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.
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.
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
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.
