday FAQs to reflect these changes as well as update on our other activities. 

It’s August and time to pick up some extra school supplies for match day drives!

During the first half of August, match day drives will support Rose Haven shelter in their effort to collect school supplies for homeless and at-risk children in the Portland area. Last year the state of Oregon reported that there were 21,080 students experiencing homelessness. In Portland, Rose Haven provides supplies to hundreds of kids each year. Info on this year’s drive can be found on their website.

Please help us collect new school supplies for Rose Haven Shelter! Items needed include: backpacks, hand sanitizer, notebooks, calculators, folders, binders, pencils, pens, coloring utensils, washable face masks for kids, headphones with a microphone, battery-operated timers, lunchboxes, notebook paper, dividers, glue and glue sticks, tape, scissors, combination locks, highlighters, index cards, rulers, pocket tissues, laptops, tablets, and children/teen clothing and shoes.

Please donate new items only for this drive. Backpacks are among the most-needed items, since these can also be used throughout the year to provide items to individuals served by the shelter.

Drop off donations anytime Fanladen is open between August 1st and August 15th. Stop by before or after a match (Thorns: August 1st; Timbers: August 4th, 7th, and 15th), or during membership hours on Wednesday nights (check social media and newsletter for specific hours to be sure we’ll be there!). Fanladen is located at 1633 SW Alder, just a couple blocks from the stadium.

If you prefer, you can also donate remotely to Rose Haven via their online wishlist and registry.

As in June and July, limited edition donation merit badges are available for folks who drop off donations! We know you don’t need an incentive to do something good for the community, but you get one anyway! There are three designs available, so get them while you can.

If you're out of area and wish to receive a donation merit badge, donate via wishlist or financial donation, and then send a screenshot of your receipt to community@107ist.org with the subject “Donation merit badge” and your mailing address. We ask that you only use the shipping option if you can’t get your badge in-person at Fanladen, but you’re also welcome to bring electronic proof of donation to Fanladen if that’s how you prefer to donate.

Thank you so much for your generous donations!

It’s moving week for the C3PO BIPOC Camp! They have needs for each day, and they are asking for our help to pull it off.

On Thursday at 1 p.m., they will need around 20 volunteers to assist with breakdown of a couple of carports, as well as the loading of our miscellaneous items (water dispensers, water jugs, propane tanks, chairs, tables, tools, ladders, wheelbarrow, EZ ups, storage closet, insulation rolls, clothing racks, buckets, food pantry items) onto U-Haul trucks.

Sign up for Thursday here.

On Friday starting at 9 a.m., they will need 20 volunteers to help villagers clean and sanitize their homes. We may also need support to give villagers rides, if possible. People can also go to the new site to welcome villagers and help with any set up.

Sign up for Friday here.  

We will also need around 20 volunteers to help pack up the bigger items around the village, put them on trucks.  Sign up for that here. 

Depending on how the move goes, they will likely continue to work on Saturday and might need volunteers again at that time.

While villagers are moving, they would like to have two people signed up for two-hour shifts to support with security at the villages, verifying residence and keeping things moving smoothly. 

To sign up, choose one of the sites:

• Current site (41 SE Main St)
• New site (84 NE Weidler St) 

Reach out to Stephanzy if you have any questions. Hope to see you out there!

In July, support Street Roots!

We will be collecting donations any time Fanladen is open. This includes membership hours, pre-game, and (in some cases) post-game. Check the weekly newsletter or social media for updates and open hours.

Since 1999, Street Roots has been publishing a weekly newspaper in Portland — and employing vendors to sell that paper. Street Roots vendors are independent contractors who are experiencing homelessness and poverty. By selling papers for Street Roots, these vendors not only make an income, but they become a part of the organization’s advocacy. Their voices and experiences heavily influence how Street Roots advocates for systemic change. This organization also publishes the Rose City Resource, which exhaustively lists resources and services for people experiencing homelessness and poverty.

They are specifically asking for items to help combat the heat of summer: sunscreen, sun hats, reusable cooling towels, misters/personal fans, sun hats, aloe vera, sunscreen lip balm, reusable water bottles, and bottled water.

Tina Drake, vendor liaison for Street Roots, says:

We at Street Roots strive to create a comfortable environment for our vendors at all times. This sometimes includes them selling in inclement weather. Any donations brought by you ... will be made available to our vendors to keep them safe during these strange and unusual times during the Portland and Oregonian weather changes. Thank you from Street Roots."

As with last month’s drive, limited edition donation merit badges are available for folks who drop off donations! We know you don’t need an incentive to do something good for the community, but you get one anyway! There are still three designs available, so get there while you can.

You can also donate to Street Roots via their Amazon wishlist or donate financially online. If you are out of area and wish to receive a donation merit badge, send a screenshot of your receipt to community@107ist.org with the subject “Donation merit badge” and your mailing address. We ask that you only use the shipping option if you can’t get your badge in-person at Fanladen, but you’re also welcome to bring electronic proof of donation to Fanladen if that’s how you prefer to donate.

