Suma Friends – as we move out of May and toward the summer season, we want to do our best to keep you updated about suma’s work getting ready for our summer special: a grassroots effort to connect low-income people and other frontline community members to affordable transportation and healthy food via the suma app.

Oh and Hey: We’re actively looking for support to extend the project to more users throughout the Portland summer, please share our project 1-pager with potential funders. Funders can support an individual event ($750), 5 events ($3750), 10 events ($7500), or more.

The summer special takes place in North Portland starting July 15th and in Northeast Portland starting August 6th.

But for now, we’re getting the word out – we kicked off North Portland project outreach in May with our partner Home Forward at their New Columbia community. On a cool Saturday morning, suma team members tabled a food event, sharing suma app information in English and Spanish with dozens of event participants.

That same Saturday, we also debuted a new quick enroll feature for the suma app (see below), an easy way for interested community members to connect with us. By scanning the QR code and entering their info, we can follow up to let them know about other suma outreach events in their neighborhood so they can stop by and learn more about suma, about how to complete enrollment in the suma app, or about how they can save money on locally sourced food and clean mobility in our summer special.

In less than 2 hours, ¡we quick enrolled over 30 people! Shout out to Hacienda CDC and their Las Adelitas grand opening for inspiring this new feature:

We are very thankful for the time, thoughtful questions and engagement from New Columbia community members, and deeply appreciate the collaborative work with our Home Forward friends. We’ll be following up with additional events at New Columbia, including office hours, e-scooter trainings, small group discussions, and other tabling opportunities.

Stay tuned, lots more to come, including our Northeast Portland outreach kickoff with Hacienda CDC, suma app integration work with St. Johns Farmers Market and King Farmers Market, and additional project support that will help us extend the project to more users throughout the Portland summer. Hasta la próxima and we'll talk with you soon...