Ready?
Good morning, everyone.
The May 9th, 2024 meeting of the Library's Education and Neighborhoods Committee will come to order.
It's 9.32 a.m.
I'm Maritza Rivera, chair of the committee.
Will the clerk please call the roll?
Please note that Councilmember Morales has been excused from today's meeting.
Now, please clerk.
Oh, sorry.
Go ahead.
Councilmember Wu?
Present.
Councilmember Hollingsworth?
Present.
Council Member Moore?
Council Member Rivera?
Present.
There are three Council Members present.
Thank you.
There are just a few items on today's agenda.
Specifically, we'll learn about three pending appointments for the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council, and hear a presentation from the Department of Neighborhoods about its strategic partnership program.
If there is no objection, the agenda will be adopted.
Great, hearing no objection, the agenda is adopted.
We will now open the public comment period.
Please note public comments should relate to items within the purview of this committee.
Clerk, how many speakers are signed up today?
Currently, we have no speakers signed up and there are no remote speakers either.
Okay, well then.
We'll move on to agenda item number one.
Will the clerk please read agenda items one through three into the record.
Agenda items 1 through 3 are appointees to the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority Governing Council.
Appointments 02756, 02825, and 02826 are for the following individuals.
Jan Hendrickson as a member for a term ending on June 6, 2027. Roy Ishii as a member for a term ending on June 30, 2027. Gina Carraba as a member for a term ending on June 30th, 2027.
Thank you.
Agenda items one through three have been read into the record.
For the first three items on the agenda, we are joined by Sierra Howlett-Brown, Deputy Director with the Office of Intergovernmental Relations.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you.
Please introduce yourself for the record, and then we can learn more about the nominees for the Pike Place Market Preservation and Development Authority.
Absolutely.
Good morning.
I'm Sierra Howlett-Brown.
I'm the Deputy Director of our Office of Intergovernmental Relations.
Our office has the privilege right now of handling the administrative functions for the PDAs for the city.
So our team handles nomination processes, submissions, and updates of their yearly and quarterly reports.
I have the privilege here of introducing all of the nominations to you and giving you a little bit of their background.
Go ahead.
So the first one we have is Gina Karaba.
This will be a new appointment.
Gina has been an artist at the Pike Place Market since 2006. She has a diverse professional background and has been very active in neighborhood council and city projects.
She has an MFA in glass sculpture and technology ceramics and metals from Rochester Institute of Technology School for American Craft and a BFA in ceramics and glass from Cal State Fullerton.
Gina brings a unique perspective as a vendor at the market and has been an active member in the master plan process and its outreach phase.
She has worked with the constituency for a number of years and has volunteered her time in various community organizations.
The other two candidates will be reappointments.
Ray Ishii is the owner of Ishii & Associates, LLC.
He's been a CPA for over 30 years in finance, accounting, and has management experience.
Ishii & Associates provide tax and business consulting services to individuals, small businesses, and nonprofit organizations.
They have extensive experience assisting clients with tax planning and tax compliance issues, business planning, and strengthening accounting and internal control systems.
As CFO of several nonprofit organizations, Ray has extensive senior management experience, including strategic planning, systems development, and complex project financing.
Rhea has been an adjunct professor at Seattle University for over 15 years, teaching both undergraduate and graduate tax and accounting courses.
In addition, he has volunteered on the boards of several nonprofit organizations, including the Pike Place Market PDA, Fair Start, Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, and Wing Luke Museum.
This reappointment represents Mr. Ishii's third term.
And finally, Jan Hendrickson, recognized throughout her career for guiding organizations through periods of intensive change and growth in areas of strategy, operational performance, fiscal rigor, resiliency, people, culture, development.
Jen has a consistent history of P&L delivery and investor value creation.
She is a key contributor at rapidly assessing current states of organizational maturity, talent, and infrastructure, and creating solutions to address critical gaps to support intelligent scaling and sustainable growth.
She has broad-based management background that includes CFO level financial acumen and diverse best practices acquired from both public and private sector executive roles.
She was named Puget Sound Business Journal's Woman of Influence.
She comes with extensive corporate governance experience, including multiple chair positions, serving through high growth phases, turnarounds, recapitalizations, and a successful bankruptcy, five sales, and two wind downs.
She's also an audit committee financial expert and excels at vision and strategy development, attracting C-level talent, and building board executive level decisions.
So all three very accomplished and the city should be very privileged or feel very honored that they are willing to serve on our PDA.
I agree, Deputy Director.
Thank you for the overview.
I will say colleagues, we have What I noted was experience in the arts, the culture, arts and culture, I mean, finance, business, management with public and private sector organizations.
It's such a well-rounded, just the three of them alone.
And we are so lucky that we have folks that want to volunteer their time to sit on these important PDAs.
The PDAs provide a really important role in the city.
They are not part of government, but they're another partner as we do the work.
And as you know, the Pike Place Market is such a beloved part of Seattle's downtown and of Seattle in general.
You can do everything from shopping for flowers, watching fish blow by or fly by, visiting the wonderful restaurants and shops.
And of course, the market's the first place we take friends and family to when they come visit us from out of state.
It's such a scenic place and such a cultural place.
We're so lucky to have Pike Place Market.
And like I said, we're so lucky to have folks wanting to volunteer to keep the market strong and thriving.
So want to thank them for their both support and willingness to volunteer.
Colleagues, do you have any questions or comments?
No?
Awesome.
Since there are no questions or comments, I move that the committee recommend confirmation of these appointments.
Is there a second?
Second.
It is moved and seconded to confirm these appointments.
Are there further comments?
All right, will the clerk please call the roll on the confirmation of appointment 02756, 02825, and 02826.
Council Member Wu?
Yes.
Council Member Hollingsworth?
Yes.
Council Member Rivera?
Aye.
And we still don't, okay.
We have three in favor, none opposed.
The motion carries, and the recommendation that the appointments be confirmed will be sent to the full city council.
Thank you for joining us, Deputy Director Halit Brown.
We will now move on to agenda item number four.
Will the clerk please read the fourth agenda into the record?
Agenda item number four is a presentation from the Department of Neighborhoods on its strategic partnership programs.
As stated, the Department of Neighborhoods, led by Director Jennifer Chao, will be presenting on the department's strategic partnership programs, which include equity and engagement advisors, community liaisons, the neighborhood matching fund, and the food equity fund.
Colleagues, I've placed an updated slide deck on your chairs, and then for the public, it will be updated to the website and readily available for your review tomorrow.
Director Chao will be presenting, and will be joined by her colleagues from Don.
Welcome, everyone.
Please introduce yourselves for the record, and then we can get started with the thoughtful presentation.
Thank you, Council Chair Rivera.
My name is Jennifer Chao, and I'm the Director of the Department of Neighborhoods.
Good morning.
Christian Alcade, Strategic Partnerships Manager.
Good morning.
Stefan Winkler.
I'm with SDOT, Interim Mobility Solutions Manager.
Good morning.
My name is Daniel Sims.
I'm the Community Partnerships Division Director at Department of Neighborhoods.
Good morning.