As an organization, the 107IST is actively working to strengthen our youth engagement. We have an exciting opportunity to partner with another local nonprofit, Elevate Oregon.

Elevate Oregon is hosting free summer activity camps for kids in grades 1 through 8. We're looking for any volunteers who have recent or current experience working with kids. We're also looking for anyone interested in leading an intro to soccer clinic for one afternoon during the June 21—24 activity/sports camp. 

Sign up for a spot before June 18 here! 

Elevate Oregon builds relationships with at-risk youth to promote education, self-reliance and leadership. You can learn more about this organization on their website.

The following is a post from Rachel Greenough, a member of the Community Outreach Committee and the Rose City Riveters Steering Committee.

Happy Pride, everyone! It means so much to me to announce that the 107IST will be collecting donations for the community in person this month, and that our Pride Month collection will support Outside In. To add a little extra hype, we will have donation merit badges available for folks who drop donations at Fanladen on match days! Please see below for details, and check in on social media for match day information — plans are evolving quickly and we’ll do our best to keep information current. Update: Fanladen will be open before all Thorns and Timbers home matches in June!

Here are some details of what you can do to support our community during Pride month:

1. Pledge to a Prideraiser! The Rose City Riveters are supporting Outside In,  and the Timbers Army are supporting TransActive. Pledge to one or both, with amounts as low as $1/goal or as high as you want!

2. Bring material donations for Outside In on home match days for both teams! Please bring new items only, including: socks (larger sizes), underwear, toothbrushes, deodorant, sunscreen (travel size), chapstick, reusable water bottles, and shorts (size M+). Check the newsletter and social media for fanladen open hours before matches.

3. If you’re out of the area, you can also donate to Outside In via their Amazon wishlist. If you wish to receive a donation merit badge, send a screenshot of your receipt to community@107ist.org with the subject “Donation merit badge” and your mailing address. We ask that you only use this option if you can’t get your badge in-person at Fanladen.

4. Buy Pride merch items from RivetGear and No Pity Originals! A new item (and some from past years) are available now, both online and at the Fanladen before thorns matches. This year's pride item benefits The Living Room, an organization that supports and celebrates LGBTQ+ youth in Clackamas County.

5. Keep watching the 107IST channels for more.

So why, specifically, is Outside In our chosen recipient for the Riveters Prideraiser and the 107IST donation drive in Pride Month? Outside In has been here for as long as I can remember. In fact, they’ve been operating in Portland since 1968. They provide medical and other services for anyone who needs them, but their roots are in service to the youth of Portland — providing shelter, medical care, job training, food, and so many other needed services to young people. About 20 to 40% of the youth experiencing houselessness in this country identify as LGBTQ. Trans youth, in particular, find themselves at incredible risk of violence and harm if they are on their own, and the gender-affirming medical and other care provided by Outside In is one important way to support these young people. We need to stand up in support of trans and queer youth — and Outside In has always done that.

This Pride Month, we'll do our best to actively support our LGBTQ+ community members. In particular, we recognize that legislation targeting trans individuals is on the rise across the country, and violence toward trans individuals has already taken too many lives this year, including in our own state. We also recognize that intersectionality means that the overlapping aspects of an individual’s identity might make them more susceptible to inequality, discrimination, violence, and harm.

Please feel free to send things our way or help the community engage further with these topics.

Over the last year we’ve worked on reimagining how we do things as an organization to foster a more open and inclusive environment. In doing this work and making these changes, we’ve identified areas where we know we can do and be better.

One of those areas is volunteerism.

The 107IST, the Timbers Army, and the Rose City Riveters would not exist without the thousands of hours of volunteer work done by our community. And, in turn, our community has benefited from the work our volunteers have done outside of the organization.

But we recognize that we can go bigger and that we can address the changes needed to open our volunteer spaces to folks who may not have been comfortable stepping up in the past.

From the outside, it isn’t always easy to find a way in and when people have said this in the past, we haven’t responded in a way that opens doors.

So maybe we just take the doors off.

When you think of volunteering for the org, what do you think of? Capos. Drums and trumpets. Tifo crew. Merch. But where do you go if none of those is a good fit?

We’ve had good luck with the Bad Knees Brigade over the last few years, creating a space for folks to do less physically strenuous work. What other groups can we gather and for what purposes?

One of the next steps we've taken is changing the volunteer form on the 107IST website. It still has the traditional areas of interest, but we added space to dream: We’re asking you what talents you can bring to the table.

Maybe you’re really good with spreadsheets. Let us know. Maybe you’re an excellent baker. Let us know that, too. Electricians, plumbers, dentists. People who are good at gardening. IP or civil rights lawyers. Tell us what your skills are, and we’ll see how we can put them to good use in the future.

We’re also looking at ways to reach outside of our organization to lend a hand to our community partners. Do you know of a local organization whose work we might be able to complement? Speak up. We’re listening.

There are more pieces to the 107IST volunteerism puzzle that we’re still talking about and will continue to talk about.

