OREGON S LGBTO NEWSMAGAZINE
pridefiles
Seeds of
Change
Arkansas transplant Ali
Williams grows community
from ground up
Ali Williams may be new to Portland, but
she has wasted no time in establishing her
self and, in the spirit o f this year’s Pride
theme, making it happen.
The 24-year-old Arkansas native arrived
in Portland fewer than six months ago, with
nothing but a bit o f savings and the deter
mination to work at Q_Center.
“That’s just kind o f how I operate,” W il
liams says o f her leap-of-faith approach.
She had visited during the previous year
and was taken by the Pacific Northwest’s
promise o f outdoors adventure and progres
sive politics and decided to find a nonprofit
to land at.
“I came to visit and it was great,” says W il
liams, who grew up in a conservative South
ern evangelical Baptist family in the city that
is home to Walmart’s headquarters. “I wanted
to be in a more progressive place.”
Once she arrived in Portland, Williams
made a coffee date with Q_Center’s then-
executive director Kendall Clawson. She
came to the meeting with a list o f things she
JUNE 17, 2011
would do if hired as a Q_Center intern, to
which Clawson replied, “Looks great. Do
it,” Williams says.
Starting the day before 2011, Williams
jumped into preparations for the annual
Winter Gala, and was soon approaching the
board o f directors with her proposal for a
farmers market.
After hearing her market pitch, the board
told her to “go for it,” Williams recalls. She
began laying the groundwork on February 1
and is currently putting in 20-30 hours each
week as the Market Cooperations manager
and special projects and events intern.
“I’m not a farmer, but I really liked the
idea, especially the way it brings people to
gether,” Williams says of the now established
Market CO
It would be an unpaid gig, but Williams
managed to secure a donor to fund her
work there. That’s in addition to a second
internship with Clawson in her new posi
tion as director o f special appointments for
Governor John Kitzhaber.
While Williams aspires to take on bigger
projects, perhaps going to graduate school
or entering politics, she says she’s happy to
be standing among the grass roots, one foot
planted in community organizing, the other
in politics.
“I have no problem starting at the
ground floor,” she says. “You have to start
somewhere.”
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— E rin R ook
The Executive
Director
Todd Tubutis returns to
Portland after 20 years
Portland seems to have converted Todd
Tubutis.
“I have embraced the gay beard,” he jokes.
Sitting at a table outside o f Barista, he
motions toward the plaid shirt he is wearing.
Gray speckles his jet black beard. Lying in
the seat next to him is his bike helmet.
Portland has indeed infiltrated his life. A
year and a half ago, Tubutis moved to Port-
C O M F O R T FOOD TO FEED THE SOUL
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