31st Annual Celebration
Join us for an evening of remembrance, connection, and purpose. Celebrate Walt’s extraordinary legacy, bid on beautiful local nature art in our silent auction, take part in a playful wine pull, and raise your paddle to support the new Walt Mintkeski Stewardship Fund.
For more than 30 years, Walt was a guiding force behind community-led restoration in the Johnson Creek watershed. His steady presence, deep care, and unwavering belief in people power helped shape the creek and the community we know today. Walt was the current that carried this work forward.
With his passing this winter, we feel both the weight of loss and the strength of what he set in motion. Now, each of us is called to step into that current, to carry this work forward together.
Together, we will honor the current that carried us here and become, each in our own way, the current that carries this work forward.
DETAILS:
When: Thursday, May 28, 5:00 pm - 8:00 pm
5-6 pm Social Hour
Art Gallery Silent Auction (Nature Art by Local Artists)
Wine Pull
6-8 pm Dinner, Program, Fundraiser
Where: Kaul Auditorium, Reed College campus
Dress Code: Dressy Casual/Smart Casual
Share Memories: Contribute to Walt's Tribute Board
Guest Speaker: Barbara Bernstein
Bernstein is a musician, composer, radio producer, and filmmaker. She has produced and directed two recent documentaries Chasing Chimeras (2025) and Once a Braided River (2023). Her award-winning radio documentaries, internationally broadcast on public radio stations, include two pieces about the struggle to stop the Pacific Northwest from becoming a fossil fuel export hub: Holding the Thin Green Line and Sacrifice Zones; Sculpted By Fire (the role of fire in shaping western forests and sustaining healthy forest ecosystems); Salmonlands (the cultural significance of diminishing salmon runs in the Northwest), and Rivers That Were (the industrialization of the Colorado and Columbia Rivers). She is currently working on a new documentary about liberating the culverted creeks that flow under Portland’s Industrial sacrifice zone along the Willamette River.