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.

Highlighting Black Female Farmers in South King County

This Black History Month, the farm stand would like to highlight one of our partners of almost 2 years now: Beatrice Shimirimana. Beatrice is a Burundian farmer who grows a variety of crops on Horseneck Farm in Kent, WA. From beautiful swiss chard to abundant...

Spotlight on Farmers

Over the course of the farm stand, we’ve built substantial partnerships with BIPOC farmers that come from a variety of backgrounds. These farmers are the backbone of our mission, allowing us to provide Rainier Beach with produce that is both culturally relevant and...

Farm Stand Update

We are 8 weeks into the farm stand and are grateful to say that it’s been a large success! It’s been a great pleasure to see both new faces and returning patrons making their visits, even bringing back our pink reusable bags from last year. Now that the community has...

Farm Stand Fruit Frenzy!

Last Saturday marked the completion of our annual Fruit Frenzy! It was an amazing turnout from both patrons and team members, with substantial volunteer sign ups as well. We had featured fruits from Collins Family Orchards including Dark Chelan Cherries, Rhobada...

Farm Stand ’22

As you may know, RBAC has been running a farm stand every summer since 2018, and this season will be our 5th time doing so. We are very excited to start our farm stand with two new additions to our team: Nurhaliza Mohamath(Food Justice Coordinator) and Kerry White...

What did we learn from the Food Justice Town Hall?

What did we learn from the Food Justice Town Hall?   We at RBAC are grateful for all of the planning, preparation, collaboration, and intention put into our previous town hall, Food as Liberation: Healing Our Mind, Body, and Community. We want to give a special...

Who is Nurhaliza Mohamath and what does she do in RB?

Nurhaliza (noor-ha-lee-zuh) or Liza is our Food Justice Coordinator at RBAC! She was born in Saigon, immigrating to Seattle when she was 2 years old, and has been South Seattle and Skyway bred ever since. She has recently received her degrees at Mills College in...

New Year, New Possibilities for the Farm Stand

Now that the 2021 farm stand season has officially dwindled down, the farm stand team has been using this newly freed-up time to reflect on previous years operations, and how we can make the next season an even better one. A large chunk of this process has consisted...

Black History is made in Rainier Beach

In Black History we’ve had great leaders who walked a path for these amazing future steppers of Rainier Beach Action Coalition. Let’s get into it!!  Jessicka Rambus, Operations Director- Authority MBA with a prime focus on Accounting and Operations, including process...

Strategy Session

RBAC held a Strategy Session in December and we asked ourselves a number of strategic questions e.g.. What assets do we need to secure, how do we handle external requests that ask for Rainier Beach representation, what does an efficient volunteer support model look...

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.

PBIS Deep Dive (Sept. 21st, 2022)

Wanna meet some neighbors, hear about Rainier Beach’s community-led public safety programs, and learn how to get involved? On September 21st at 6:30pm, Rainier Beach Action Coalition will be hosting an online Neighborhood Safety Deep Dive for people who live, work and...

Update on our work with the Youth Consortium

From Marisol Santos-Perez First and foremost, I've got to thank everyone who’s been out here organizing, providing resources, and helping the youth to be successful.   I've been able to sit at many tables and I know it’s not an easy role, but I am grateful for the...

RBAC’s 2022 Back2School Bash Reflections

by Danielle Jackson   In March we started meeting with the planning team, looking back at last year’s community feedback, dreaming, imagining and discussing what the 2022 RB Back2School Bash (RB B2SB)...

Ethical Child Labor (Opinion Piece)

By Fatima Kabba   Imagine your factory got shut down, and you couldn't make money anymore. What would you do? Your family is counting on you! This is reality for many children who are laborers. While some people believe that the ban on child labor is good for...

Restorative Resolutions Summer Circles

By Mariam Bayo   The Rainier Beach neighborhood has had its own set of trauma and experiences. From gentrification to gun violence, the people in our community need space to talk about those experiences. We must acknowledge what the people in our community are...

RBAC Mid-Year Report

From Gregory Davis, Managing Strategist As there are so many concerns about crime in our society we want to offer a snapshot of our neighborhood safety work from this past half year January - June 2022. We secure resources from the city and county on behalf of the...

Suicide Prevention: How to Help a Friend

by Fatima Kabba I would make the conversation about the person and how I care about them and be non-judgemental. I would ask them, "Are you thinking about suicide? What made you feel that way?"   I would give them some advice and give some suggestions, and let...

SE Network BE SAFE Block Party Collaborates with Rainier Beach United

By Danielle Jackson   When I say collaboration is the best method to building community and giving organizations a sense of purpose in their neighborhood.  The crime rate in Rainier Beach is evident that collaboration is working in Rainier Beach.  In 2014,  A...

The Stage Crew

The Stage Crew/Freedomnet  handles many of the technology parts of RBAC. The Stage Crew is actually a reference to people who set up the stage.  We handle anything from live streaming, video editing, video managing, podcasts, articles writing, and even working on the...