My name is Lisa Chen and I manage the Food Equity Fund.
Thank you.
And I'll flag for the public and for the colleagues that this is a little bit of a longer presentation than we normally have, but we have some robust programs that the departments really want to dig deep into.
And so thank you for allowing it that time and that grace.
Director?
Thank you so much, Council Chair Rivera, for the invite to return to your committee to share more in detail about some of our programs.
We are excited to share with you and the rest of the council members about our impact and meaningful engagement in community.
In today's committee meeting, we are going to highlight our strategic partnerships program, neighborhood matching fund, and food equity fund.
Is the PowerPoint, Wendy, do we need to do?
what's on the desktop.
Thank you everyone for your patience as we work out the technology issues.
Madam Chair, while we wait, may I offer a dad joke that my dad told me this morning?
Please do.
Although it is Mother's Day this weekend, Council Member, but you're going to tell a dad joke.
I am.
Okay, I am.
What do you call a bear without teeth?
A gummy bear.
Oh, my goodness.
That's pretty good.
Your dad.
So now do you have a mom joke?
I think those are inappropriate for the Seattle channel.
Thank you.
Thank you council member for bringing the levity.
Thank you so much for filling in the gap while we are figuring out technology.
All right.
So the one Seattle vision requires meaningful engagement with community to serve as a cohesive bridge between city departments and the different neighborhoods across the city.
I see the Department of Neighborhoods as the heart and engagement arm of the city.
We create cohesion across city departments to provide strategic planning, coordination and support on community relationships with a focus on increasing equitable engagement in communities most impacted by the city's growth and infrastructure needs.
This focus allows us to broaden access.
This focus allows us to broaden access for everyone to thrive in a growing city.
The mission of strategic partnerships is to ensure the city engages in a meaningful and inclusive way that is responsive to the diverse needs of community in each of Seattle's neighborhoods.
The team includes two vital programs, the equity engagement advisors and the community liaisons.
The equity and engagement advisors are more internally focused and support city departments such as the Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities who fund the advisors.
The community liaisons are more externally focused since they are independent contractors that come from community and they are managed by the Department of Neighborhood project managers.
They ensure inclusive engagement with community.
We are working to improve how we gather data and track our impact.
As the director of Department of Neighborhoods, this is very important to me and I am committed to hiring a data impact advisor.
I'm going to hand it over to Christian to speak more in detail about the Equity and Engagement Advisor and share some more case studies that will highlight some of the impactful work of our strategic partnerships.
Thank you, Director Chao.
Buenos dias, good morning, council members.
As mentioned in the previous slide, strategic partnerships consist of two programs, the Equity Engagement Advisors and the Community Liaisons Program.
I will now discuss the equity and engagement advisors.
The primary role of an equity and engagement advisor is internal, focusing on supporting project managers by providing assistance, guidance, and serving as an ally to identify and address program barriers.
They employ various methods to achieve this.
First, they bring subject matter expertise and engagement to technical teams, ensuring that every voice is heard in the engagement process.
This involves designing and implementing equitable outreach and engagement plans in partnership with the project owners.
Second, equity and engagement advisors also act as champions of relationship building on projects.
They encourage and work alongside departments to engage with the community, collaborating on solutions that reflect the diverse needs and perspectives of our city.
At the same time, they may facilitate partnerships with Department of Neighborhoods Community Liaisons Program to enhance outreach knowledge and reduce the need to start from scratch.
Third, equity and engagement advisors actively contribute to shaping policies and procedures focused on addressing program barriers and promoting equity in collaboration with our partner departments.
As you can see, the budget of the Equity and Engagement Advisor program has remained fairly consistent over the years, and it's reflective of our strong partnership with Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities, who fund the work of these positions through agreements.
Positions in the budget include one strategic partnerships manager, four equity and engagement advisors, two of which support Seattle Department of Transportation, and two of which support Seattle Public Utilities.
I will now present some of the impactful work accomplished by our equity and engagement advisors in collaboration with our department partners.
Can I just ask, is it okay if we're going to ask questions as we go?
Because it's a big slide deck and I hate to wait until the end to come back.
So colleagues, if you have questions, please do let me know.
Can you just run through all the departments?
So Don contracts with the departments to provide this outreach on their behalf.
can you just list which departments you provide this service for at the city?
Because I know it's not just SDOT and SPU.
Correct.
For the equity and engagement advisors, it's only specifically Seattle Department of Transportation and Seattle Public Utilities.
And for the Department of Neighborhoods Community Liaisons Program, we support about seven departments.
So there are Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle Department of Transportation, Human Services, Seattle City Light, as well as Seattle Public Libraries, and Seattle Parks.
Seattle Parks, thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Great question.
The first case study involves Seattle Public Utilities with their strategic business plan.
This plan is updated frequently and provides customers with a predictable three-year rate path to better meet the needs of customers and community.
The issue of Seattle Public Utilities was how do we meaningfully engage historically underrepresented communities on the topic of a business plan update, given that this was a hurdle for the program?
To address this, the Equity and Engagement Advisor was enlisted to collaborate with the project owner in evaluating the program and recommended the following solutions.
One, work with community liaisons and co-design materials to meet community at their understanding of Seattle Public Utilities that makes it less technical and accessible.
To attend events with specific emphasis on BIPOC immigrants and refugees in low-income communities.
Sorry, before we move, can we go to that back, that slide?
I'm just wondering on these data points, how many events, it says 85% of events in environmental justice neighborhoods.
How many events total?
There were roughly 13 events.
And then on the surveys, 23% were responses from non-English speaker surveys.
or responses, sorry, what were the number of responses sent?
So there was a combination of responses received through a survey, and then our equity and engagement advisor also recommended that we create a poster with emojis so that folks can put their data points on it of how they felt about the plan.
Specific questions were like, what is it that you like clarity on?
What is the priority?
Is it the environment the Seattle Public Utility should focus on?
Is it that we're not focusing on your specific neighborhood?
And they would respond through those emojis.
Are you able to share how, out of 23%, how many surveys were distributed?
So I'll have to get back to you on that, but it was a combination.
The total amount of responses were 1,155, and they were collected through either a survey or the data points.
Thank you for explaining the data point.
It's that emoji chart.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you.
And actually, if you look to the right, there you will see an example of the outreach materials that were co-created with the community liaisons with the advisor.
The community liaison administered these materials in language.
And it was either a big poster size that was used at community events.
And the use of emojis allowed Seattle Public Utilities to capture as much data points as possible without having to use very technical terms.
It was a fun exercise.
It didn't require you to read, write, or speak English.
So the partnership, as mentioned earlier, we were able to engage to over 1,000 customers across all council districts via surveys and data points.
And this was implemented through best practices advice by the equity and engagement advisor.
At the same time, the Equity and Engagement Advisor had Seattle Public Utilities attend existing events in environmental justice neighborhoods, but as well in all council districts.
Below is a quote of our department partner regarding the partnerships with working with our Equity and Engagement Advisor.
The expertise and innovative solutions provided by DON are assisting Seattle Public Utilities in strengthening its dedication to community-centered equitable engagement strategies.
Seattle Public Utilities Division Director.
