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Sustainable West Seattle Celebrates One Year By Brian Allen
On May 4, 2008, Sustainable West Seattle (SWS) had a really BIG coming out party at the Alaska Junction: its first Annual Festival! Over 2500 people turned out for a beautiful, sunny day of speakers, workshops, presentations, a roaming giant salmon, raccoon, and even Snowflake the polar bear.
The festival's charter theme, "Building Community, Creating Connections" was apparent as the crowd connected with over 60 different groups and businesses at the event, all of whom are committed to building a more sustainable community in Seattle's largest neighborhood. Those connections included an official welcome from Cecile Hansen, the Chairperson of the Duwamish Tribe, plus a wonderful song of welcome led by a pair of Duwamish youth singers.
The fact that this celebration took place a mere year-and-a-day after SWS was created illustrates some of the extraordinary growth in sustainability groups around the region. Many of these groups are coming together under the aegis of a network called Sustainable Communities All over Puget Sound (or SCALLOPS). There was an informal SCALLOPS meeting just across the alley from the Festival, where co-founder Vic Opperman worked with people from nearly 20 communities around the area who are interested in creating sustainability groups in their areas as well. That's on top of the existing 35 groups who already consider themselves part of SCALLOPS (you can learn more about all of them at scallops.sustainableballard.org).
The mission of SWS is to "educate and advocate for urban sustainability in our local community". Sustainability can be considered the ethic and practice of ensuring that our resource-needs can be met while still maintaining healthy ecosystems (and without robbing future generations of the capacity to meet their own needs later). It's an approach that allows a more appropriate and respectful use of the gifts of Mother Earth while addressing the major environmental problems of our times.
A sustainable approach to living enriches our community connections, increases our knowledge of how nature provides for us, improves our personal health and the ecosystem, and creates robust local economies. In other words, sustainability practiced wisely is truly a win/win proposition. SWS and SCALLOPS represent a growing wave of committed and hard-working volunteers and visionary local businesses who believe that it's crucial for our communities to come together to teach and learn from each other in a time when our civilization and life on earth face unprecedented peril.
SWS is now looking to help other groups with their own sustainability festivals, while pursuing new projects in the West Seattle community. Their general meetings are open to the public and are held on the third Monday of every month at Camp Long (5200 35th Ave SW) at 7pm. You can learn more at sustanablewestseattle.org.
Brian Allen is the Co-Founder and Secretary of Sustainable West Seattle, and served as the 2008 Festival Coordinator. He can be reached at secretary@sustainablewestseattle.org.