Partner News and Partners in the News! (August & September 2022)

Partners in the News

William Grose Center for Cultural Innovation and Enterprise, Africatown’s center for ‘economic empowerment and community-driven development,’ opens in the Central District:

Named for a Black pioneer credited with shaping today’s Central District, the William Grose Center for Cultural Innovation and Enterprise will begin its work this week as a center for “economic empowerment and community-driven development” providing training, networking, and connections to help launch new businesses and careers in the Central Area, the Africatown Community Land Trust announced.

Front and Centered and the People’s Economy Lab are interviewed in this article about a Just Transition framework and philosophy, in this Seattle Times article by Naomi Ishisaka:

In a just transition framework, it’s critical that communities of color and others who are most directly harmed by climate change and pollution are leading the way. That’s where Njuguna Gishuru, a lab leader at the People’s Economy Lab, comes in.
The People’s Economy Lab works to move away from extractive economic systems and advance new sustainable and regenerative models centering communities of color. Their community fellowship program supports community leaders of color in projects that integrate just transition principles.
Gishuru said our communities may be tied to extractive economies by necessity and sometimes it can be hard to translate the just transition framework, but at its core, the model is bringing us back to our regenerative roots.

From the South Seattle Emerald, Rainier Beach Action Coalition’s Annual Back2School Bash Is Back in Full Effect:

Danielle Jackson, who has coordinated the Back2School Bash for eight years and worked with Rainier Beach Action Coalition for over a decade, has a strong background in family and community services.
“I got into this work because I wanted to see families thrive,” said Jackson. “I was a teen mom at 17 and really wanted to be able to help families with the resources and services they needed. Because I know how it was for me, and I always hoped that there was someone there for me.”

From the South Seattle Emerald, King County Communities Make History With Participatory Budget Process:

After a year of mostly online Zoom meetings among community members, $11 million were allocated toward community services and projects. The projects, which will benefit five regions including White Center, Skyway, East Federal Way, East Renton, and Fairwood, are part of a participatory budget. This isn’t the usual bureaucratic funding process; instead, King County gave the reins to 21 community members from all five regions who engaged with their broader communities to crowdsource ideas.

From the South Seattle Emerald, Seattle Foundation’s New President and CEO Alesha Washington Continues Its Goals to Advance Equity

“When I think about my time in community, I spend a lot of time thinking about the way in which systems can make a place feel undervalued and displaced, but when you go deep into that community, there are ways that people and community building across people make it something really beautiful and vibrant,” Washington said. “Particularly because of the Black [American] experience I come from … [there is] the ability to make something really beautiful out of nothing, or almost out of chaos or trauma.”