Sunnyside Neighborhood Association

Tech Tips

Let’s Rethink Addictive Tech This Holiday Season

Do you wish you knew more about safer, healthier tech options for kids? Are you trying to delay purchasing a smartphone, but still need a way for your child to communicate with friends and family? Are you tired of wrestling with parental controls that never really work? There are better tech options for kids and teens out there, but so few parents know about them.

Since 2007, Big Tech has been engineering their products—smartphones, apps, etc.—to be addictive, which ultimately makes them more money. This is why parenting around tech has become so much more difficult in the last 20 years. But we don’t have to accept this business model. There are lots of small tech companies creating products that allow kids and teens to use tech as a tool without the worry that it will take over their lives.

So how do you choose tech for kids that does only what we need it to do, nothing more? When our kids get old enough to walk around the neighborhood themselves and want to connect independently with friends outside of school, we often consider getting them a phone. When we think phone, we usually think smartphone, and smartphones are SO much more than a phone. They’re super computers in our pockets full of addictive apps, opportunities for endless scrolling, and portals to every corner of the Internet. Getting our child a smartphone for communication means we’re choosing tech that does way more than we need it to; all those extra things can become a battle. The phone feature rarely causes problems, it’s always another function like texting, social media, gaming, YouTube, porn, or gambling that becomes addictive.

Likewise, when our kids need a device for homework we often get them a laptop, only to find that parental controls are hard to set up—and easy to get around. Then we’re stuck policing our kids while they try to do homework on a device with YouTube just one click away.

Luckily, there are products out there that make tech easier for parents to manage and are healthier for kids. These products were often created by parents who didn’t like the all-or-nothing choice. They couldn’t find a better option to the addictive tech that monetizes kids’ attention at the expense of a healthy childhood, so they decided to make one.

There are wonderful new wifi landline phones just for kids – Tin Can, MyPhone, Waffle and Ring Ring Club. These phones bring back the joy of talking on the phone and the independence of kids making plans themselves. No screen, no Internet, just a friend at the other end of the line. When kids get a little older, WaffleGo is a screen-free option to keep them safe while they’re out-and-about.

By middle school, tweens often need a device with more capability, but they’re not yet ready for the responsibility of a fully-loaded smartphone. Starter phones like Gabb, Troomi and Pinwheel are healthier alternatives because parents get to choose what goes on them. These phones are like learner’s permits so parents can introduce tech intentionally.

Kids often have a grandparent wanting to get them an iPad as a holiday gift, even while their parents don’t feel ready for tech battles. A much healthier, non-addictive alternative to the iPad is Daylight Computer’s new Daylight Kids. It has a blue-light-free screen, robust parental controls, and is designed to foster self-regulation, not iPad meltdowns. For teens, the original Daylight Computer is a healthier, less distracting option for homework.

What about cameras and music? Companies like Camp Snap and Paper Shoot offer kids a screen-free camera experience, while Mighty Player and Kite bring back the joy of listening to music on a screenless device.

We don’t have to accept Big Tech’s business model for our families anymore. Let’s rethink addictive technology this holiday season!

Want to see some of these alternatives up-close? Stop by the Alternative Device Fair December 5th, from 2–5 p.m. at St. David of Wales Episcopal Church (2800 SE Harrison). Co-hosted by Mindful Media (mindful-media.net) and Oregon Unplugged (orunplugged.org), we’ll be raffling off several alternative devices so come put your name in the hat!

October 14th Board Meeting – Sunnyside Environmental School + Peacock Lane

Join us this Wednesday, October 14th for our next board meeting. We will be discussing signing onto a letter from the SES PTSA and faculty in opposition to the proposal to change Sunnyside ES from a K-8 school with an environmental focus to a K-5 elementary-school without a particular focus, as part of the overall school closure (“rightsizing”) plan from Portland Public Schools. We will also be meeting representatives from the Peacock Lane Festival of Lights to discuss ways the SNA can be more involved this year and in the years to come.

As a board meeting, all votes will be limited to members of the Sunnyside NA board. However, time will be given for public comment and questions.

