Highlights

   Rainier Beach Back2School Bash – 16th year, 400/900 Youth/Attendees, 49 Organizations with resource tables
o   Town Halls –  2 held, topics: Open Space, Developmeant in the Community, 230 attendees
o   Farm Stand – 18 events held, ___ attendees
o   Corner Greeters – 24 events held, ____ attendees
o   271 people surveyed for their views on public safety and transportation issues in Rainier Beach
o   704 headlines posted to RB News Wire via Twitter  (Goal 400)

Approach

 All work efforts, programs and services listed above provides jobs, health and well-being
to the fine people of Rainier Beach.
o   RBAC is focusing on neighborhood engagement and empowerment.
o   All work efforts, programs and services serve as outreach mechanisms to the residents of RB, these outreach efforts are in turn pathways for Rainier Beach residents to contribute to the well-being of their own neighborhood.
 

Action Area: Growing Food to develop Healthy Industry

Work Area:  Food Justice, Health, Environmental Justice. Programs RBAC leads in this action area are:

Rainier Beach Food Innovation District promotes the geographic concentration of food-production businesses, services and community activities representative of the cultures present in Rainier Beach. Properties are being identified as sites for community benefit amenities on the ground floor as opposed to typical development models of retail. Currently 5 food producing locations and 4 neighborhood kitchens have been identified that can be used to cook healthy food for the Rainier Beach residents.
Rainier Beach Food Innovation Center is a catalytic venue with a vision for vocational training, food processing and community assets e.g., gathering hall, community kitchen and child-care. A Food Innovation Center Director has been hired (Amanda Lopez Castanon). RBAC property acquisition is underway.
Rainier Beach Farm Stand is an RBAC/Ethiopian Community in Seattle collaboration that brings fresh affordable culturally relevant produce to the neighborhood from nearby farmers of color in order to help support residents practice healthy eating habits. 5 young adult leaders are serving as RB Farm Stand Fellows. 18 Farm Stand event held, a record amount of produce has been sold from 10 people of color farmers.

Beach Fresh is a learning opportunity for young adults participating in RBAC program. Intending to equip young adults transitioning into adulthood with basic life skills in harvesting, preparing, eating in a health and self-sufficient way.

 

Waste Free Communities engages young adults in Rainier Beach in designing, implementing and mapping waste reduction action with a focus on Food Waste/Food Justice. Actions will result in measurably less solid waste going to the landfill.

BIPOC Farmer Friends Seed Swap & Community Altar

by Cly Samson As I was thinking of potential ways to support farmers during the winter, the idea of a grounding ceremony came to my mind. I know a lot of farmers have their own way of welcoming the new season — whether it be inviting their friends and families to...

Raspberry Planting Recap

MLK Day 2024 turned out to be one for the books as we headed to Ayeko Farms to pull some berry vines, embracing the chilly day with warm hearts. We rolled up our sleeves for seed cleaning, explored the serene creek, and savored the most amazing soup crafted by...

This is Goodbye – David Sauvion

I have received many kudos over the years for the work that I've done in Rainier Beach and for my contribution to a strong neighborhood advocate: the Rainier Beach Action Coalition. This comes with the culture of positive reinforcement practiced by RBAC internally and...

Farm Stand/CSA End Of Year 2023 Recap

          2023 was a year of many firsts for the food justice team at RBAC! The launch of our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program in July increased access to locally grown, culturally relevant produce for members of South Seattle. This was also the year that...

Food Justice League 2023 Recap

The Food Policy Council team has made strides in community base-building and aligning youth with the food sovereignty movement.  This year we have expanded our team to include:  Friendly Vang-Johnson who is a daughter of farmers and runs Friendly Hmong Farms as a...

Harvest-Fest Reflections

Harvest Fest Recap On October 21st, the food justice team commemorated the end of a successful farm stand season at our long awaited Harvest Fest! The purpose of this event was to honor and recognize our BIPOC farmers, volunteers, staff, and community members who made...

What Happens When a Farmer Rests?

What Happens When a Farmer Rests?    Reclaiming Alignment Retreat Reflection By Cly Samson     When I introduce myself to strangers, I get so excited! Because sometimes, new identities come up for me and I unintentionally reveal to myself just how much I’ve...

