About us
Disrupting social isolation for over 30 years
Thirty years ago, Father Richard Berg saw the isolation many experiencing mental illness or urban poverty were feeling. As a psychology-trained College of Arts and Sciences Dean by day and Holy Cross pastor by night, Fr. Berg fused an academic/medical approach with his faith-driven commitment to walk side-by-side with his neighbors experiencing poverty–something that’s remained a core tenant for over 30 years!
In response, Fr. Berg and his sister, Mary Sue Richen, began sending volunteers with teams of nursing students from the University of Portland and Clackamas Community College to visit residents in low-income residential hotels. And with that, Maybelle Center was officially born in 1991.
In 1999, we opened the doors to Macdonald Residence, a new 54-room assisted living facility in Old Town to care for neighbors who can no longer live independently–the nation's first 100% Medicaid-funded assisted living facility.
Four years after buying the adjacent ailing West Hotel in 2008 (also home of the famous bar, Satyricon), we cut the ribbon on 42 affordable studio apartment units called Macdonald West. The building also houses our office space and Community Room, where members can grab a cup of coffee and connect with friends.
In 2007, Fr. Berg, our co-founder and Executive Director, and his beloved sister, Mary Sue Richen, retired from the Center. Our current executive director, Michelle Meyer, is our fourth ED in our 30-year history.
Do you want fries with that?
In 2015, we changed our name from Macdonald Center to Maybelle Center to honor our first major donor, Maybelle Clark Macdonald, and to reduce name confusion with Ronald McDonald House–and occasionally the fast-food restaurant.
If you get the pleasure of meeting Mary Sue, ask her about the time she got a call asking if they “put ketchup on it!”
Macdonald Center (dba Maybelle Center for Community) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization (Tax ID: 93-1060938)
Father Berg, Co-founder
Former University of Portland Academic Dean & Pastor at St. Vincent De Paul Downtown Chapel
To build a city where all people experience a sense of belonging–including Portlanders living with mental illness or economic poverty.
To create inclusive opportunities to experience belonging that help reverse human isolation and its root causes, so people feel like they matter and play a role in our shared future.
While we support all Portlanders in meeting their human need to belong, Maybelle Center prioritizes the inclusion of adults in downtown Portland who experience mental illness or financial poverty.
#1 | Every person has innate/intrinsic value
Everyone is important and valuable: No one is better than anyone else.
#2 | Universal interconnectedness
Community is not just a source of strength–humans are fundamentally social beings who move through life being served and serving others. Inside our community, you will find people from different walks of life, cultures, and backgrounds, and everyone has an important part to play.
#3 | Learning-orientation
We all have something to offer and places where we can grow and learn–we're all learning together.
We believe that to become the equitable and inclusive community we want to be, we must fearlessly seek out racial inequality within Maybelle Center, and tirelessly commit ourselves to correcting it wherever we find it. We accept this challenge with the knowledge that we will be working to address and reverse inequities that are deeply embedded in our society—and also within our own organization.
We look forward to the progress we will make, and acknowledge that it will take time, hard work and persistence. We are committed to doing this work today, tomorrow and for years to come. Because racism is so entrenched in our society, we must never think our work is fully complete, or take for granted the progress we have already made.
To us inclusion means that the voices, viewpoints, and life experiences of the members of our community, including members, residents, staff, volunteers and board will be incorporated into our discussions, and reflected in our decisions, actions, and policies. We strive to be a diverse organization where power and resources are shared and distributed in an equitable and inclusive way.
Our work will be guided by an equity plan which is also what we will use to measure our progress. We intend for that plan to be a living document in the sense that it will continually be adjusted and refined as we grow and change.
Adopted 2018
Black lives matter
The past weeks as your inbox filled with emails from organizations condemning the murder of George Floyd by a White police officer and affirming their commitment to racial equity...did you notice we weren’t there?
If you did, you might have wondered, “How can an organization that claims to value equity not speak out?” Isn’t that what’s becoming clear? Silence has allowed the perpetuation of violence against, and murder of, Black individuals like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, and countless others.
And yet, we were silent.
As individual staff members, we were outraged and stood in solidarity with protesters demanding justice for our Black community. And yet there was hesitancy about where we stood as an organization, and to what degree we should respond. We were certain that we didn’t want to just “issue a statement” because it was a hot topic. Or come out with a statement but not follow it up with any action. Trust is the cornerstone of any relationship – and we value those we are in community with, like you, too much.
But here’s the thing. It’s embarrassing to admit we didn’t already know how we should respond as an organization.
We’ve written and reflected on our equity journey for nearly four years. Race was even the primary focus of this work. But we’ve hesitated to make it too public because we stumbled over how to apply racial equity in our organization. Over the years, sharing power with members became the true focus of our equity progress.
In our work every day, we see social systems failing our members and creating real harm. But we’ve hated ‘the system’ without acknowledging many of its faults are due to the white supremacy embedded within—like we’re seeing with policing. While we’ve been furiously trying to soothe the symptoms of failed systems, we haven’t fully considered if we could be replicating the same harmful and racist structures.
Why, after 30 years, and with intentional effort, is our staff and board still primarily white? Why are people of color underrepresented in management or decision-making? We owe it to our colleagues, volunteers, members, and the Black community at large to do better. It’s mission-critical work.
So today, we unequivocally say that Black lives matter. And we know that those words need to be followed by actions.
Maybelle Center believes every person is irreplaceable, and that inherently includes members of the Black community. It is our responsibility as an organization to resist systems that treat anyone as less than fully human or decide who is replaceable based on skin color.
We don’t know what the next steps are, but we commit to radical transparency as we explore what it might look like. Thank you for believing, as we do, that every person is irreplaceable and for partnering with us on this journey towards a more vibrant and connected Portland.
- The team at Maybelle Center for Community
Adopted June, 2020
Michelle Meyer
Executive Director
Andrew Brown
Program Director
Suzie Milazzo
Assisted Living Administrator
"I think of hope, curiously, when I ride the bus here in Portland. A trip on the bus gathers a variety of people of all ages and ethnic groups on a common journey. As we move along, some people board and others depart. We travel together through all kinds of weather and traffic, to our destinations on time, we hope.
Buses are like the hope that carries us along, serves us, provides rest in the process, allows for reading, prayer, contemplating the future. And often on the journey, people share with one another the gift of hope by thoughtful greetings, conversation, and helpfulness.”
- Father Richard Berg, Co-founder