The second case study aims to reduce reliance on single occupancy vehicles within one center city, aligning with the city's equity and safety mobility and sustainability goals.
The challenge faced by Seattle Department of Transportation was how to engage black, indigenous, and people of color communities who are often excluded from such initiatives.
At the same time, raise awareness about Flip Your Trip program to all community.
the Equity and Engagement Advisor recommended the following.
Ensure that outreach materials are inclusive and incorporate the feedback that the Equity and Engagement Advisor was providing.
Two, address barriers to participation by collaborating with community-based organizations such as Black Girls Dubai and the Duwamish Valley Sustainability Association, among others.
Three, involve a respected member from the black community with expertise in biking spaces to serve as a messenger, fostering trust and connection within the community.
The impact was significant across a post-program survey conducted among residents in West Seattle and Southeast Seattle.
65% of respondents stated that the support and tools provided improved the functionality of their travel options.
And 66% utilized various travel options because of the initiative.
Now I'll pass it over to Stefan Winkler, Intermobility Solutions Manager, to discuss the collaboration with Don's Equity and Engagement Advisor and how it contributed to equity in his program.
Thank you, Christine.
Good morning, Chair Rivera, Vice Chair Wu, and Councilmember Hollingsworth.
I appreciate this opportunity to share how DLN has impacted my former program.
During the closure of the West Seattle Bridge, I led the West Seattle Flip Your Trip program, which was one of several initiatives that the Department of Neighborhoods was involved with during that historic moment in this city's history.
Their support enabled us to shift from a transactional approach, which is often brief and goal-oriented and can create more harm, to a relational approach, which fosters trust and deepens community involvement.
I had the pleasure of coordinating with Phyllis Porter, an equity and engagement advisor at the Department of Neighborhoods.
Phyllis's extensive community relationships played an essential role in building trust and avoiding missteps that could have hindered the success of the West Seattle Flip Your Trip program.
Thanks to her long standing partnerships with various community-based organizations and within the community, we formed new collaborations that would have otherwise taken much longer to set up or might not have happened at all.
She also helped us organize fun events like the West Seattle Bridge Experience Ride.
The ride was a novel and engaging way to show how combining bikes and water taxi can be a fun and practical way to move between the peninsula and the main part of the city.
Finally, I'd like to highlight where she played a crucial role in helping my team avoid a major mistake.
We were about to launch a campaign that would have unintentionally favored one neighborhood over another in how we distributed our incentives.
I just really hadn't fully grasped at that time how interconnected the two sides of the Duwamish River were.
And so the campaign looked great on paper, but it could have damaged the trust the way that we were gonna roll it out, and it could have caused community divisions.
Luckily, Phyllis spotted this oversight and urged us to reconsider our approach.
We did.
We adjusted our strategy, which led to a more successful and inclusive campaign that preserved trust and avoided divisions.
The success of the West Seattle Bridge Flip Your Trip program was only possible with the Department of Neighborhood's integrated support.
DLN support then and now plays a vital role in building strong community connections, helping SDOT align with One Seattle initiatives and involving the community in more thoughtful, inclusive, and relationship-based engagement.
Thank you.
Gracias, Stefan.
Thank you, Stefan.
So here's the list of projects in 2024 for the equity and engagement advisors.
The asterisk represents projects continuing from 2023. Projects under Seattle Department of Transportation span across various council districts.
They focus on advising Seattle Department of Transportation project owners to foster equitable and inclusive outreach and engagement strategies.
These strategies aim to ensure that communities are informed about projects in their neighborhoods, particularly related to safety improvements, and that community has opportunities to provide input.
Some of those projects include Aurora Ave, Rapid J Line, and Central District Healthy Streets.
Within Seattle Public Utility projects, the focus is on ensuring that programs and services offered by Seattle Public Utilities are equitable and inclusive.
One such initiative is the Watershed Equity Tours.
Here, the Equity and Engagement Advisor is collaborating with Seattle Public Utilities project owner to streamline the application process for the tour.
They're also working on expanding community-based organization partnerships to reach more communities across all districts.
Furthermore, they're ensuring that transportation and culturally relevant food are provided during the tours.
The overarching goal of the Equity and Engagement Advisor is to be an ally or collaborator to project owners.
They help navigate and address barriers to program participation while fostering an equitable engagement.
The ultimate result goes beyond just increasing participation numbers.
It entails a fundamental shift in how we approach our work.
I'm shifting gears now to discuss the Community Liaisons Program.
As mentioned earlier by Director Chao, community liaisons are more externally focused since there are independent contractors that come from community and they're managed by DON project managers.
They ensure underrepresented groups have access to city information, resources, and decision-making power.
To achieve this goal, community liaisons collaborate closely with department project managers who may have existing strategies but lack direct community connections with the community.
By providing on-the-ground support, the liaisons enhance the impact of these outreach and engagement efforts.
The current program has 46 community liaisons in the roster working alongside seven partner departments.
The community liaison personnel budget includes two community liaison project managers and a community liaison's program assistant.
The loss of one FTE in 2024 is only reflective of the reorganization emerging in the community liaison program and the equity and engagement advisor program into the strategic partnerships team.
This created better coordination on outreach across the team and allowed the department to repurpose an SA1 position to serve as Dawn's future data impact advisor.
So who are Dawn's community liaisons?
Community liaisons represent many languages, such as Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, to name a few, as well as represent black, indigenous, seniors, unhoused, and people with disabilities.
Community liaisons live all over Seattle and beyond.
Most of them have other jobs.
They may be business owners, work at nonprofits, work at social service agencies, school districts, or community centers.
They engage community members the following ways.
One-on-one interviews, present project materials in front of an audience, conduct community conversations, moderate focus groups, do interviews with ethnic media, provide survey assistance, take on casework, and of course, do translation and interpretation as well.
I will now present some of the impactful work accomplished by the Community Liaisons Program in collaboration with our department partners.
We started an eight-month electrification engagement pilot project with Seattle City Light and their partner, Puget Sound Energy.
The project aims to educate and enroll residents in Skyway and parts of Southeast Seattle in an energy savings home improvement plan.
We have community liaisons that speak Cantonese, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese, who help recruit customers.
provide one-on-one assistance, and also provide a $50 incentive by doing the home assessment, help community members apply for free weather station projects, and also help eligible customers switch from Puget Sound Energy to Seattle City Light with a free heat pump installation.
So far, community liaisons have helped conduct 40 home assessments and provide 12 free heat pump installations for eligible households.
Our second example is with Seattle Public Utilities and Adopt-a-Street project.
Seattle Public Utilities Adopt-a-Street is a grassroots litter removal program in Seattle that helps keep our streets clean.
We started the project during the pandemic in 2021 with Amharic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese speaking cumulaisons.
Community liaisons helped to collect program feedback, which later made the program more accessible, especially with hard-to-reach communities.
Community liaisons worked on translation of projects, including program materials, volunteer sign-up forms, cleanup reports, and liability waivers.
Community liaisons have conducted many outreach events across Seattle, including Farmer's Markets in Lake City, University District, Columbia City, and Delridge.
