Rebuilding Together Seattle Turns 30!

This year we officially celebrate 30 years since our very first projects! With leadership from the Junior League of Seattle, amongst other dedicated board members and founders, “Christmas in April” was launched and our flagship program, now called National Rebuilding Month and Day, brought together businesses, civic groups, faith communities, and other organizations and individuals to repair the homes of our neighbors in need. Now 2,245 homes later, we begin 2020 with both a lot still to accomplish toward our vision of safe homes and communities for everyone, yet plenty to be proud of and to look forward to.

One of the things that I am most excited about in starting the new year, is our growing team and the additional support that means we’ll be able to offer in the community. While our colleague Linda Hunt, serving in a development and operations support role through an AARP program, has completed her time with us (thank you Linda!), we welcomed two new AmeriCorps Members this last month, bringing our small, but mighty team to a total of six. You can read more about Wynne and Karly below, but with Scott and Hannah continuing in their program roles, we now have more capacity than ever to work with volunteer groups and homeowners.

An immediate effect of having Karly and Wynne on board is that we are announcing the expansion of our ever-popular Open Volunteer Days. In the fall of 2018 we tested the idea of offering Rebuilding Together-led volunteer days, open to people without a group to volunteer through, with any skill level, or already seasoned volunteers with an interest of getting involved in our work more frequently and in a social setting, to join us on bi-monthly “Open Volunteer Days.” The projects were so well received that we decided to continue the initiative through 2019. I’ve written before about how we’ve had a few projects that filled up within an hour of being announced, including one time when we failed to cut off registration quick enough and had to plan for two projects that month. Well, we are proud to share that this year, OVD projects will be organized on a monthly basis!

Our February OVD project, just this past weekend, with the Black Farmers Collective at Yes Farm, also highlights the neighborhood level work that Rebuilding Together is now supporting in addition to our continued focus on home repair. While we have always offered repair work to nonprofit spaces and facilities, you will see us look for opportunities in 2020 to partner on projects that improve the health and safety of our neighborhoods, particularly when the missions of our partners, or the issues the project is trying to address intersect with housing. Yes Farm’s goal of engaging residents, including communities of color in the CD and residents of the Yessler Terrace redevelopment, in sustainable food production, while also activating public space for the common good, is a perfect example of how we can help create more impact on health outcomes and housing stability for our low-income neighbors.

Whether you keep in touch often, or it’s been a while since you’ve been involved, if you’d like to hear more about what we are doing to address displacement, to preserve our neighborhoods, and to rebuild lives, we hope you will join us at our upcoming Safe and Healthy Homes Breakfast, which helps us fund our Safe at Home program, including our Open Volunteer Days. Between our Beer and Wine Tasting in October and this breakfast, our fundraising events account for more than a third of our operating budget. And since more than 98% of our funding still comes from individual donors, local companies, and private foundations, your support and your networks are so important to everything we do. So let’s start the next 30 years building upon our incredible legacy of care toward our neighbors by doing it as we always have: together!

Caleb Marshall

Executive Director

For the second consecutive year, Rebuilding Together Seattle is proud to announce its partnership with Orca Running as the official non-profit beneficiary of the annual My Better Half Marathon! Come join us this Sunday on February 9th at Seward Park for a fun-filled running event like no other.

My Better Half Marathon brings together romance, costumes and sweat in celebration of running, love in all its forms and rom-coms. So grab your better half, bestie, bro - or fly solo - and sign up for a 5k, 10k, or half marathon.

Visit the event website to register for the race.

Not a runner? No problem! Without volunteers, events like the My Better Half Marathon can’t happen! We have a number of different volunteer spots to help make this event a success. Email Thembela Mavuso to volunteer or click here to get involved. Be sure to mention Rebuilding Together Seattle when you sign up!

Register to volunteer as an individual or as a group and get 25% off any future Orca Running event. See you at the race!

YES farm, a two acre start-up farm led by the Black Farmers Collective, is aimed at building integrated food systems in Seattle's Central District community for communities of color throughout the greater Seattle area . Activities for the day focused on assembling a paneled plywood end-wall to raise the north wall of the farm's greenhouse, adding some final touches to work that began on the farm last fall during Rebuilding Together's Building a Healthy Neighborhood program event. Volunteers also helped clear shrubs, overgrown weeds and dispose of bio-hazardous waste found on the site.

Thank you to all the incredible volunteers who spent all day with us on the farm, helping to give back to the Central District community. If you missed the chance to join us this Saturday, then don't miss our next Open Volunteer Day in March. Email info@rtseattle.org to inquire about our next opportunity!

If you have any questions regarding our Open Volunteer Day program, email Scott Sharba, our Programs Manager for more details.

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