Portadown has a long association with the Ulster Project. The first Ulster Project to Manchester, Connecticut in 1975 saw twelve Portadown teenagers join with 16 teenagers from Belfast and Armagh to form the first group of twenty eight teenagers! They were led by Rev. Kerry Waterstone, his wife Edie and Fr. Patrick McDonnell for the eight eventful weeks of that first  and ground-breaking project.

In 1976 a second project left Portadown, this time to Wilmington Delaware to begin a relationship that is still flourishing some thirty three years on. The Ulster Project Delaware now rotates between Portadown, Banbridge and Coleraine spending two years in each town.

Canon Kerry Waterstone's Ulster Project returned to Portadown in 1999 after two of the town's teens from the original Manchester Connecticut project , Keith Neill and Mario Gribbon, joined forces with Ellen McCarley and Lovella Kelley to establish an Ulster Project that links Portadown with Hutchinson in Kansas. Keith and Mario had been guest speakers at a special International Conference in Arlington Texas to mark the 25th anniversary of the Ulster Project. While there they met with Ellen & Lovella who were hoping to establish an Ulster Project in Kansas. After months of preparation the first group of twelve teenagers left Portadown to travel to Hutchinson Kansas in June 2000. Since then Portadown has established a second project in the town of McPherson, Kansas. In 2007 the first group of eight teenagers travelled to McPherson to participate in the Ulster Project.