The impact of this partnership has resulted in community liaison efforts increasing volunteer signups by 1,000 and made the program more accessible, especially with hard to reach communities.
Community liaisons continue to support regularly monthly ongoing cleanup events in neighborhoods through partnerships with local community-based organizations.
I wanted to make a note here, colleagues, that This is a very, there are almost 34,000 volunteers that are dedicated to cleaning up trash and they've cleaned up a total of 404,000 pounds of trash.
So just underscoring the importance of volunteers in the city, we were just talking about the volunteers on the PDA.
But these are volunteers for the Adopt a Street program.
This is a little bit of a shameless plug for SBU, even though we have our partners, Don here.
And then Don's role is obviously to try to engage and specifically underserved communities to engage them as well to participate in this program.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you, Council Chair Rivera for adding that and adding those data points.
Like you said, it's one Seattle.
So no shameless plug for our sister departments.
Thank you.
Great.
Here is the current CL project lists with the different departments.
The Community Liaison Program partners with seven departments.
They are Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle Department of Transportation, Seattle City Light, Seattle Public Libraries, and Human Services Department.
Some of the projects may work in one area of the city.
So an example is a community liaison supporting Department of Neighborhoods Historic Preservation, such as CID, to provide live interpretation during international special review district board meetings, or providing information about a new bus lane along Rainier Ave South.
While many other projects could have city-wide impacts and would require ongoing engagement, Seattle Transportation Plan and Sound Transit 3. For these bigger projects, we often recruit up to a dozen community liaisons, form cohorts, and work on different engagement tasks, but still focusing on staying coordinated.
One of the primary objectives of the community liaison program is to enhance coordination to historically underrepresented groups and cultivate lasting connections and relationships.
Now consider a scenario where various city departments, as you can see from the list, engage with the same communities at the same time, often posing similar questions.
This situation emphasizes a critical need for coordination and collaboration to avoid duplication and maximize impact of our outreach efforts.
The community liaison program in collaboration with the equity engagement advisors and city departments address this challenge by fostering coordination and synergy, showcasing a one Seattle approach.
Thank you for your attention.
This concludes the presentation, and I will now hand it over to Director Chau so we can address any questions from council members.
Muchas gracias.
Gracias.
Antes, before we, I wanted to keep speaking in Spanish.
Before we continue, I did want to just, the key takeaway points from this thoughtful presentation you gave was just to show how community engagement is so important as city departments are going out there to do work.
to take action and to address needs in the neighborhoods.
It's really important to engage community, to hear from them, all community broadly, and also obviously and importantly, the communities that have been underserved historically, and make sure we're engaging folks so that they understand what we're doing, how we're doing it, why we're doing it, and taking their needs into account as we're doing so.
And so these advisors that, you know, contract with Don from, or that SDOT and Seattle Public Utilities, thank you, reach out to Don to contract with.
These advisors serve an important function, as do the community liaisons who are actually hired from the neighborhoods themselves and from the communities that they're helping serve.
And I just had one question about the 46 community liaisons.
How do you select the community liaisons?
What's the process for that?
Is it a competitive process?
If someone's interested in being an independent contractor, how would they go about doing so?
That's a great question.
So it could be equity engagement advisors work with communities, so they might have conversations with community leaders and they might refer who we should bring along to our roster.
It also might be we attend meetings, the team, and they...
see that there's someone that really would be an awesome addition to our community liaison program.
And there's multiple ways.
We tend not to do, like, a job posting because that's not the intent to bring the bigger audience, but be very intentional in making sure that we're reaching community members that really have those direct connections with the hard-to-reach communities that we're not able to do so.
So, yeah.
So it's word of mouth.
from community though that are interested, I imagine they can reach out to Don and let their interests be known and you can work that way.
Yeah, they can also reach us online.
And just to add to that is that the community liaison program, because as Christian mentioned, is very deliberate.
Council Chair Rivera, it is really based on community need.
So that's why there's not, like you said, a posting.
It is really seen as when we look at the data and see that there are some communities who are not at the table we figure out why and then we then we do the connections with our in the neighborhoods or in the communities that need it most and then see if there's a community liaison that can be brought into and be part of the city doing the city's work and we should mention that part of this is because the departments themselves spus dot and all the departments that you contract with they all are conducting their own
outreach, they're coming to Don to get outreach in particular for underserved communities because it's been an area that they care about, but they have challenges in reaching those communities.
I will say that I will look to you to continue to do what I call broad outreach within the underserved communities because there's always some folks that could participate but they don't know about it who are in community.
And I wanna make sure that everyone in community who wants to participate, wants to serve as a community liaison has that opportunity.
So thank you.
Colleagues, any questions about the
Council Member Hollingsworth.
Thank you, Chair Rivera.
I was gonna actually echo what you had said.
I was looking at some of the project lists.
One of the biggest things that we hear from people in the community is sometimes they feel like a certain department checked a box or they're not listening to them or, hey, we didn't know about this.
And so I can't begin to express just extreme gratitude um for you all to be able to go out into the communities that might not see something on twitter or social media or through an email newsletter or you know be active in a certain type of neighborhood group right the ones that you know you it's the word of mouth it might be through a church or a a different organization or through a food bank, just how incredibly important that is, especially all of the projects that were going on, particularly now since we're doing the move levy and we have SDOT and there are going to be a ton of construction projects all around the city.
One other thing is like the construction mitigation for small businesses, schools, families, sidewalks, you know, anything I think is incredibly important.
And if I could have a shameless plug, would love your help.
with the communication with the J line for East Lake, which is going to be incredibly important during that process of the construction mitigation and TOPS, that school that's right there and all the things that are going to be happening in that neighborhood.
So that's my shameless plug to ask your all help.
I know y'all will help us with that communication.
So thank you.
We actually have that project on our roster.
So in one of our equity engagement advisors portfolio.
Awesome.
I'll be in touch.
Thank you.
Thank you, council member.
Did you have a, council member Wu?
I see liaisons everywhere.
So thank you so much for your work.
And council member Hollingsworth, since you chair the parks and utilities, maybe we can have SPU tell us about how they do the broad engagement since Don does a more focused engagement.
But I would be very interested and the mitigation for small businesses is really key broadly and in community.
Thank you, so thank you for raising that.
Okay, onto Neighborhood Matching Fund.
All right, the next program is the Neighborhood Matching Fund known as NMF.
This is the Department of Neighborhoods Grants Program.
It is open to everyone citywide and the grants provide public benefits with city funds.
The Neighborhood Matching Funds program is 36 years old and was created in 1988 to create matching dollars for community led projects related to neighborhood improvement.
Critical to Neighborhood Matching Fund is the low barrier community match in which awardees can match through volunteer time, donation materials, donated professional services or cash.
I'm gonna hand it over to Daniel to speak to the details of the program.
Thank you, Director Chau and good morning council members.
Good morning.
Appreciate that.
The Neighborhood Matching Fund, or excuse me, thank you for allowing me to present the Neighborhood Matching Fund.
The Neighborhood Matching Fund has served as a catalyst for community-generated projects and programs for over 30 years.