Farm Fest & Farm Stand Update Sept 2023

A week and some change ago, we got to be a part of Farm Fest at Rainier Beach Urban Wetlands. The event was fruitful and abundant as we provided free produce to the community. Also, an event with Llamas and Hens, SIGN US UP! Big up to everyone who went and to all the...

Farm Stand Making It’s Return on 6/17 & New CSA Program

Farm Stand Making It’s Return on 6/17 & New CSA Program   It’s that time of year again! In the upcoming weeks you may see our flyers posted around the neighborhood or our IG page filling up with more reels —and all of these things signify one exciting thing:...

Fall Harvest CSA Boxes

With deep gratitude, we can say that our CSA program has so far been a success! Due to the unwavering support from community members, we are now able to announce our “Gleaned CSA” boxes which will be launching in the last week of October and second to last week of...

Action Area: A Beautiful Safe Place

Work areas: Public Safety through youth and neighborhood engagement and Art.  Programs RBAC leads in this action are are:

Corner Greeters activate spaces to reduce incidents that contribute to youth crime. Corner Greeters is the only autonomous neighborhood led public safety alternative to policing in the city of Seattle. Since its start in 2015 incidents have decreased 30% (no more than one incident a day among a population of 10,000 people). 40 youth/young adult workers, 18 neighborhood scouting walks, 18 neighborhood corner greeting events, 271 public safety surveys taken. Partnerships exists with DIRT (Duwamish Intervention Restorative Team), Ethiopian Community in Seattle, Seattle Department of Transportation. Seattle Public Utilities, Office of Housing and Sound Transit has had audience with Corner Greeters.
Rainier Beach Clean Crew is trying to “solve the litter problem” in Rainier Beach. A team is dispatched Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday to pick up litter in designated areas and identify “hot spots” for targeting. 5 of 8 sectors served.
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support is a universal, community wide prevention program that aims to establish a social culture with the Rainier Beach neighborhood in which residents expect and support appropriate behavior from one another – and thereby create neighborhood environments that are socially predictable, consistent, safe and positive. The primary goals of “community wide positive behavioral supports” are to reduce problems behaviors within community that lead to interaction with law enforcement authorities, and to change perceptions of community safety. Rainier Beach’s neighborhood values are Be Safe, Be Respectful and Be Responsible.
Southeast Seattle FreedomNet uses social media to document and chronicle Rainier Beach activity and uses it to change the Rainier Beach narrative to one of a vibrant, connected, healthy, safe neighborhood. Quantitative Results: 704 online posts of positive activity occurring in Rainier Beach. Online assets include a youth centered web site and general public web site, Facebook, Twitter, Flipboard and Instagram.

RBAC Youth and Parent Orientation

The 1st youth and parent orientation day at RBAC was truly special. We had an amazing time, enjoying delicious Somali food , getting to know the parents (Muslim mamas) and learning about the exciting opportunities for young people at RBAC. Parents had the pleasure of...

Clean up your Act Event

On January 22nd, our Youth Engagement Workers participated in a new event called "Clean Up Your Act." Activation meets team bonding. This initiative involves community engagement, neighborhood activation, and provides a chance for our team to contribute to cleanliness...

Goals for 2024 + major/general RBAC updates

As we look to 2024 here at RBAC in general and the Rainier Beach neighborhood in particular, we first want to be reflective. This self-reflection action is the launch of an initiative at RBAC in 2024. It involves us becoming an adaptive leadership-oriented org. To be...

Managing Strategist – 2023 Recap

As we considered producing a 2023 “year in review article” of RBAC accomplishments, in reality, Rainier Beach neighborhood’s accomplishments, the easy approach was to list the quantitative outcomes, of which there are many. However, there have been a fair share of...

Rainier Beach A Beautiful Safe Place – The Past Year

The Rainier Beach Action Coalition (RBAC’s) engagement workers have been on the front line in making our community a beautiful, inviting and safe place to live, work and play.  The young adults on the engagement team, lead by Issac Robersone and Davon Fuller have...

