“Know your board” is a series of articles to help you get to know the members of your Eliot Neighborhood Association Board.

Kristen Yates grew up in Hood River and moved to Portland eight years ago. Her favorite place in Eliot is the Lillis-Albina Park because she thinks it is beautiful to look at the city from the Eastern vantage point. Yates has been on the board for the past 4 and a half years and has held the position of Recorder since 2012. She diligently writes up the minutes from each board meeting so that neighbors can read them on our website, eliotneighborhood.org, and keep all residents informed of what’s happening in the neighborhood.

Yates has worked for the past five years at Volunteers of America Men’s Residential Center (VOA MRC) and her main job is providing outreach and prevention work to the local schools and also helping with the Al Forthan Scholarship (see page 5 for details). She joined the board because the MRC has been involved with the Eliot Neighborhood since it came to the neighborhood 23 years ago. Many of the men who live at the MRC love being involved with the projects throughout the neighborhood and she s better able to hear about those opportunities by being on the board.

As a future project for Eliot Yates would like to see more Eliot job opportunities or maybe internships available to the men who are in treatment at the MRC. There are so many amazing small businesses in Eliot and she often thinks it would be phenomenal to get job training for some of the men and free labor for the businesses. The men have some amazing skills and they often just need the right environment to develop them. This is one of her pipe dreams that she has not had enough time to implement.

When she does have free time, she enjoys hanging out with friends and making good food.