Here are Sherwood's Community Enhancement Grant winners
From art to festivals to jazz band camp, here's what the money will go toward
By Diana Page Jordan
SHERWOOD, Ore. — Every ton of trash puts more money into the Metro/Sherwood Community Enhancement Program grant. This year, Finance Manager Leslie Dean said they had nearly $127,000 dollars to give to grant recipients.
The grant program is funded by a $1 per ton surcharge collected at the Pride Recycling Company transfer station located on Tualatin-Sherwood Road in Sherwood. Metro’s Noelle Dobson, who is the Program Manager for the Community Enhancement Grants, said the program began in 1986, with Sherwood joining eleven years ago. There are now nine transfer stations in this grant program.
“From your garbage comes art, microphones, and ways to beautify what could otherwise be blighted because of the transfer station,” Dean said.
Word of mouth about the grants is growing, so much so that the CEP committee couldn’t reward all the applicants. Among the thirteen winners, Dean said they awarded the Sherwood Cultural Arts Commission $11,000 for electrical wiring for the Pine Street Light Poles, some of which didn’t have electrical plug-ins. That will allow them to fire up holiday lights.
The Sherwood Robin Hood Festival Association won an $18,000 grant for fiscal year 2027, while the high school’s Band Booster Club gets $2,500 for Sherwood Summer Jazz.
Not all the grants are for entertainment. Love Inc plans to expand its essential support by about 40 new families in Sherwood with its nearly $9,900 grant.
Executive Director of Love Inc, Ken Caron, said the lion’s share of this grant supports Countryside Community Church, Journey Church, and Cedar Creek in Sherwood to create varying closets for people within the local four-percent poverty rate. There is no requirement to have any religious affiliation.
“The largest area of need is in the rent and utility piece, but it's such a hard amount for any one church to come up with," Caron said.
He said instead, they build different closets with essentials like linens, toilet paper, personal hygiene items, feminine products, and over-the-counter medical items, such as Band-Aids.
"We have a personal care closet that helps provide things like Depends products, diapers, and bed pads.," Caron said. "The idea is to give dignity, not only to seniors, but also to families that may have children with special needs."
Caron said the non-profit encourages its volunteers to listen to the stories that people in need tell them.
"We believe that everyone has a story and their story deserves to be heard. And, when you hear those stories, they're ones that can just rip your heart out," Caron said. "We want to give that dignity and respect to those who are walking through the crisis."
He told the story of one caller who shared with him that she was walking through breast cancer.
"I had learned, a couple weeks before, that one of my volunteers had also walked through a battle with breast cancer," Caron said. "I put the client on hold and asked the volunteer if I could connect her with this mom of three, who is scared. The words that came out of the volunteer’s mouth were, ‘I got her.’"
Caron said he knows they can't meet every need, but they do the best they can to help as many people as possible.
“Our biggest hope is two-fold. One, that we can help more people in the Sherwood area, and two, that we can have a stronger network of churches working together," Caron said. "With this collective of churches, we can make a bigger footprint to help those in need.”
Other winners are Sherwood Youth Cheerleading which gets new tumbling equipment, CASA for Children’s 40th Anniversary Initiative, and Moms’ Night Out Movie Fundraiser for In-Kind Boxes. The biggest winner is the $23,450 grant for the Village Collective’s Drop-In Services.
The final five winners are the Sherwood Park and Rec Advisory Board, Sherwood Community Speaker Services, the American Legion Post 56’s Kitchen Improvement Project. The Middleton Elementary School gets picnic tables and benches, and the Robin Hood Elks Lodge 2342 gets a bathroom upgrade.
The money is being doled out now, as of July 1, and recipients have a full year to use that funding. An interim report is due in January of 2027.