2023 Circle Recap

We started this year with Restorative Resolutions (RR) going strong by hosting multiple in-person Circle Keeper trainings, as well as multiple virtual Circle Keeper trainings. This was a joy to do because we got connected to many new community members and were able to...

A day with G. Davis

A typical day There was a day I had that at the end of it I said to myself, that was a great day and if I could write an article about it I would. You see, I have the privilege of representing the Rainier Beach neighborhood at tables that residents otherwise would not...

Gregory Davis Reflections

I had such a good day a week or two ago and thought it would be a fantastic article to write and share what a "typical day" looks like for the Managing Strategist of an organization that fancies itself as a convener, collaborator and problem-solver on behalf of the...

PBIS @ Youthcare

On Wednesday afternoon, October 4th, Stewart Bowerman (Community-wide PBIS Coordinator) led a workshop for the staff at Youthcare’s Rainier Beach location, on creating a safe, positive environment for youth. At a place like Youthcare, where young people experiencing...

Re-Creating Henderson Street Update

A team of adults and young adults at RBAC have been working tirelessly on the Re-Creating Henderson Plan since the beginning of this year. For over half a year, this team has been working on making and handing out surveys, making the first draft of a neighborhood map,...

Action Area: Life Long Learning

Work Area: Education (Advocacy, support), Family Life via local community based organizations. Programs RBAC leads in this action area are:

 

Rainier Beach Back2School Bash is an annual education-centered event where free backpacks, resource tables and community building takes place in order to inspire our youth about education. Quantitative Results: 700 backpacks, 55 resource tables for 500 children. 400 families present
Beach 5 is a leadership development pathway for 18-24-year-old Rainier Beach neighborhood talent. Quantitative Results: 6 young adults transitioning to adulthood, over 100 youth touched by the work of the five program participants through their provision of circle keeping, FreedomNet coaching, nutrition

Black Hxstory Reflections

Peep this- since RBAC began in 2014, we have been working with amazing young people and beyond in the Rainier Beach community! RB is and has been known as a super culturally diverse area, but for many years it was home to predominantly Black/Afrikan-Amerikan folx!...

Brothers Holding Space

A groundbreaking initiative, Brothers Holding Space, is gaining recognition for addressing the unique challenges faced by men of today's society. This program emphasizes the creation of supportive circles to foster open dialogue, community, and personal growth....

ACRS; Giving to Community in Different Ways

On January 27th, Sam Woldemariam and I met up with an old friend of ours from high school, Wesley Zheng. Wesley has started working in the nonprofit space as an intern at Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS), and we had a great podcast conversation with him...

Mod Squad 2023 Recap

The “Modification Squad” has been in full effect in 2023. We experienced a number of hiccups and setbacks, but have still managed to stay on course with our tenant improvements of the RBAC Growth Center. Although we started this project with Weber Thompson as our...

2023 Circle Recap

We started this year with Restorative Resolutions (RR) going strong by hosting multiple in-person Circle Keeper trainings, as well as multiple virtual Circle Keeper trainings. This was a joy to do because we got connected to many new community members and were able to...

A day with G. Davis

A typical day There was a day I had that at the end of it I said to myself, that was a great day and if I could write an article about it I would. You see, I have the privilege of representing the Rainier Beach neighborhood at tables that residents otherwise would not...

Letter to RBAC

    Dear RBAC family,  This letter is for RBAC staff, board, volunteers, Rainier Beach and South Seattle residents, business owners, and communities. It is hard to believe that a year has passed since I first came to RBAC. I don’t know where to start with...

Holding Space: Philip B

Holding Space: Philip BGrowing up When I was about 11 or 12, my aunt was living with her daughter near 38th and Holly right off of MLK. I'll never forget it. My cousin — who's two years older, helped me conquer my fears. I was always this nerdy young child who liked...

Restorative Resolutions for Neighborhood Issues

In light of this past Friday's (July 28) misguided and tragic use of firearms-- and in the name of shifting the narrative on how Rainier Beach is represented when such things occur-- we asked this question at our Shifting the Narrative Community Gathering: “How are we...

