Every THTF program starts with the same question: what does this neighborhood actually need? From cultural dining to community repair, our programs are built on dignity, participation, and the belief that there is always room inside.
These programs are open, running, and welcoming participants right now. All THTF programs are free or donations-welcome — no one is ever turned away for inability to pay.
The Portland Cultural Table brings together immigrants, refugees, and longtime Portlanders to share meals, stories, and the food traditions that define who we are. Each gathering centers a different cultural community — their cuisine, their dining rituals, their history — in a warm, communal space where everyone is the guest and everyone is the host.
These are not food festivals. They are dinners — intimate, intentional, and built around the belief that sitting at the same table changes something. We eat together, we listen, and we leave with a little more of each other inside us.
The Sidewalk Gallery Brigade transforms the everyday surfaces of Outer East Portland into open-air galleries — windows, fences, utility boxes, and walls — featuring original work by community artists, youth, and elders who rarely see their stories reflected in traditional arts spaces.
We believe public art is a public right. This program pays community artists, installs rotating exhibitions in accessible locations, and creates a permanent record of the cultural landscape of our neighborhoods. No application required to visit. No ticket required to experience it.
Every family in Portland carries recipes that have never been written down — dishes that traveled across oceans, survived displacement, and live only in the memory of the people who make them. The Portland Cultural Cookbook Contest invites community members to submit their most meaningful recipes, along with the story behind them.
Winning entries are published in the annual THTF Community Cookbook, translated into English and the contributor's home language, and distributed free to Portland Public Libraries, community centers, and local schools. These recipes are not just food — they are cultural documentation.
When a bike breaks, a door hinge fails, or a child's backpack needs repair, the cost of replacement isn't always an option. The Rebuilding Communities DIY Repair Kit program distributes free, culturally-aware tool kits and repair guides to households in Outer East Portland — packaged with multilingual instruction sheets and a QR code linking to video walkthroughs in multiple languages.
Each kit is accompanied by a Repair Café referral card — connecting families to free repair events where skilled volunteers help complete the repair in person. We also accept donations of gently used tools to keep kits fully stocked.
These programs are in final development and will open to the public in 2025–2026. Want early access or to help shape them? Reach out — we build with community, not just for it.
A community storytelling and workforce development program that trains residents from immigrant, refugee, and underrepresented communities to become neighborhood journalists, oral historians, and cultural documentarians. Participants receive free training in storytelling, photography, audio recording, and community interviewing — and are paid stipends for published work. Neighborhood Voices is free to participate and open to all. No experience required — only a story worth telling and a community worth preserving.
Express Interest →A pilot program connecting Portland-area employers with structured, meaningful community service opportunities in immigrant and refugee neighborhoods — co-designed with those communities, not imposed on them. Employee teams participate in skill-sharing sessions, neighborhood beautification, cultural exchange events, and hands-on projects identified as genuine priorities by community members. This is not PR. It is relationship. Participating employers receive an impact report and ongoing partnership with THTF community liaisons to ensure the work actually serves the people it claims to.
Employer Inquiry →A hyperlocal skill exchange connecting people within the same neighborhood to teach and learn from each other — cooking, language, computer basics, sewing, tax prep, childcare, carpentry, bike mechanics, and more. Every person is both student and teacher. No money changes hands; no credentials are required. Skills are matched through a simple platform maintained by THTF volunteers, with in-person sessions hosted in homes, libraries, and community centers. This program is built on a foundational belief: every person is a traveler carrying something the world needs.
Join the Waitlist →A three-day public celebration of Portland's living cultural landscape — centered in Cathedral Park under the St. Johns Bridge, in the heart of a neighborhood that has always been home to the communities THTF serves. Free to attend. Open to all. Built by the community, for the community.
World Cultural Tour is not an ethnic festival — it is a gathering of neighbors. Every booth, performance, and table is hosted by a community that has made Portland home. Every dish, dance, and story belongs to a real family, a real history, a real place.
"We don't decide what this community needs. We ask. Then we listen. Then we build together."
Every program THTF has ever built came from a conversation. Someone in a neighborhood said we need this — and we found a way to make it real. That process doesn't stop. It's how we work.
We're actively collecting community input on what the next THTF program should be. Should we focus on youth? Elder care? Digital access? Legal navigation? Language classes? A community garden network? A tool library? We want to know.
Submit your idea below — we read every one. Ideas that gather strong community interest become our development shortlist. You are not just a participant in this work. You are a decision-maker in it.
We respond to all ideas within two weeks. Submitting does not commit you to anything — it starts a conversation.
Thank you for helping shape what we build next. We read every submission and will be in touch if your idea moves forward. — The THTF Team