Bridge Meadows Presents First Ever Bridge Builder Award to the local Windermere Foundation Chapter

Portland, May 23, 2013. For the first time, Bridge Meadows presented its new Bridge Builder Award to the local chapter of the Windermere Foundation. Bridge Meadows presented the first ever Bridge Builder Award to the local chapter of the Windermere Foundation. Joan Allen (center), co-owner of Windermere Real Estate and co-chair of the Windermere Foundation proudly displays the award. Derenda Schubert, executive director of Bridge Meadows, is pictured on the right and Shannon Mackey, chair of the board of directors for Bridge Meadows, is pictured on the left.

Bridge Meadows is an innovative community designed to bring together three generations to provide a stable, loving home for foster children, support for adoptive parents and an opportunity for elders to have a sense of community and purpose.

In 2007, Windermere made a commitment of $250,000 to help ensure youth placed in foster care at Bridge Meadows would be provided a healthy, stable, permanent home environment.

“The Bridge Builder Award was created to recognize ordinary people doing extraordinary things in our local community. Windermere couldn’t have emulated that more perfectly for us in our beginning stages,” said Derenda Schubert, executive director of Bridge Meadows. “They amazingly raised $250,000 during one of the worst real estate recessions in decades. We call them ‘Windermere Angels’ because the agents went above their mandatory foundation donations [taken from each commission check] by making personal donations and launching various fundraisers.”

The Bridge Builder Award was given to the Windermere Foundation on May 14th at the Bridge Meadows Bridge Builder Annual Luncheon held at the Multnomah Athletic Club in recognition of the Windermere Foundation’s generous commitment of time, financial investment and inspiration to building bridges (and building homes) in our community.

“Helping the community is just a natural extension of what we do as real estate professionals,” said Joan Allen, co-owner of Windermere Real Estate and co-chair of the Windermere Foundation. “Sure, our business does depend upon having a healthy thriving community, but the people in our business love helping children and families have successful lives.”

For the past 24 years, the Windermere Foundation has donated a portion of the proceeds from every home purchased or sold towards supporting low-income and homeless families in our communities. What started in 1989 as a grassroots foundation serving families in need in Washington State, has grown to encompass ten states and has raised over $25 million for programs and organizations that provide shelter, clothing, children’s programs, emergency assistance, and other services to those who need our help the most.

Bridge Meadows is located on the former Ball Elementary School site in the Portsmouth neighborhood. In October 2008, the Portland City Council unanimously granted a 99-year lease to Bridge Meadows. Bridge Meadows (formerly known as Portland Hope Meadows) consists of 9 family homes for adoptive families, 27 elder apartments, and an intergenerational community center. It was built with the combination of public and private dollars, opening its doors on April 1, 2011.

Bridge Meadows is a multi-generational housing community serving Oregon’s most vulnerable populations: foster youth, adoptive parents and elders (55+). Our mission is to offer permanency in the lives of foster children by providing adoptive homes, supporting those adoptive parents with resources and guidance and giving elders meaning and purpose in their daily lives. The Power of Place. Permanence. And Purpose.

8502 N. Wayland Avenue | Portland OR | 97203 |503.953.1100 | www.bridgemeadows.org

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