As Director Chau noted, 36 years to be specific.
This presentation will provide an overview of the Neighborhood Matching Fund program, why it works, who we fund, what we fund, timelines, staffing, and a few examples of impact neighborhood matching fund projects have made on their communities.
In 1988, the Neighborhood Matching Fund was created to provide matching dollars for neighborhood improvement, organizing, or projects developed and implemented by community members.
Central to the Neighborhood Matching Fund is the Community Match, which requires awardees to match their award with contributions from the community, whether it's volunteer time, donated materials, donated professional services, or cash.
Since Neighborhood Matching Fund's creation, more than 5,000 community projects throughout Seattle have received over $64 million in funding and generated an additional $72 million from Community Match.
The Neighborhood Matching Fund is limited only by the community's imagination and capacity to make a project happen.
The Neighborhood Matching Fund thrives because it's rooted in cultivating and amplifying the power of community.
Built on the ideals of neighborhoods coming together to tackle local issues, we believe that communities equipped with resources and capacity can create solutions that make their neighborhoods better.
We support ideas initiated and sustained by the community, empowering local voices and building inclusivity.
By actively engaging residents and stakeholders, we strengthen relationships and deepen community engagement.
We also encourage and support volunteerism, inspiring individuals to contribute their time and talents for a greater impact.
It also works because our Neighborhood Matching Fund staff have decades of collective experience and deep commitment to supporting grassroots engagement, cultivating thoughtful projects and providing technical assistance for potential awardees.
We fund neighborhood groups, community organizations, informal groups and business groups who want to do a project to build stronger community connections.
All applicant groups must be open and inclusive, actively engage diverse community members, and be significantly composed of people who live and or work in Seattle.
The Neighborhood Matching Fund team continuously engages with our internal teams and other city departments to support deep engagement and coordination with our grantees that are working to respond to a variety of local issues and projects.
The Neighborhood Matching Fund provides support for projects that provide community benefit, are free and open to the public, and actively involve community in the creation and completion of the project.
A key component of all Neighborhood Matching Fund projects is match.
We believe that with community support, we can maximize community involvement and engagement.
Match is both funding and or volunteer time for the benefit of a project.
The Neighborhood Matching Fund requires documented match of at least one half of the requested grant amount, And for example, an organization that applies for $50,000, they must demonstrate a community match of $25,000.
So combining both the grant or the amount they're applying for and the match, the total project cost would be $75,000 when combining both the $50,000 that they apply for and the $25,000 that they're matching.
The Neighborhood Matching Fund has two separate funding opportunities available for the community.
The first is the Small Sparks Fund, which grants up to $5,000.
For 2024, it opened in January and runs through October 31st.
Applications are received on a rolling basis and reviewed individually.
Projects are up to six months in length, and there is a total of $270,000 available for awards.
The other opportunity is the Community Partnership Fund that grants up to $50,000 per project.
Applications are open twice per year for two months at a time.
Deadlines for 2024 are March 11th, which is passed, and September 9th, which is coming up.
The Community Partnership Fund is a competitive grant where the projects are reviewed against each other.
Many of these projects require increased support to pay for expertise, higher cost items, extended community involvement, event space, and much more.
Projects are up to one year in length, and there is $1 million available per round, totaling $2 million for the year.
Additionally, the Neighborhood Matching Fund staff works closely with department colleagues to support application development and review And when projects are awarded, they work with other city departments and community to ensure that the projects are meeting the needs of both the community and the city.
The team.
consists of three project managers who work directly with applicants in other city departments.
They advise people on the parameters of the program, lead workshops, participate in outreach and engagement, coordinate site visits, and much more.
The team's administrative and contract specialists are effective in supporting community in the contracting, coordinating project manager assignments, and responding to initial inquiries and many other tasks.
The administrative specialist is split between both the neighborhood matching fund and the food equity fund.
So half their time is with neighborhood matching fund.
The other half is with the food equity fund.
The community grants manager is the manager of the neighborhood food or neighborhood matching fund and the food equity fund supervisor.
And with this arrangement, I know that the values aren't on here, but again, the awards that we have are the total award dollars that we have for neighborhood matching fund are 2,270,000.
And then the personnel cost for our staff is $678,000.
And we have a program expense budget of roughly 29,000.
So now I wanna shift to a few examples that highlight successful projects funded by the Neighborhood Matching Fund over the last few years.
These highlights are intended to showcase some of the diversity of the opportunities available through our program.
At Green Lake Elementary, Staff worked in collaboration with school families and the broader community to develop a playground for all.
This Americans with Disability Acts focused playground was developed in collaboration with Seattle School District staff to meet the targeted needs of the students and broader needs of local youth in the community.
This $50,000 community partnership fund grant galvanized over $350,000 in documented community match and support.
Neighborhood Matching Fund staff worked with many community leaders to support Through the Eyes of the Tiger, a community project.
This project was a result of deep community work and culminated in the creation of an authentic documentary or photo documentary of the historic work in the Chinatown International District.
This Community Partnership Fund project was funded with over $48,000 and over $50,000 in community match, and was actually showcased in the Bertha Knight Landis room last year, or last year, 23.
22?
Okay, sorry.
Dia de las Muertes, a community celebration.
It is also important to highlight smaller projects.
This was a small Sparks project with the potential for growth.
In the Finney Greenwood neighborhood, the neighborhood matching fund funded the Dia de las Muertes community celebration.
A small group of community members came together with the creative idea And we're excited to continue to work with them to help them grow their program.
And oftentimes, many applications or many organizations come to the Neighborhood Matching Fund for the first time through Small Sparks, and they get used to the Neighborhood Matching Fund and they build up the capacity to apply for the larger community partnership fund.
So Small Sparks, we always consider an entry point and to develop folks capacity to apply and apply for and manage larger grants.
BUILD Holiday Bowl.
So Brothers United and Leadership Development has served as a catalyst for community change for almost 10 years.
They work with community leaders on the ground to bring families together, engage with youth and build community.
BUILD has supported south end and central area communities for years and have expanded their work to support communities citywide.
volunteer amphitheater.
So the volunteer amphitheater is an amazing city of Seattle resource that serves as a clear example of how community or how great community ideas can grow with support of funding like the neighborhood matching fund.
This project was initially funded by the Neighborhood Matching Fund for over five years through multiple phases.
So we have multiple phased grants, or we call them phased projects.
So oftentimes, they'll start, the organization will apply for the design, and then they'll apply for the construction.
So they just phase the project out until the project's done.
So we can give multiple awards.
The one piece that we will note is, is something that we always make sure that they consider is the fact that it's still a competitive grant.
So although we fund phase one, it's not guaranteed that phase two will be funded.
So I shared previously, the neighborhood matching fund has two different grants.
but we use the same application, the same guidelines, the same values of community building and volunteer participation.
They simply differ in the funding amount, the review time and the duration of the projects.
Max awards are $5,000 and a project length of six months for the small sparks grant and max awards of $50,000 and a project length of one year for the community partnership fund.
This slide shares our breakdown for the amount of, or breakdown of project types from 2019 through 2013. And this is how we classify the projects within the Neighborhood Matching Fund.
