Village Building Convergence
This year's Village Building Convergence was amazing. We transformed the city for the thirteenth consecutive year. We gathered in a new place in the N/NE community and forged new partnerships. If you want to stay connected, sign up for our newsletter and join our Meetup group.
Location: Alberta Abbey, 126 NE Alberta ST Portland
Contact: e-mail, facebook, twitter, #vbc13, newsletter
City Repair's Village Building Convergence (VBC) is an annual ten-day placemaking festival that combines crowdsourced activism, creative community development, hands-on education and celebration.
Our mission is to facilitate an annual collaboration and cross pollination of neighbors, groups, and civic partnerships to transform our city through village life patterns, education, and placemaking projects. This culminates in a 10 day springtime celebration.
We invite you to expand your experience by getting involved.
We come together to create benches, community kiosks, gardens, street paintings, tile mosaics, and more! Neighbors join together with people who want to help and learn skills while bringing to life the natural building, permaculture, and public art projects that they’ve been planning. Learn valuable skills for urban sustainability and social regeneration while celebrating the creativity and diversity of our wonderful city! Read more about the VBC...
During the day, people have the opportunity to get involved with creative, community designed placemaking projects happening all over the city. There is natural building, gardening, art, and many other fun things to do and great people doing them with you! This aspect of the event is always free.
During the evening everyone gathers at a central venue for a night of wholesome food, presentations by leaders in the forefront of positive change, and exhilirating musical performances from local bands. Prices here are $15 in advance and $20 at the door, with worktrade available most nights.
How to Get Involved
There are many ways to get involved:
1) Volunteer to help plan & coordinate the VBC event. See an overview of opportunities & contact our volunteer team. We can't make the magic happen without volunteers. Even a few hours volunteering makes a big difference in your experience and that of others.
2) Offer housing for an out-of-town volunteer and receive free tickets to the evening programming at the main venue!
3) Host a placemaking site in your neighborhood. Email vbcplacemaking@cityrepair.org for more info.
4) Build, help, create, & learn at neighborhood placemaking sites during the VBC.
5) Volunteer for a *worktrade* shift during VBC evening events to help us make this great event possible (and get free access to another evening event). These shifts are more intense than basic volunteer shifts.
6) Sponsor the Village Building Convergence. Contact vbcresources@cityrepair.org for more info.
2013 Village Builder Magazine by Village Builder