Motherhood Journey

  By: Makayla Miles & Hibo Elmi   Hibo Elmi is the youth advocate at RBAC; she is responsible for ensuring youth and others know about RBAC and the community. She has recently taken on a bigger responsibility. Motherhood. Here are her thoughts. What has...

Action Area: A Place for Everyone

Work Area: Transportation, Employment, Housing Open space/Land Use. Programs RBAC leads in this action area are:

Priority Hire is a construction industry service that specializes in outreach and assessment of African American males that creates pathway to living wage jobs and skill building.  74 Seattle residents (primarily African-American males) with aspirations for work in the construction trade are to be assessed, 54 will be referred to and 34 will be placed with pre-apprenticeship training programs.
Coalition participation (tables we are at) to address public safety, economic development, food justice issue occurring in Rainier Beach. Through leading and/or attending critical local and regional coalitions RBAC strives to move the needle on jobs, improved mobility and safe, affordable places to live.  10 tables we are at – Communities of Opportunity Steering Committee (COO SC), Communities of Opportunity Evaluation Advisory Group, South Communities Organizing for Regional and Racial Equity (South CORE), South CORE Land for Justice Subcommittee, RSET (Racial and Social Equity Taskforce), Rainier Beach Economic Development Round Table, RB A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth (RBABSPY), Graham Street Station Steering Committee, South Seattle Peace Coalition/206 Rising (Neighborhood House).

Rainier Beach Action Coalition’s 2nd Annual Hiring Fair

The Rainier Beach Action Coalition’s 2nd Annual Hiring Fair will be on Wednesday, March 6th from 4-7pm at the RBAC Growth Center located at 9059 Martin Luther King Jr. Way South! The Hiring Fair will highlight opportunities available in all four of RBAC’s action areas...

Recreating Henderson Update

The Recreating Henderson Street project started in 2023 in partnership with Link2Lake and RBAC. In year one, the Recreating Henderson Team gathered community input on what the community liked about Henderson Street and what improvements they would want to see along...

Priority Hire Legacy Acknowledgement

RBAC gets Legacy Acknowledgement added to all Priority Hire Advisory Committee Meetings By now you know RBAC, along with many other outstanding organizations, advocated for a target local hire program in the city of Seattle way back in 2010. This advocacy resulted in...

Jarquita’s Intro + Giving Tuesday Recap

Greetings!   I’m Jarquita Brown, the new Development Manager at Rainier Beach Action Coalition (RBAC). Stepping into this role has been an exhilarating journey, filled with moments of inspiration as I continue to learn more about the team and the neighborhood we...

Elizabeth Thomas Homes Update

On Tuesday 9/21/2023 The Elizabeth Town Homes development hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the Grand opening of 119 units of affordable housing in the Rainier Beach neighborhood! The project was a collaboration between Equity Alliance of Washington - FAME...

Cyber Café Recap

The economic development team at RBAC held a cyber café on July 28th 2023, local RB businesses were invited for an informational session on how to do online networking, learning about SEO, getting assistance with social media and more. The session was held at Kaffa...

Moving Rainier Beach Forward by Building Generational Wealth: A Recap of Last Week’s Economic Development Town Hall

  By: Samuel Woldemariam   The economic development town hall & night market occurred in the Rainier Beach community center plaza Wednesday, Jul 25, 2023 from 2:00 - 7:00 pm.  In attendance we had a variety of organizations, housing developments ,...

Motherhood Journey

  By: Makayla Miles & Hibo Elmi   Hibo Elmi is the youth advocate at RBAC; she is responsible for ensuring youth and others know about RBAC and the community. She has recently taken on a bigger responsibility. Motherhood. Here are her thoughts. What has...

Re-Imagining Henderson Street

At RBAC we are always trying to uplift and be conscious of our community and its needs. But to make big things happen and to get programs moving forward, you have to work with others with similar or even the same goals. But that leaves the question; What is this new...

Development Town-Hall Recap

By: Samuel Woldemariam   The Rainier Beach development town hall occurred on June 30th 2022. With MC’s Niecko Glover , Cathie Wilmore and Raphael Jackson. The MC’s did a great job of charting the progress of various different housing developments that were...