• Recognizing volunteers
• Keeping occasional volunteers engaged
• Welcoming new volunteers and those returning after an absence
• Encouraging folks to find or create opportunities, both within the org and without

If you're willing to help out, fill out the form.  If you have questions or comments, please feel free to email kristen@107IST.org. I’d love to hear your past experiences and challenges, as well your ideas for how we can dream bigger.

We’re so glad to announce APANO as our first Match Day Drive recipient of 2021!

About APANO

March and April were devastating months for AAPI communities across our country, but the hate and violence experienced were not new. The history of this country, and this region, are rife with exclusionary, discriminatory, and harmful actions toward these communities. The pandemic has only made this worse. The Portland area has seen many incidents of anti-AAPI events over the past few months, including physical assaults, use of slurs, and intimidation.

Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO) organizes to change this. The organization unites communities and organizations across Oregon in an effort to achieve social justice and advance equity. Their work is widespread and impressive, from youth organizing via ONYCS (Oregon’s Nesian Youth for Change in Society) to events, workshops, arts and culture support, political organizing, and beyond.

About Match Day Drives

As many of you know, the 107IST made the decision in November to put a hold on in-person donation drives. Until Fanladen opens back up, we are continuing to focus our Match Day Drives on supporting local organizations through financial means or other community support. We'll be highlighting a couple of organizations each month to bring attention and resources to these community partners. When we have a match at home, we’ll have an organization for you to support — whether you’re headed to the stadium or continuing to support from home.

On match day, many of you make it a habit to swing by the store and grab supplies for the match day drive. For now, we ask you to do the same, but by making a direct donation of any size to these organizations. Your generosity is always so impressive — and our community needs it this year more than ever.

If you’re not in the position to donate financially, we totally get it. You can also visit their websites, see what events or projects they’re doing, write a letter on their behalf to a newspaper or politician, spread the word, or support them in any way you feel helps.

What you can do for APANO

APANO has two funds you can donate to, and they both support the goal of advancing social justice through organizing and community support. Please consider making a donation today or on match day to show support for this community. 

APANO is also hosting a series of antiracism workshops. These events are free and open to BIPOC community members. If you don’t identify as BIPOC, there is an event celebrating AAPI heritage and solidarity on May 14th from noon to 1:30. Click here to learn more or register for these events!

Thank you, as always, for your generosity as we support the organizations working toward social justice in our community.

Dear Providence Park,

Well, this is awkward. We miss you. We can’t wait to fill you to the rafters, make the roof reverberate with the noise of drums and trumpets, and stir up billowing smoke bombs with frantically waving flags. There is no better place on Earth than Providence Park on match day.

This is different. This will be different. There will be no flags, no trumpets, no fervent encouragement from capos extolling the North End to drag our beloved teams across the line to victory. This is a time where the dedicated volunteers that make each match day happen have to make decisions about their comfort level. Decisions based on when vaccinations are available to them. Decisions based on the needs of themselves and their families. Decisions that will change the way the North End looks, feels, and sounds.

It will be the same, too. It will be the same because at the end of the day, all those things we do we do for the men and women representing the Rose City. Our City. Soccer City, USA. The passion, love, and support for our players is unwavering and while it might seem a little different in the stands as we support from distance, know that we sing wherever we go — we sing for you, whether we’re inside Providence Park or not.

We look forward to the day where we can all be united, 25,000 strong, in one voice. We’re still figuring it all out and intentionally not rushing things. 

This year will be weird. Embrace it. This is Portland, after all.

Always,

The Timbers Army & The Rose City Riveters

To our supporters: If you’d like to help us figure it out, reach out. If you have more questions, start here. We’ll be adding more information as the season moves along and we know more.

We continue to provide updates to broader membership on the progress we are making across the five areas of focus we have committed to improving this year. As a board we are taking intentional steps to:

• Improve accessibility.

• Hear from members.

• Communicate more.

• Increase accountability.

• Evaluate the organization’s structure and activities.  

This week, we’d like to focus on Increase accountability, specifically looking at hiring a DEI consultant and creating a 107IST code of conduct.

What we’ve accomplished

DEI consultant: This effort, with advisement from the BIPOC group, has been an ongoing effort to shortlist and request bids for engagement from organizations and individual consultants in the PNW region. With the events taking place last year on both a national stage and also within our organization, we are prioritizing this effort to make sure we continue to foster an inclusive, equitable organization and culture. 

• Next steps: We have held conversations with multiple individuals, articulating our needs and scope of efforts, and plan to make a decision in the coming weeks.
  
  

Code of conduct: Related to creating an inclusive organization is the establishment of a Code of Conduct. This effort was mentioned during our February monthly board meeting and a breakout session during our March 6 AGM. While we have an away travel code of conduct that outlines expectations for members attending away matches, a 107IST code of conduct would plainly state the norms and expectations in alignment with our ethos and the accountability to uphold these. We heard rich feedback and recommendations during the AGM session as well as those of you who reached out via email. 

• Next steps: We are taking the feedback received over the last few weeks and drafting an initial code of conduct to socialize with membership before broadly adopting.  

To read previous initiative updates click here.