Community Connections Committee

Vision

Making Brooklyn a true community for all, welcoming new residents, and ensuring long time residents are connected!

Mission

Creating a focused effort to help neighbors meet other neighbors through promoting and coordinating inclusive events, and actively connecting new and existing Brooklynites to Brooklyn resources and relationships.

Calendar of events

Events calendar (PDF), last updated on Jan 12, 2022

2022 events calendar overview (PDF)

Welcome packet

Check out the Welcome to Brooklyn page!

Contact

Email: community-connections@brooklyn-neighborhood.org

Committee members

Melaney Dittler (Chair)

Melaney has lived in her 1898 home in the Brooklyn neighborhood for 16+ years with her husband Tim. She has a son who attended Winterhaven and Cleveland, who now lives in NE Portland with his father. In addition to being the Chair of the Community Connections Committee and Co-Chair of the BAC, Melaney is also a Friends of Brooklyn Park Board Member and was previously the President of the Greater Brooklyn Business Association. She volunteers for several other organizations and groups in the area as well, working to make this community a better place for all to live. When she is not volunteering around the neighborhood, Melaney is a Realtor and loves working with her neighbors on their selling needs and buying goals and answering questions neighbors may have about anything real estate. If she has any time left in the day, she loves to work on her house and in her yard, but don’t judge the mess most of the time. 🙂 For fun, Melaney likes to “glamp” each month in her travel trailer in the spring/summer and watch football (Go Seahawks!) most weeks in the fall/winter.

Cheryl Crowe

Known by her friends as the cruise director Cheryl has turned her social organizing to making Brooklyn more fun. From leading Pedalpalooza rides around Brooklyn, throwing a neighborhood wide scavenger hunt, to organizing a neighborhood volunteer appreciation party to leading Steptember walks she is always organizing something.

Her best known work is leading volunteers with cheering for Portland Marathon runners along with organizing bands to play, having Brooklyn recognized twice as a favorite of the runners and bringing in a hefty prize to keep the tradition going.

She roams the neighborhood with one of her 2 rescue dogs, taking pictures for her instagram @BrooklynPdxScenes which celebrates all things Brooklyn.

Hans Albing

Lived in Brooklyn since 2017. Enjoys sailing, backpacking and eating. Addicted to cheese. Hoping to meet more Brooklyn neighbors and help with Brooklyn neighborhood events.

Kathy Orton

Brooklyn resident since 1978, Kathy became chair of Save Our School in 1980, with many other BAC posts to the present Adopt A Block. Major careers: medical research; construction & design and High School Science Teacher. Now retired, enjoy time with 2 sons, 5 grandkids also gardening, walking, traveling, reading and writing…and adventures with husband Lee.

Marie Phillippi

Marie has been active in the Brooklyn Neighborhood for 25+ years. Her personal career started as a young music teacher and continued for 40 years. As she was winding down her career of teaching young kids’ music, she took a job working for a liturgical music publisher here in Portland. This entailed a huge amount of traveling and basically spanned about ¼ of the world, presenting workshops to introduce liturgical musicians to the music being written by their composers. When she moved into the neighborhood, in 1987, she quickly became involved in the BAC while still being employed and traveling. She has held various positions on the board including a “stint” as chair, and has edited the Brooklyn newsletter and coordinates the personal delivery of it, for almost 30 years. She was the voice of the neighborhood during the design and building of the latest McLoughlin overpass and was on the committee and instrumental in getting the project back on the “table” for designing the LightRail that travels through Brooklyn. She is currently the BAC treasurer. She also is the music coordinator at the neighborhood church. She is quite pleased with having the opportunity to help make Brooklyn feel like a “real” neighborhood.

Sean Batson

I’ve been involved in interactive street art events here in Portland for nearly ten years. I’ve participated in and organized events including Portland Urban Iditarod teams, Bus tours, hiking and backpacking trips and large event parties. As co-founder and Vice President of Brooklyn Based, Non-Profit, Stumptown Events Inc. we provide opportunities for creative people to share their passions with the town and contribute in creating the community we all love. I am passionate about the act of creating. whether it’s a Victorian screen door for my house, an event for 200,000 people or a well oiled production team.

I am an Event Production Professional with over 10 years of experience and 30 years operations management experience. I love bringing together people and organizations from different backgrounds, technical specialties and abilities, realizing the contribution each brings to the community and facilitating their work for a common goal with amazing outcomes.

In addition to running Stumptown Events Inc, I own Portland Event Permits LLC, and Norwest Market Events LLC.

I am also the Operations Manager for the Portland Winter Light Festival.

My “Dream of the 90’s” is a world where people can come together as a community of self expression in fun, creative -and free- street theater. I love Street Theater events that provide a safe, fun environment for individuals or groups to come together and express their unique creative talents in whatever form that might manifest.

Meeting minutes

All minutes are PDF files unless otherwise noted.