2026 All-America City Finalist – Woodburn, OR
Long before Woodburn was incorporated in 1889, the Willamette Valley was home to the Kalapuya people. The community that grew in their place has been shaped by successive waves of settlers, immigrants, and families seeking opportunity. Today, 58 percent of Woodburn residents speak a language other than English at home, 95 percent of city center businesses are Latino-owned, and students in the local school district speak more than 30 unique languages. This diversity inspired the city’s motto: the City of Unity.
As one of Oregon’s fastest-growing communities, Woodburn has worked deliberately to ensure that growth strengthens rather than strains its civic fabric. The city has embedded engagement into its core systems through advisory boards, bilingual outreach, and community-led programs that reflect the full range of residents it serves.
The programs below reflect that commitment across three areas: regional economic storytelling and tourism, youth and family support services, and the placemaking investments that give Woodburn’s diverse community a shared stage.
North Marion Tourism Collaborative and ‘American Dream’ Series
When COVID-19 devastated the tourism industry in 2019, communities across North Marion County began meeting to discuss cooperative strategies that could sustain regional tourism through the crisis and beyond. In 2021, those conversations resulted in the formal establishment of the North Marion Tourism Collaborative, a Destination Management Organization bringing together city leadership, economic development professionals, chamber of commerce leaders, and business owners across nine participating communities.
The collaborative unified regional branding through the North Marion brand campaign and supports ongoing connection through weekly “Greeters” networking events, where local businesses host and showcase their work, and a monthly “Café y Pan Dulce” multicultural gathering where business owners meet over coffee and sweet bread. These efforts build on a region rich with major draws, including the Woodburn Fiesta Mexicana, which draws an estimated 27,000 visitors over a single weekend and received the 2024 Community Impact Award from the Oregon Festival and Events Association, the Wooden Shoe Tulip Festival drawing roughly 100,000 seasonal visitors, and the Woodburn Premium Outlets, Oregon’s top retail tourism destination with an estimated four million annual visitors.
In 2025, the collaborative launched the American Dream video series, inspired by the observation that so many Woodburn residents and business owners came to the community to fulfill a dream of work, homeownership, entrepreneurship, and education. Featuring businesses including La Morenita Tortilleria, Flomer’s Furniture, Elena’s Fabrics, and K-Bron Brewing Company, the series has been distributed statewide through public broadcasting networks, building trust among business owners and city leaders while increasing community pride and encouraging support for local businesses.
Family Resource Center and Community Outreach and Education Coordinator
Located roughly 30 miles from larger population centers to the north and south, Woodburn is the largest municipality in North Marion County and serves as a critical access point for surrounding rural communities. Requiring residents to travel for services was often financially or logistically infeasible, and city leaders recognized the need for a centralized, accessible hub that could bring providers together in one place.
In 2022, the city opened the Family Resource Center, an 11,208 square foot facility purchased and managed by the city and leased to nonprofit service providers at $0.66 per square foot, compared to a market rate of $16. The building offers centralized multilingual reception in English, Spanish, and Russian, along with shared services that further reduce costs for tenants. Current providers address domestic violence, human trafficking, housing instability, mental and behavioral health, and family support services. In 2025, combined tenants served more than 2,038 individuals.
In 2023, the city partnered with the Woodburn School District and Woodburn Police Department to create the Community Outreach and Education Coordinator position, responding to post-pandemic increases in school suspensions, drug activity, vandalism, and gang-affiliated behavior among middle school youth. The coordinator expanded after-school programming through the Boys and Girls Club, reaching 190 middle school students, and launched free bilingual parent education sessions covering suicide prevention, substance abuse, financial literacy, and social media safety.
In January 2025, the Woodburn Teen Court launched, offering youth ages 12 to 17 accountability, mentorship, and individualized case management as an alternative to traditional punishment. The Woodburn School District has since increased regular student attendance from 54.7 percent to 63.3 percent, nearly double the statewide average improvement.
Woodburn Placemaking
Over the past decade, Woodburn has grown by more than 11 percent, making it one of the fastest growing communities in Oregon. As the need for expanded gathering spaces and recreational services has grown alongside the population, the city has remained equally focused on preserving the cultural identity and sense of place that defines Woodburn. To guide that work, the city established advisory bodies including the Downtown Advisory Review Subcommittee, Public Arts and Mural Committee, and Tourism Advisory Committee to provide resident and stakeholder input directly to the Urban Renewal Board.
The placemaking investments that followed reflect that community input. A former parking lot in the heart of downtown was transformed into a central plaza modeled after the “zócalo” tradition of Latin cultures, now home to regional events, open-air markets, and daily community gathering. The historic Metropolis building, condemned after the 1993 earthquake, was preserved and redeveloped into an open mercado-style food court offering Asian, Eastern European, and Mexican cuisine alongside event space. The Woodburn Historical Museum and adjacent Bungalow Theatre, a former cinema dating to 1911, underwent decades of restoration culminating in a 2023 grand opening and recognition with both the prestigious DeMuro Award and an Oregon Main Street Brick and Mortar Rehabilitation Award. A mural program and 50/50 facade improvement grant partnership with local businesses round out the city’s downtown activation efforts.
Woodburn’s commitment to heritage and placemaking was recognized when the city was selected to host the 2026 Oregon Heritage Conference, a statewide celebration themed “Stories, Culture, Place: Weaving Community Heritage” that reflects Woodburn’s identity as the City of Unity.
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