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Portland Observer
Online
‘City of Roses’
Happy New Year!
Volume XLIV
Number 54
www.portlandobserver.com
Wednesday • December 30, 2015
Established in 1970
Committed to Cultural Diversity
photo by M ark W ashington /t he p ortland o bserver
Members of the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority and their supporters dedicate a statute in honor of the late Christine Poole-Jones at the June Key Delta Community Center at
the intersection of North Ainsworth and Albina Avenue.
Paying it Forward
o livia o livia
t he p ortland o bserver
A gorgeous new statue commemorating what a com-
munity can do when it works together and dedicated to the
local woman of color who helped make the dream a reality
marks a new era at the June Key Delta Community Center
in north Portland.
Designed by local artist Alisa Looney with the gener-
ous support of the Portland Development Commission,
the statute was dedicated during a special ceremony on
Dec. 19 in honor of Christine Poole-Jones, the late mem-
ber of the African-American sorority which established
the center, and a Portland woman who broke color barri-
ers as a librarian in Portland Public Schools while leading
an esteemed life of community service before her death
by
in 2014.
Poole-Jones was the first black woman to serve as pres-
ident of the Portland School Librarians Association. Her
record of community service varied from director-at-large
of the Irvington Neighborhood Association to serving as
a member of the African American Health Coalition. She
was chairman of the board of the Interstate Firehouse Cul-
tural Center, member of Portland Parks and Recreation,
member of Portland Arts Council, and, most prominently
in this case, a dedicated member of the Delta Sigma Theta
Sorority, a Portland chapter that promotes academic excel-
lence and provides help to those in need.
One of her last and most notable community contribu-
tions was her tireless work to build the June Key Delta
center using sustainable guidelines. She freely gave her
Sculpture is tribute
to local activism
time, money, and talent as a grant writer for project, work-
ing along with architects, construction companies, and
multiple government agencies to procure recycled mate-
rial to be used in the construction.
Ten years in the making, the center opened its doors
to the public in 2011 and is well on its way to achiev-
ing the highest level of the “Living Building Challenge,”
a rigorous standard that measures the sustainability and
eco-friendliness of new construction.
The center also realizes the dream of the late June Key,
one of the 10 original Delta Sigma Theta sorority mem-
bers to charter the Beta Psi Chapter in Portland back in
1945. At the time, chapter meetings were held in mem-
C ontinued on p age 2