About Love City
Our Story
In 2015 Shawn and Inga Arvin moved to the Portland neighborhood. Their initial goal was just to buy a house and live there. However, the house they wanted was a part of a package deal, it came free with a 20,000 square foot community center building next door. With no agenda or plans the Arvin’s bought the building, renovated the house and moved in. Not long after that they realized there was more to the neighborhood than they originally thought. They fell in love with the people and the place. Started opening the basketball gym in the building to kids in the neighborhood to have a safe place to play ball; and started a fish fry out of the snack bar in the back to raise money to pay the light bill. From there Love City was born. Now a 501c3 focused on building and developing community Love City has remained true to its roots of just loving our neighbors. As the neighbors became more empowered, Love City is now run by the community and continues its mission of loving people as they are so the community can do the work of building their own neighborhood.
Our Mission
Love City’s mission is to simply love our neighbors and community, creating a culture that empowers a movement of loving people as they are.
Our Vision
Love City’s vision is to uplift our neighbors through resources, knowledge, and love.
Love
Everyone
In keeping with our mission, we have three core phrases that summarize our core values, the first of these core phrase is to Love Everyone. Everyone is welcome at Love City. We don’t withhold love from anyone but seek to show love to all people. Loving everyone is the foundation of our community.
Honor
Everyone
The second of our core phrase is to Honor Everyone. We seek to honor the life experiences, wisdom, and knowledge of all of those around us. Building a culture of loving everyone as they are goes hand in hand with honoring everyone.
Build Up
Everyone
Our third core phrase is to build up everyone. An important part of loving people as they are is to encourage them to be the fullest form of themselves. We seek to edify and encourage all those around us.
Mackin Building
Our first location, the Mackin building is an important cultural landmark within the Portland Neighborhood. The first parts of the building were built in the late 1800s with a ballroom added in 1900 and the gym and basement added in 1922. The building started out as the clubhouse for a literary society attached to St Cecilia church. Over the years, after the literary society closed, St Cecilia church used it for parish hall space and for their school when it was active until the late 1970s. The church sold the building in 1986 and it became a Boys and Girls club until 2008. It sat vacant until it became the first location of Love City in 2015. Over the years the Mackin building has been a hub in the neighborhood, and one of the most important and influential basketball gyms in the city. We still hear stories of people who said, if you get invited to play basketball at the Mackin, then you were a true hooper.
Community Garden Portland
In early 2018 Love City had a group of volunteers working in one of our two vacant lots which we intended to turn into gardens. Fortuitously a manager with the USDA urban agriculture program happened to be riding by, saw us working and stopped to ask if we would be interested in a free greenhouse on the lot. The USDA worked with us to fill out all the paperwork and today we have two greenhouses on two vacant lots. Over the years we have grown vegetables for the neighborhood as well as an outdoor gardening classroom for the students at MOA.
St John Campus
The most recently purchased campus of Love City, the old St John’s church will be the future site of Mighty Oak Academy Pre-school. Purchased in 2019, the construction project stalled due to Covid and the increase in the budget due to materials and labor costs after covid. Once complete it will hold approximately 100 preschool students age 1 – 5 years old.
St Cecilia Campus
The first expansion of Love City from the Mackin Building. The St Cecilia Campus has a parish hall, church building, rectory house and garages and outbuildings. While the Mackin has turned into the Mighty Oak Academy, St Cecilia has become a hub for all other programs at Love City, from Porkland BBQ to the Fish Fry, to St C’s Tees to the workshops for our maintenance crew, etc. It even has the second vacant lot where our other greenhouse is located. The multipurpose space also holds multiple events throughout the year.