So we have arts and culture, events, physical improvement, planning and design, and race and social justice.
And the race and social justice are, programs like Dia de los Muertos, where we have in community, but it's really also arts and culture.
Right.
And then like BUILD as well, that would fall under that.
That's awesome.
BUILD.
Thank you.
So Small Sparks through 2019 through 23rd, or excuse me, through 2023. So since 2019, Small Sparks has awarded 244 projects, totaling over $1 million in awards throughout the city and including $1.4 million in community match.
And then the same period of time, 2019 through 2023 for the Community Partnership Fund.
So since 2019, the Community Partnership Fund has funded 223 projects and awarded over $7.7 million in projects throughout the city with over $8.5 million in match.
And this concludes my presentation on the Neighborhood Matching Fund.
And thank you for your time and attention.
Thank you.
And I think a key takeaway, colleagues, obviously with this is, I mean, Neighborhood Matching Fund is servicing all the districts across the city and really supporting community with some of the things that they'd like to see the city do that we can't fully do, but partnering together and with those matching funds, we can accomplish some of these really great projects, including playgrounds and specific things in community for the benefit of all.
Any questions, colleagues?
Council Member Wu.
Comment.
I want to share my experience with the Neighborhood Matching Fund.
I applied twice, once for the jazz murals and then once again during anti-Asian hate to provide situate awareness training to our seniors in self-defense during that time.
And I would like to talk about the experience I had.
The first time I applied for these grants, I didn't get it, but the amazing team was able to work with me and help me get my proposal to an amazing place, be able to to get the grant as well as to have the event.
And so I know there are just so many amazing proposals and ideas that I've seen along the way because, you know, there's a lot of training workshops ahead of calling for the grants.
And so one thing I noticed early on was that there was like a sense of competition between us, I guess, proposes or people looking to apply.
But very quickly staff was, you know, judging this by merit, not by, you know, districts, like not a certain number.
You can see it's not, it's all over all the districts evenly divided.
And so being able to be part of that process, I learned so much.
I learned so much about the city process, as well as working with the team and the support I got throughout the project length.
as well as there were a couple hiccups along the way.
I had a great experience.
I want to thank you for everything that you do.
Thank you.
Thank you.
On to Food Equity Fund.
All right.
Thank you.
So last but not least, the next program is Food Equity Fund.
The Food Equity Fund is a newer grants program in the Department of Neighborhoods and is funded by the Sweden Beverage Tax.
It was created in 2021 and supports work led by those who experience the most food and health inequities.
Its purpose is to invest in community-led work that contributes to an equitable and sustainable local food system.
I'm gonna hand it over to Lisa to speak about the meaningful impact in community and the interdepartmental collaboration with other city departments.
Thank you, Director Chao.
Good morning, Councilmember Rivera, Councilmember Wu, and Councilmember Hollingsworth.
I've just appreciated the thoughtful discussion we've had and look forward to a fruitful conversation throughout my presentation.
Don't worry, I won't be making food puns throughout the whole time.
I will be though starting and ending my presentation with the heart of our program, which is our grantees.
Here you'll see youth and their families from Clean Greens Farm harvesting pumpkins from their new garden behind the Amy Yee Tennis Center, and a volunteer from City Fruit harvesting apples for free distribution.
Today I'll focus on what the Food Equity Fund is, our structure, how we're funded, give some context to the landscape in which we do our funding, and finally share some data and impact directly from our grantees.
The Food Equity Fund invests in food work led by those who experience the most food and health inequities.
We define that as black, indigenous, people of color, immigrants, refugees, people with low incomes, youth and or elders.
The fund was created based on guidance from the Sweetened Beverage Tax Community Advisory Board and Seattle Municipal Code when the tax was passed.
As you already know, the sweetened beverage tax, or SBT for short, is a tax paid by the distributors of sugary drinks.
There is a community advisory board that make recommendations on the tax revenue and its programs.
The advisory board consists of 11 members who are appointed by the mayor or city council into one of four position types, food access, community, public health, and early learning.
Food Equity Fund is one of the Community Advisory Board's signature programs.
SBT also funds OSC's Fresh Bucks program, which, as you know, enrolled customers receive $40 a month to spend on fruits and vegetables at participating farmers markets, independent grocers, and the supermarket.
It also funds DL's prenatal to three grant program, a community grant similar to ours except for early learning, and HSD's traditional food banks and home delivery programs, and many more.
There are two ways to receive funding from us.
The first is through our signature program, the Food Equity Fund.
Grant awards are up to $100,000 and funding recommendations are made by a diverse community review panel who work with Dawn staff to send their suggestions to our department director to finalize.
Secondly, our Starter Fund.
This was created in 2023 as a low barrier grant program focused on smaller grassroots organizations working in the local food system.
Awards are up to $25,000 and prioritize organizations with less than $500,000 in their annual budget.
Last year, we awarded $318,000 to 16 organizations.
And for half of the selected organizations, this was actually their first ever city grant.
It's important to discuss the landscape in which we provide funding in.
The USDA reported recently that from 2019 to 2023, the consumer price index for food rose by 25%.
That's actually a higher increase than the all-item CPI, which grew 19.2% over the same time period.
In 2022 alone, food prices increased faster than any year since 1979. This high rise in food costs supports what we saw in our application pool.
anecdotally, we saw an increase of groups that historically didn't really consider themselves food organizations really take on food, given the high need and at the same time, we saw a demand increase for existing food based organizations.
Here in Seattle, King County Public Health reports that at least 10% of adults experience food insecurity, which means they have insufficient nutritious food to meet their basic needs.
Specifically, Black, Latino, and American Indian and Alaskan Native populations experience food insecurity at significantly higher rates.
As you can see, up to 25 to 30%.
I do think it's important to note that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are not accounted for in this particular data set.
However, this generally shows rates of food insecurity as higher for a majority of people of color in Seattle.
This is a screenshot of a study commissioned actually by the city and led by King County Public Health.
It is also referenced in the updated food action plan.
It illustrates food access disparities in Seattle.
The purpose of this study was to identify healthy food priority areas in our city in order to improve access to healthy, affordable food.
As you know, access is very multifaceted.
So the study used several factors in determining its analysis.
First, poverty.
Second, travel time to nearest healthy food retailer.
And lastly, a percentage of food retailers in the area that do not sell nutritious food.
As you can see from this map, access to nutritious and affordable food is not distributed equally or equitably across the city.
The healthy food priority areas in orange near the Duwamish Waterway overlapped on all three factors, lower income, longer travel times to healthy food retailers, and higher percentages to unhealthy food retailers.
Additionally, comprehensive national studies also show that soda and fast food companies specifically target children, teens, Black Americans, and Latinx communities with marketing of their unhealthy products.
For these reasons and more, the Community Advisory Board helped create the Food Equity Fund with low-income communities, Baibach communities, and youth in mind.
The landscape we're operating in is unfortunately reflected in the high demand for our program.
We average up to three to four times more in requests than we have in available funding.
Here you'll see just last year we had over $8.4 million in requests and only 2.3 million in available funding.