The meeting, which will be held in the upstairs conference room at Southeast Uplift (3534 SE Main St.) and online at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/88016449899, will start at 7 p.m. and go until approximately 9:00 p.m.

Click here to see the full agenda.

News from the President

Hi Sunnyside! It’s the most wonderful time of the year! OK, it’s not Christmas or a PNW summer, but it is that time of year where we get to exercise one of our most basic, hallowed rights as U.S., Oregon, and Portland citizens. I always feel a little warm inside as I sit down with my family, talk through the ballot together and make my choices. I know that I’m a nerd, but I do love our mail-in/drop-off ballot system!

At our September meeting, we kicked off election season with guests from Your 2 Cents PDX and Protect Our City Services to debate Measure 26-267, which, if passed, would mandate that an amount equal to a minimum of 2% of the city’s general fund (~$16-17 million next year) be open to the public for ideas and a public vote. Community members and groups would submit ideas—maybe funding an after-school program, refurbishing bathrooms at a city park, or funding more police officers. Ideas would then go to a city-appointed committee to vet for legality and feasibility. Finally, there would be a binding public vote. Your 2 Cents argues that this will promote budgeting transparency, give citizens a more direct voice in how their money is spent, take decisions away from powerful interests, and provide a more equitable process for historically disadvantaged communities. Protect Our City Services counters that we are in a budget crisis and that mandating 2% of our limited general fund would almost certainly harm core city services such as fire, police, and parks. Only about 10% of the Portland budget is in the general fund; the rest is restricted for items like transportation, water, and the Portland Clean Energy Fund. The folks at Protect Our City Services also worry about a process written into the city charter that will provide little flexibility to our elected officials as we try to navigate out of our current budget hole.

There was a spirited Q&A. I would say that the tone of the questioners was fairly skeptical. Personally, I would chalk some of that skepticism up to worries about this proposal, and wariness about how the city, county, and state have implemented well-intentioned citizen initiatives in the past. There’s a lot to think about. Learn more from the sponsors at your2centspdx.org and from the opposition at protectourcityservices.org.

Switching to the local election, all three of our District 3 City Councilors are up for re-election. We’ll also need to elect a new Multnomah County chair. Not only can you vote for multiple candidates for city council but also for county commission. That’s right, ranked-choice-voting (RCV) has gone Multnomah-county wide this year! You may vote for as many as six candidates in each race; only three candidates are running for county chair vs. 20 for city council. We aren’t here to endorse any particular candidate(s), but I do have some advice:

• DO rank candidates who you are ok with winning. You can’t hurt your top choices by voting for another candidate further down.

• DO NOT vote for candidates you don’t want at all, even if you rank them last. Those votes could come into play!

• DO NOT rank more than one candidate with the same ranking! This may result in none of your votes in that race counting.

• DO read the city’s guide to RCV at portland.gov/vote/ranked-choice-voting-rcv.

• DO talk through your ballot with friends and family! It’s a complicated ballot with many choices. Help others out. Don’t tell them how to vote, but help them understand the still-new RCV system.

• DO get your ballot in the mail early or use a ballot drop box. There’s a list of ballot drop sites here: multco.us/info/official-ballot-drop-sites. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Trump’s plan to restrict mail-in voting, but he is still trying to mess with the system by not prioritizing
election mail. You want your vote to count!

Finally, thanks to everyone who helped make the 1st Annual Sunnyside Yard Sale a success. It was great fun and we look forward to doing it again next year!

The board will meet in October to hear a presentation from the Mt. Tabor Neighborhood Association about their program to support seniors in their neighborhood. I’m looking forward to hearing about ideas that we can implement in Sunnyside!

Getting to Know Your Neighbors

A Q&A with Clark Johnson & Ricky Rickman of Clark’s Coffee

We sat down with Clark and Ricky, the duo behind Clark’s Coffee on Belmont, to talk about falling in love through coffee, starting a coffee shop in a garage, and how a space in Sunnyside came along at exactly the right time.

Tell me a little about yourselves. How did you both end up in Portland?

Clark: I grew up near Chicago. My brother had moved out here and I came to visit him in 2018. It was my first time in the Pacific Northwest and I immediately fell in love with it. The next year, I packed everything up and drove out here.

