Finlandia Foundation Columbia-Pacific Chapter

The Portland, Oregon Chapter of Finlandia Foundation National was founded July 14, 1954. At that time, it was called the Portland Chapter, and It was the eighth initially affiliated FFN chapter. The next FF Portland based chapter was started in the early to mid 80’s, called Finnish-American Literary Heritage Foundation. Its mission was to promote Finnish Literature and translations of Finnish language works into English. It was an active group for roughly ten years, and it would have booths at the various Finn Am festivals. It faded away by late 90’s. For a brief time, the Finnish-American Historical Society of the West took on the Finlandia Foundation representation for the area.

In November 2001 sixteen people gathered at Eila and Craig Chisholm’s house to discuss the formation of a new Finlandia Foundation Chapter. Satu Mikkola gave a comprehensive presentation on FNN, and those people present formed Finlandia Foundation Columbia-Pacific Chapter. The group was enthusiastic about the Memorial Sports Fund in Jaakko Tuominen’s memory, and they felt the chapter would bring life to the Finnish community in the area.