This trend continues year after year.
Here's a map of the Food Equity Fund grantees from 2022 till last June.
So it doesn't have the most updated, but it's pretty comprehensive.
I wanna highlight that this is not a service map, but simply a map where grantees have their office or their primary site of activities.
As you know, for example, a food pantry in Capitol Hill can serve many residents in the surrounding neighborhoods because people often need to travel across the city to get their services.
As of April 2024, we've funded 75 unique organizations in less than three years of existence.
We are on track to grant $8.6 million in funding to a diverse cohort of grantees.
And the Food Equity Fund intentionally supports a wide range of projects, including community gardens, youth leadership development in food, new and innovative food distribution sites, and more.
It's also not uncommon to see one organization have multiple strategies within the food system.
For example, a group will organize a grocery distribution in addition to having a food education workshop.
And Madam Chair, I had a question.
I'm so sorry.
Oh, it's okay.
I had a question.
Is that okay?
Yes, of course, Council Member Hollingsworth.
Awesome.
Real quick, on slide 46, the funding available, obviously that's through tax dollars.
That significantly dropped.
Is...
the tax dollars that are generated from this are from the point of sale at grocery stores or are we taxing like also sugary drinks at Starbucks or?
Great question.
The actual, it's not a sales tax and that's by intention.
The tax itself is a distributor tax.
So we tax distributors, including, so like the big soda, I'll get back to you about Starbucks, but specifically, but anything we tax the distributor.
So the distributors that are distributing to, like, the grocery stores.
Exactly.
Or 7-Eleven.
7-Eleven, exactly.
Convenience store.
Right.
It's not a sales tax, so it's not something that you see at the register, like an SBT tax.
Right.
but it is very common and council member Rivera, maybe this is where you're getting at that the distributors pass on the tax to consumers and that was an intentional design so that there's a sticker shock of the rise in sugary beverages as a deterrent for consumers to not drink that drink is the theory.
Understood.
No, it makes sense.
Yeah.
When you go to the store, when it first started, you would see, you know, sugary tax or whatever and why it was what it was.
Exactly.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Product costs more now.
Product.
Yeah.
Yes.
Understood.
Was that where?
Exactly.
I was going to daylight that.
And then also, obviously, you can see from from the Food Equity Fund and numbers, this chart before you, that the tax is lower this year than it was the prior two years.
Absolutely.
And then I also had another comment.
I know we're going through the slides and I apologize.
Oh, no worries.
Don't apologize.
I know it's a lot of information, which is great.
One of the things I wanted to highlight, and I don't know if my colleagues know, but that the Othello Safeway that's in the 98118 zip code is the number one redemption for SNAP in our city.
And the South End, and the South End actually has one...
technically one food bank by definition that is able to receive a Department of Agriculture resources like TFAP and EFAP funding, which is really troubling because it's anything south of I-90.
Okay, and we have one food bank, and they also have to service Skyway that has no food bank, and they're technically a food desert.
They have one grocery store.
So a lot of people come from Skyway to Rainier Valley Food Bank that is now, you know, right next to the Rainier Beach Safeway.
So I wanted to point that out, because I see a lot of the food I see the map, which is South Seattle, and then I saw a lot of the grants had went to South Seattle in District 2, and assuming that's obviously one of the reasons why as well.
And I just wanted to point that out.
This is an important point.
So it's slide number 45 that shows the food, the healthy food priority areas.
One thing that I...
pointed out to the department in our conversations, and I've said before, is that these indexes are a bit skewed because there are pockets within the indexes that don't really show here.
For instance, at Sandpoint, there are some families and they are very much in a food desert.
So, I mean, they meet the poverty definition, the travel time, they're in a food desert, the grossest The closest grocery store had been a Safeway that is now closed.
I believe the food bank sends a van once a week, but there are a lot of families there, teenagers and youth, who need food and healthy food.
And so, you know, and the only retailer nearby is a 7-Eleven, which does not have very much healthy food.
So, and it doesn't show on this map.
So I do think that, you know, These maps are helpful and then also it doesn't show the full picture always.
So I appreciate you bringing that up council member and I also wanted to point that out as well.
Did you have a question council member?
Okay, thank you.
Something unique to us at Dawn is that we don't outsource our technical assistance.
The Food Equity Fund is honestly just one of the most caring groups of team members I've had the privilege of working with.
And we spend a great deal of time providing much needed application support to community-based organizations interested in applying to the fund and work with a diverse group of media outlets to get the word out.
And now on to the good stuff.
I'm going to highlight a handful of our community grantees.
First, we have Family Works.
They manage two food banks in Wallingford and Greenwood, a mobile food pantry pictured here, a home delivery program, and a tech space pickup service.
And their impact during their Food Equity Fund contract period included providing culturally responsive food to over 10,000 people via their two food banks, and 3,700 people via their mobile food pantry.
Family Works also got to establish and strengthen relationships with 10 local farmers, including the Muckleshoot Tribe, Alvarez Farms, Friendly Hmong Farms, and more.
Next, we have Friendly Islands of Tonga Seniors, or FITS for short.
This is one of our Starter Fund grantees.
FITS was founded in 1983 to provide a sense of belonging for newly immigrated Tongans.
Historically, they actually had a very successful weekly food distribution and organized hot meals twice a month, but had to stop due to COVID.
But they were actually able to restart this program after receiving our grant.
They still have an active contract, but impact so far has included distributing culturally relevant grocery boxes to over 183 Pacific Islander seniors and their families.
This is also FIT's first ever grant.
They've historically relied on donations entirely, and they have deep connections in West Seattle neighborhoods.
Next is City Fruit.
City Fruit stewards and harvests urban fruit trees to support sustainable and equitable access to fruit for everyone.
This is another great example of an organization that is based in one neighborhood, in this case, Fremont, but truly serves citywide.
They provide fresh fruit to food banks, meal programs, Title I elementary schools, and shelters all over the city.
Impact so far includes in 2022, they distributed almost 1,700 pounds in fruit, registered over 2,600 tree owners to be part of their program.
Next is Lake City Collective.
They also have an active contract with us, but so far, they've organized work parties to completely revitalize their community space and built garden beds, planting culturally relevant vegetables.
They've hosted two intergenerational community dinners, which is part of an ongoing series to collect recipes from elders in their community, and youth leaders will create a zine to share.
They also started organizing their Si Se Puede Food Entrepreneurship cohort, a series of workshops for community members to learn how to start a food business.
So again, just another great example of how one grantee can have multiple strategies in one grant.
And last and certainly not least, Clean Greens Farm at Black Dollar Days Task Force.
Some highlights of their impact so far include in 2022 and 2023, 25 youth leaders participated in their farm program.
They provide weekly food boxes for 25 low income families for over four months.
And in 2022, they harvested seven tons of vegetables.
This is a great example of how an organization was able to be successful in a highly competitive pool and receive the grant multiple years.
The impact of that made a meaningful difference in their capacity building and growth.
For example, they were able to start a new gardening program behind the Amy Yee Tennis Center and are on track to distribute now nine instead of seven tons of food for their upcoming veggie box distribution.