Coffee has always been somewhere in my life. I worked in coffee in high school. After moving to Portland I worked at See See Motor Coffee, Coava Coffee, and Floyd’s Coffee.

Ricky: I grew up in California and moved to Portland in 2022. Growing up, I always loved coffee shops because of that community-oriented feeling. When I moved here, I worked at St. Honoré and then Nossa Familia, where I really got the opportunity to learn more about coffee. There’s really no better place to truly learn coffee than in Portland.

Is coffee also how you met?

Ricky: Yeah, for a long time we were kind of circling each other. We had a ton of mutual friends. I would go to See See’s all the time, but somehow we kept missing each other.

I lived around the corner from See See’s and was trying to push myself to get out of the house and make local friends. See See’s hosted a lot of events, and eventually a mutual friend introduced me to Clark at one. We started hanging out as friends, Clark asked me out, and we’ve pretty much been together ever since.

How long before you started talking about opening a coffee shop together?

Clark: On our second date!

Ricky: We realized really early on that we had both independently wanted to start our own shop one day. Eventually it became this question of, if we’re going to work this much and be under this much stress anyway, why not put that energy into something of our own? Living in Portland made it feel possible. Coffee is so important and well-loved here.

How did Clark’s Coffee start?

Clark: We always knew we wanted to start our own business, but wanted to start small and make sure we could actually work together. So, we thought, let’s try it out of our garage. Maybe we’ll do it once a month and see what happens. And then suddenly, we were open four days a week.

Ricky: We did not expect the garage, of all places, to pop. We had regulars!

It gave us a way to open the door to the community and let people understand what Clark’s Coffee is. By the time we were ready for a shop, there were already people who knew us and wanted to see us succeed.

So how did this Sunnyside storefront enter the picture?

Clark: Funny enough, this neighborhood had been part of my Portland story from the beginning. When I first visited in 2018, two of the first coffee shops my brother brought me to were the Stumptown that used to be in this space and Bare Bones down the street. My friend Ash, who owns Mixtape, told us this space was going to become available. At that point, we weren’t ready.

And then the opportunity came back?

Ricky: Yeah. We spent those next few months building Clark’s Coffee and
figuring out who we were. It grew way more than we expected. Then Ash
came back to us and basically said, “Are you sure you don’t want to reconsider this?”

By then, we had built a community around the garage. We knew we could work together. We knew people liked what we were doing. We tried the space for a month before committing to the lease, and everything just lined up. It really was the perfect place at the perfect time.

What do you love about Sunnyside?

Clark: I love that there’s a school next to us. You have kids and families, artists, service workers, people who actually live here.

You look around the shop and somebody is talking about a mural they just got commissioned. Teachers are talking about the school. A family is talking about their vacation. We’ve overheard first dates. We love being a central place for our customers to come and feel like they belong here.

Ricky: We have some of the nicest customers I’ve ever experienced working in customer service. People come in and draw, or work or hang out for hours. That’s exactly what we wanted.

What does being a “neighborhood coffee shop” mean to you?

Clark: It means being community-oriented, making people feel comfortable and welcomed the second they walk in the door. We want people to know they can rely on us. You can use the bathroom. You can ask us for hot water. You can sit at a table and stay as long as you need. You can come talk to us about an event. It sounds like little stuff, but that’s what makes somewhere feel welcoming.

What would you like to see more of in Sunnyside?

Clark: More collaboration. More people coming in and saying, “Hey, I have this thing I want to try,” and us being able to say, “Cool, debut it here.” We want to work with groups like the Sunnyside Shower Project, support neighborhood events, and host pop-ups. We’re still a small business, but the door is open.

This truly feels like the neighborhood coffee shop of our dreams. We love getting to know everyone and being such a big part of the Sunnyside community. It’s a dream come true.

Clark’s Coffee is at 3356 SE Belmont St. and it’s open Mon.-Fri, 7:30 a.m.–4 p.m.,
Sat. & Sun. 8 a.m.–4 p.m. clarkscoffeepdx.com.