Mary Rose Navarro
Former staff
she /her
maryrose [at] mmt.org
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
Mary Rose is driven by the possibilities that emerge when people from diverse communities come together with the intention of making their neighborhoods, cities and the world a better place.
Mary Rose moved to Oregon in 1990, after landing her first professional job at a landscape architecture firm. Since then she has participated in social and environmental change at the neighborhood, city and regional levels. Through her yearlong experience as a PLACES Fellow at the Funders Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities she deepened her awareness about societal and institutional structures that have created widespread disparities and how those disparities play out in urban and rural areas.
"I am personally committed to the transformation of the environmental movement and seek to find ways to invest in the ecology of our cities while also contributing to the health and prosperity of all communities."
Upon completing her master’s in urban and regional planning from Portland State University, Mary Rose sought hands-on environmental experience working at the neighborhood level at Friends of Trees. There she learned the joy of watching a group of individuals transform into a community, bonded by a morning of hard work planting trees.
At Portland Parks and Recreation, Mary Rose continued to engage community members in public policy, planning and park development projects, deepening her appreciation for the variety of ways that people feel connected to their neighborhoods and parks and how important it is for community members to be part of shaping the future of their communities.
For the past 12 years, Mary Rose has managed the Nature in Neighborhoods capital grants program funded by Metro’s 2006 parks and nature bond measure, continuing to work across sectors to ensure that the program supports thriving communities through investments in nature.
Mary Rose joined Meyer in August 2019.