Thank you.
We've also been fortunate to receive some great media coverage in our short time of existence, highlighting either the Food Equity Fund itself or our grantees.
Brooke Bradford from the Community Roots Housing told the South Seattle Emerald that before it received a grant in 2022, aside from the occasional canned food drives, the organization's work surrounding food equity was limited to the efforts of one employee.
But the Food Equity Fund really allowed them to start building their idea into a real concept.
And now they have opened their food pantry at Lowell Elementary.
And as you know, a third of students at Lowell Elementary identify as unhoused.
So this food pantry is a major benefit to the students and families in that neighborhood.
And again, we don't do our work in silos.
We have been working closely with our colleagues across the city.
We are part of designing the Food Action Plan, which is the city of Seattle's vision and roadmap for an equitable, sustainable, and resilient local food system.
The Food Action Plan supports Mayor Harrell's One Seattle vision for healthy, resilient, and well-connected communities.
Food, as you know, is important to individual and community well-being.
We also work with OSE to support the SBT Community Advisory Board as needed and work very closely with HSD to ensure our funding is strategically coordinated.
And OSE is Office of Sustainability and Environment for Anyone Watching and HSD is the Human Services Department.
Thank you, Council Member Rivera.
Thank you.
Here is a breakdown of our current staffing.
Between the team, there's decades of experience in grant making, nonprofit fundraising, immigrant rights, food justice, managing pea patches in our city, and we even have a working farmer on our team.
There's just a great deal of expertise on the team.
For 2024, our program and staff costs are 733,500, and we do plan on granting about 2.2 million in awards.
And I'm ending with another grantee.
This is Look, Listen and Learn, an early learning TV show where in this episode, Ms. Catherine is teaching Alex how to make pasta salad while also talking about disabilities.
They are at Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands, which is managed by Tilth Alliance, who is also one of our former grantees.
So thank you and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful presentation.
I know it was long, but I appreciate you talking about all the different programs that you run out of the Department of Neighborhoods.
Colleagues, do you have any questions?
I'm sorry.
Council Member Hollingsworth?
Yeah, I just have a couple, if that's okay.
It's great.
Love the questions, Council Member Hollingsworth.
Okay, so I was in Council Member Revere's district the other day, and I saw free veggie food.
It was up on 50th Street.
It was off 50th, it was a pantry.
I didn't know if it was like, if you all know if that was part of what you all do.
I know you granted a lot of people, but it was, if that is, that's great.
It was a line around the doors, free veggie food.
The other thing I wanted to highlight is I think it's incredibly important.
I've said this before, and I've been screaming this for years, that by 2050, we have to grow 50% more food.
as a world, as a growing population.
And the number one waste in our garbage is food waste.
And so anything that is providing, you know, extending the life of food.
You know, just funding those is amazing.
And then localizing our food, like the urban, Rainier Beach Urban Farms, I think is super amazing.
And then also wanted to highlight what's incredibly important, our summer programs, especially for kids, because they get all their food during the school.
And then a lot of people don't realize weekends, three square meals a day on the weekends, because a lot of kids miss out on those.
I know those have been popping up as well.
We've seen a lot of more like food pantries in different schools, but primarily it's that Friday when the children are receiving the food to have over the weekend because they don't get three square meals at home.
And last but not least, I wanted to highlight Localizing our food resources, I would love to figure out barn farms.
A lot of people don't know Yakima Nation bought Inaba Farms, which was a Japanese-owned farm in the Yakima Valley.
And that tribe specifically wanted to do food distribution because they saw what was going on in California and the drought.
And they have their casino, but there were elders talking about, hey, we have to do food next.
That is the next...
to securing our tribe.
And so thinking about our city localizing our food resources, we can have as many access points as we want, but I think also like, you know, when we look at Seattle Public Utilities, they have their, we have our watersheds, two watersheds that are outside the city.
So understanding how important localizing our food resources are for the equity fund and hopefully just getting some community partners to be able to till that land, maybe partnering with the Muckleshoot Tribe and there in Evers and building that up to be a great resource for our city for food, I think is key.
And this is a shameless plug.
Every time you eat a hamburger, it's 60 miles of carbon emissions that you put out.
So more veggies for folks.
And that's why I would love a farm at Red Barn Ranch.
Thank you.
Thank you, Council Member Hollingsworth.
Thank you.
I mean, you're speaking my language council member Hollingsworth.
So I would just, I would add, you know, we also saw an increase in applicants and applications for urban agriculture and urban farming, because we're just seeing a revival in urban gardening in general.
And as you know, the mayor proclaimed 2023 as the year of community gardening.
So it really isn't aligned with both what's happening in the city.
Vertical farming, hydroponics, all those greens, vegetables, you know, microgreens, all these different herbs.
Like, you know, people can grow them in their backyard, like starting a program, anything.
And I can't wait to work and partner with Councilmember Rivera on that.
I'm passionate about food.
My family's a farmer, so I get it.
So really passionate about people reconnecting with soil and the earth.
Thank you.
And food is so important and the scarcity of food, especially in our underserved communities is really, it's real.
So it's anything that we can do to help, we should be working in that space.
And I will say that the city runs a number of food-related programs like Fresh Bucks, the work that Don does with the Food Equity Fund, and some other programs that I know we'll hear about as we continue our work together to address the food insecurity.
I would just say in our beloved P-Patch program.
And the P-Patch that Don also...
That's why it's so great that we're in the same department.
Correct.
Yes.
Correct.
Thank you for highlighting the P-Patch.
We had talked about it at a prior...
committee meeting, Don had come and talked about the community PPATCH program that is very beloved in the city throughout the city.
So thank you for highlighting that as well.
Well, colleagues, I know these were a lot of programs to cover today, but I just want to be sure that we're taking committee time to really get briefed about as many programs as possible.
Most folks know that when budget comes, committees take a hiatus to be able to do that work.
and I'm trying to get as much attention and focus and like I said, get briefed on as many of the programs that all the departments that sit on this committee is able to bring forward so that we are knowledgeable about what the departments are doing and the public.
It's what I always call showing our work.
We're showing our work to the public and we're all getting briefed as we're all new to council.
So thank you for bearing with me.
Thank you to the department for the great presentation.
I know there are other folks from down here in the back in the audience.
So thank you all for being here.
Thank you all for the work that you do.
And...
Can I just add or just say thank you to you, Council Chair Rivera and to the council members for the invite.
We really do value and appreciate the conversation to be able to highlight some of our programs and the impacts of our community engagement to make sure that everyone has access to resources, opportunities to thrive.
So thank you.
Thank you, Director Chao, and thank you for your leadership at Dawn.
Do any of my colleagues have any other comments or questions?
No?
Great.
Then I want the record to please reflect that Council Member Moore has an excused absence from this meeting today.
Seeing there are no further questions, this concludes the May 9th, 2024 meeting of the Libraries, Education, and Neighborhoods Committee.
Our next committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, May 23rd, 2024 at 9.30 a.m.
If there's no further business, this meeting will adjourn.
Hearing no further business, it's 11 a.m., and this meeting is adjourned.
Thank you all.