Juneteenth

What is Juneteenth you ask? Juneteenth commemorates the effective end of people being enslaved in the good ole USA. It is both a somber and celebratory day to commemorate the Thirteenth Amendment. Juneteenth is short for “June Nineteenth” as that is the date that...

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

YATTA-Led Town Hall (Oct. 13th 2022)

There are very few opportunities and tools available in the job market for young people. Between the ages of 18 to 26, being a young adult might make you feel as though the weight of the world is on your shoulders. Uncertainty and unpredictability might change the...

Update on our work with the Youth Consortium

From Marisol Santos-Perez First and foremost, I've got to thank everyone who’s been out here organizing, providing resources, and helping the youth to be successful.   I've been able to sit at many tables and I know it’s not an easy role, but I am grateful for the...

Ethical Child Labor (Opinion Piece)

By Fatima Kabba   Imagine your factory got shut down, and you couldn't make money anymore. What would you do? Your family is counting on you! This is reality for many children who are laborers. While some people believe that the ban on child labor is good for...

Disaster Gentrification Pt. 3- a communal invitation

This third installation of the Disaster Gentrification Series will be an invitation.  Check out these two photos of me taken in 2019 (by Zion Thomas) in the CD (Central District).    The familiarity of seeing cranes in the sky and “new three-story…” signs...

YATTA Rising

  On April 15th, YATTA Rising gave a presentation at the engagement pipeline event held by the Seattle Foundation, which funds the YATTA Rising program. A few other programs that received funding gave presentations as well.  Here is a glimpse of what was shared...

Hani Ahmed Credential Specialist

My name is Hani Ahmed, I am the Credential Specialist for RBAC. I do a lot of support for Corner Greeters and their events. I am a former youth engagement worker (another name for corner greeters) and spent two years as a Corner Greeter. I then transitioned to being...

Crosswalking

When I think about YATTA Rising, I think about our concept of ‘crosswalking’. Let’s explore what it means to crosswalk and why it’s important. In the early start of YATTA Rising, our beginnings were made with the intention to not build bridges, but to crosswalk...

Guaranteed Basic Income

In January 2021 RBAC was approached by Councilmember Girmay Zahilay to implement the pilot project Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) Program.  The GBI Program is also known as a citizen's income, guaranteed minimum income, or basic income. The intention behind the payment...

Black History is made in Rainier Beach

In Black History we’ve had great leaders who walked a path for these amazing future steppers of Rainier Beach Action Coalition. Let’s get into it!!  Jessicka Rambus, Operations Director- Authority MBA with a prime focus on Accounting and Operations, including process...

RBACast

In 2021, RBAC started a podcast called RBACast,  So far there have been 10 episodes and many new ideas being planned for the new year.   In the podcasts so far we have dug deeper into some of the experiences that RBAC staff face and have had conversations about some...

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).

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...

It Takes A Village: Tiny Homes in Rainier Beach

  By: Jeremiah Conyers & Samuel Woldemariam   Two doors down from the RBAC Growth Center you may have noticed that a small community has been in development for some time now. In response to rising costs for housing and the growing rates of houseless people...

Disaster Gentrification Pt. 3- a communal invitation

This third installation of the Disaster Gentrification Series will be an invitation.  Check out these two photos of me taken in 2019 (by Zion Thomas) in the CD (Central District).    The familiarity of seeing cranes in the sky and “new three-story…” signs...

Strengthening Community

Through the Rainier Beach Farm Stand, we work towards food justice by increasing access to local produce and uplifting BIPOC farmers. Although this work is revolutionary, it is not the end all be all. We want to achieve food sovereignty: that is complete ownership...

Closing the Digital Divide in Rainier Beach

By: Samuel Woldemariam Over the last several years, the Rainier Beach neighborhood has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The implementation of social distancing, online learning, and working from home has exemplified the lack of digital equity within our...

About Our Organization

RBAC has been about its business!  1,913, 1,054 and 614 are the number of bank transactions, bill payments, invoices, and receipts, respectively, that RBAC has operated and managed since its internal Operation takeover in 2020.  This also includes the advancement of...

Black History is made in Rainier Beach

In Black History we’ve had great leaders who walked a path for these amazing future steppers of Rainier Beach Action Coalition. Let’s get into it!!  Jessicka Rambus, Operations Director- Authority MBA with a prime focus on Accounting and Operations, including process...

Polaris At Rainier Beach

Polaris At Rainier Beach  Address: 9400 Rainier Ave S, Seattle WA, 98118   Rainier Beach, is set to have a new affordable housing apartment complex in our neighborhood, Polaris At Rainier Beach, is Mixed-use offering 5,300 square feet of ground-level commercial...

Priority Hire by the Numbers

A message from our Priority Hire Outreach Worker, Eddie Grinnell about his work in 2021: “At the beginning of the year, I made it my goal to get 85 people assessed, 50 referred, and 25 placed. I did a good job & achieved these goals before the end of the year....

Guaranteed Basic Income

In the first few months of 2021, RBAC, in partnership with Urban Fam and Councilmember Girmay Zahilay, had the opportunity to work on the Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) research project. It started off with a bunch of researching, planning, and meetings. In this study,...