What is CHEETA?

What is CHEETA:
Community Hope through Education Empowerment Training and Action (Cheeta) is an internship through Portland Housing Authorities, that allows students from low-income communities to come together and take initiative to make a change. This year Cheeta participants were from Riverton Park and Kennedy Park. The students all came together for a two-day orientation/ training on how to become leaders in their communities.
 
The Riverton Park Cheeta project consisted of two different projects- the environmentalist who focused on changing the way the RP environment looks, and the ballers who focused on the basketball court- Both projects were successful
 
Environmentalist:
The primary goal of the environmentalist was to plant trees, flowers, and pick up trash, in an effort to make RP feel more welcoming. They noticed that people effortlessly throw their trash on the ground, which causes the community to not look good. This has been an ongoing issue, so the environmentalist decided to do a trash pick-up. During this trash pick up about 20 members of the community participated, and they saw success.
 
“Ballers”:
The primary goal of the “ballers” was to make the basketball court in RP look better. Oftentimes, people break the nets and the paint on the ground fades. The ballers wanted to incorporate alternative nets like chain nets, but that wasn’t approved. They were able to successfully paint the ground and incorporate nets, making the basketball court look much better.