Community News! November 2023
News, stories and recent articles from and about COO partners in community
'A blessing': South King County food program continues serving Latino families post-pandemic
"Alimentando al Pueblo (Feeding the People) started in 2020 to provide cultural foods for Latino families in need. It's looking for new funding resources to continue... Co-founder and executive director Roxana Pardo Garcia said the pandemic opened her eyes to a problem that needed a solution.
"Why not have a food bank that provides people the food that they eat?" Pardo Garcia asked. "I really wanted to honor my community; let them know there are people out here that really care for them and care for their identity, their culture, their relationship to place, their relationship to their families and relationship to their histories."
The program operates out of Lake Burien Presbyterian Church on 14th Avenue Southwest in Burien. The goal is to provide healing through community, food and celebration."
Full story here.
Honored to Tell is an exhibit of art and oral histories created by the first cohort to graduate from the Seattle Black Spatial Histories Institute. It's on view at Wa Na Wari through Jan. 20, 2024.
Learn more about the Honored to Tell exhibition.
Video: Leading Capital Experiments to Build Powerful Changes - A conversation with Common Future co-CEO Sandhya Nakhasi.
Leading Capital Experiments to Build Powerful Changes
A conversation with Common Future co-CEO Sandhya Nakhasi
"...In a couple [of] concrete examples of how we're changing and what we're taking away, I can share that we are moving away from raising capital for bespoke projects [and moving] towards centralizing how we raise capital for all of our capital projects. There'll be more to come on this in the coming months. We are reducing the legal agreements to the bare minimum of what is needed to align as partners and as capital providers, and we're also building the work and capacity that's required to maintain partnerships for the long term. These experiments last many years, it's not just a one-year pilot, it takes many years to have that capital return. So, what would it look like for us to build that capacity in-house?
With all [the] things that we do at Common Future, it's about learning and taking those lessons to the next experiment. How can we keep iterating with an eye towards refinement and efficiency, but also expansiveness—refining what we can make possible when we leave behind the structures and practices that don't serve us and our collective quest for an inclusive and equitable economy?"
Read the full interview here with COO Governance Group member and Common Future co-CEO Sandhya Nakhasi, or watch at the link below.
Hummingbird Family Services Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) program featured in this KUOW story:
"Native women are more likely to die during or shortly after childbirth than any other group in Washington state. Now, a nonprofit in the Seattle area is trying to tackle that with a new approach: cash. They hope the money will lead to better health outcomes — and that it will help families just enjoy their kids’ early years. The cash assistance program, also referred to as guaranteed basic income, is open to all Native pregnant women in King or Pierce counties or on the Tulalip Reservation who are planning to parent and who make below a certain income: less than $100,000 for a family of four in King County, or less than $85,000 for a family of four in Pierce County or on the Tulalip Reservation. There’s enough money to fund 150 people, chosen through a lottery. The moms in the program get $1,250 per month throughout their pregnancy and until their child’s third birthday.
“We know when we give moms money that they spend it on what their family needs,” said Camie Goldhammer, the executive director of the nonprofit Hummingbird Family Services. She started the cash assistance program with funding from the Perigee Fund."
Read the full article here.
BREAKING THE FALSE VICTIM-PERPETRATOR BINARY ON GUN VIOLENCE
"In the cold winter months of November 2019, I sat with nine other incarcerated men and two outside facilitators in a ring of chairs inside the Monroe Correctional Complex in Washington State. We were participating in an 18-month-long transformative justice group focused on addressing past trauma and learning to take responsibility for the harm we had caused. All of us were serving long prison sentences for serious violent crimes—I am serving a 45-year sentence for murder. But I would soon learn that this wasn’t the only tragic bond we shared."
Look2Justice Co-Founder Christopher Blackwell's full article in The Appeal here.
Underrepresented Khmer and Lao communities fight for themselves during and post-COVID-19
“Our community is still experiencing challenges that were exacerbated because of the pandemic,” said Ung. “Things like transportation and language access were issues before the pandemic…on top of that, digital literacy was an even greater issue because all of the resources that our elders and families usually interacted with in person moved online.” Among other things KCSKC is using their grant “to talk about the different types of emergencies that our communities might face.” No one was prepared for shelter-in-place during the COVID-19 lockdowns, for instance. “So much institutional emergency preparedness is focused on evacuation-related emergencies,” Ung pointed out. What about wildfire smoke? Snowstorms?"
Read the NW Asian Weekly article on the work of the Khmer Community of Seattle King County (KCSKC) here.
Check out this video on BHI from a virtual coffee talk with the Washington State Housing Finance Commission.
Wondering what Black Home Initiative (BHI) is all about? Check out this video from a virtual coffee talk with the Washington State Housing Finance Commission.
Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4c0B9J2-xg
Rainier Beach’s Black-led organizations battle gentrification
The South Seattle neighborhood groups are focusing their anti-displacement strategy on building generational wealth and sustaining cultural vibrancy.
"RBAC also equips businesses and organizations in the neighborhood through negotiating partnership agreements, training to facilitate negotiations and overseeing permitting for neighborhood developments.
“When any developer seeks to put a building plan, the department of construction has to talk with RBAC,” he said. “Through those approaches we’ve been able to influence the development.”
RBAC has received grants from OPCD and EDI as well as Washington’s Department of Commerce. The RBAC’s Growth Center, a workspace that innovatively features a neighborhood produce market, is set to open this year at the corner of South Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Fairbanks Street. The center is merely one approach to further health and wellness through their “food policy council,” Davis said.
The promise of food justice will also include eventually converting that block of South Martin Luther King Way into a lively Food Innovation Center, a community resource hub intended to house a food bank, community college classrooms, even a rooftop greenhouse. The presence of the Rainier Beach Link light-rail station invites continual pedestrian activity, which the Food Innovation Center aims to leverage to advance the neighborhood’s economic growth."
Read the full Crosscut article here
On the latest episode of the New World Podcast, hear from leaders utilizing co-governance strategies in organizing including Faduma Fido from the People's Economy Lab.
Listen: https://dignityandrights.org/podcast/
The Next World: A Podcast About Building Movements
Produced by Partners for Dignity & Rights, we explore and celebrate the work of poor people’s movements, particularly in the US. We highlight innovative and powerful organizing campaigns and community building led by women, LGBTQ folks, Black communities and other people of color, that are pushing the boundaries and have the potential to transform this society. Hosted by Max Rameau, a Haitian-born Pan-African theorist, campaign strategist, organizer, author and member of Pan-African Community Action.
Where Roses Grow: Rooted Reflections
New episodes available!
A podcast spotlighting the roses in Muckleshoot Land, known as Auburn, Washington. The roses seen in this project, are those who in the past or presently engage with anti-racism work and community organizing in Auburn. This platform combines contemporary forms of storytelling while honoring the traditional ways of teaching by expressing lived experiences and allowing for a collective narrative to be conveyed. Where Roses Grow is hosted by Erandy Flores-Bucio, a Purhepecha in the diaspora who grew up in South King County, she is currently a student at the University of Washington and a member of the collective Ireta Purhepecha.
Listen to the latest episode here
Yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective have announced the publication of Projections 17: Planning Just Indigenous Futures - the most recent volume of the flagship journal of the MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning. Co-edited by Kevin Lujan Lee (Chamoru), Daniel Engelberg and yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective, this volume seeks to encourage planning practice to more meaningfully align with diverse Indigenous-led movements for sovereignty and life.
The artworks featured in the journal were created by yəhaw̓ collective members. Artists include: Brenda Mallory (Cherokee), Eileen Jimenez (Ñätho/Otomi), Lehuauakea (Kanaka Maoli), Alex Britt (Nansemond), Denise Emerson (Skokomish, Navajo), and Epiphany Couch (spuyaləpabš/Puyallup, Yakama), with an essay by Asia Tail (Cherokee).
"Projections Volume 17 starts from the premise that urban planners interested in serving Indigenous peoples must engage with Indigenous scholars, elders, community leaders and artists to understand the unique discursive terrain and material conditions within which Indigenous peoples are already formulating and enacting visions for a more just world. Bringing together artwork from six Indigenous artists, reflections from four Indigenous community leaders, and three article-length manuscripts from planning scholars working in Turtle Island, Oceania and Latin America, this volume seeks to highlight the value of relational dialogue across scholarship, practice and art, in service of realizing more just Indigenous futures."
See the journal at https://projections.pubpub.org/17-planning-just-indigenous-futures
Not only is this guest a talented artist, but she hosts an event that is surrounded in culture, community, and healing. Marisol talks to us about the yearly Dias De Las Vida's event and talks to us about how holidays like Dias Se Las Muertos helps people remember lost loved ones.
The latest RBACast episode is up! Dia De Las Vidas
Episode Description: Not only is this guest a talented artist, but she hosts an event that is surrounded in culture, community, and healing. Marisol talks to us about the yearly Dias De Las Vida's event and talks to us about how holidays like Dias Se Las Muertos helps people remember lost loved ones.
Listen here or at the link above!
RBAC Website: https://www.rbcoalition.org/
FEEST's 2022-2023 Annual Report is out now!
You'll find a special message from FEEST's Executive Director, highlights from the past year, Youth Spotlights, and more.
It was another great year full of growth and successes.
You can read the Annual Report here!