Community Matters Campaign

Next week we bid farewell to our wonderful Community Matters Campaign intern, Paula. As one of her final duties, I asked Paula to write this blog and share with you all a bit about our 2010 People's Choice Award winners.  

Winners Tracy Record, Bill Zosel and Pete Spalding. Not pictured: Sara DeYoung and Patrick Sand.

At our Community Matters Campaign Finale on November 11^th, we presented our 2010 People’s Choice Awards to several people for their outstanding work in the community to serve others and build public trust.  We had a lot of really amazing nominations this year and it was tough to narrow it down!  Here’s a look at the winners:

Sara DeYoung

12-year-old Sara raised funds for the Snohomish Food Bank by donating all the profits from the sale of a steer (she is involved with 4H and the Jr. Angus Association). From her nomination: "Sara is aware of the poor economic situation that a lot of families are in, many of her friends are living it. Donating the proceeds of her steer will help many families in our community. By Sara doing this and telling her friends about her community service project may ignite others to join in." Thank you Sara for your kindness and generosity!

Tracy Record & Patrick Sand

Tracy and Patrick are the founders and editors of West Seattle Blog. Their nomination form stated that, "Their spirit and commitment to community combined with rigorous journalistic excellence and integrity has made them a highly trusted source. Their generosity of spirit and willingness to redefine and redesign to meet community needs rather than their own shows their selflessness." Congrats Tracy and Patrick!  Keep up the good work!

Bill Zosel

Bill’s nomination form included, "Bill has tirelessly advocated on behalf of the Squire Park neighborhood and the redevelopment of 12th Avenue for over a decade." He has served as board president and also secretary of the Squire Park Community Council, founded/chairs the 12th Avenue Stewardship Committee, serves on Seattle University's Citizen's Advisory Committee and "watch dogs" the Swedish/Cherry Hill Citizen's Advisory Committee. Bill volunteers his time and experience from decades as an attorney for such things as grant-writing and pursuing appeals for the Community Council. Thank you Bill for all your efforts to continue to build community!

Pete Spalding

The nomination form for Pete praised Pete’s community work by saying, "His leadership has helped to make Delridge a more desirable and thriving community." Pete is, or has been, chair of the University Food Bank, chair of the West Seattle Food Bank, chair of the Delridge Neighborhood District Council, Vice chair of the citywide Neighborhood Council, member of the City of Seattle Parks Oversight Committee, member of the SW Precinct Community Advisory Board, and chair of the Pigeon Point Neighborhood Council. Pete also recently helped organize the 7th Annual Gathering of Neighbors.  Thank you, Pete, for continuing to build community and neighborliness!

Another BIG thank you to Eric Liu of the Guiding Lights Network for moderating the Community Matters Campaign Finale.  And one last thank you to our panelists:  Seattle City Councilmember Sally Clark; Travis Kriplean of the UW Department of Science; Lola Peters, a Facilitator for our Community Matters Campaign Community Dialogues; and David Smith of the National Conference on Citizenship, who flew out from DC to share their great work!

Congrats to our 2010 People’s Choice Award Winners and to another successful Community Matters Campaign!!

If you missed the livestream of our conversation with Police Chief John Diaz - which, thanks to Seattle Channel, was viewable live via their website - you can still catch the conversation on television and online. Here are some television broadcast dates and times for the conversation, starting this week! We'll have a link soon for viewing the event online.

Thursday, November 04, 2010 - 5:30 p.m.
Friday, November 05, 2010 - 8:30 a.m.
Saturday, November 06, 2010 - 2:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 07, 2010 - 11:00 a.m. & 10:00 p.m.
Monday, November 08, 2010 - 3:00 a.m. & 10:30 p.m.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010 - 12:00 a.m. & 9:00 p.m.

CityClub panelists Kelly Edwards, Donna Russell and Shannon Sewards. More info on them here.

Yesterday's panel on biobanks and storing genetic information was absolutely fascinating! Our panel was incredibly engaging and informative. As with most people involved with CityClub, I may have my own areas of more interest (although I love all of our forums, of course)! In addition, there were great connections made by our panel between our specific event topic and to our Community Matters Campaign theme of public trust.

Unfortunately, "Do You Know Where Your DNA Is?" was not captured by television cameras, and thus will not be re-broadcast. However, we still have things to share from the event! There is, of course, our Twitter stream from the event: click here or, if that doesn't provide results, click the "read more" button at the end of this post.

Our panelists shared several very timely resources:

• The October 4, 2010 issue of Time included a cover story: How the First Nine Months Shape the Rest of Your Life.
• Newsweek from October 24, 2010: The Prematurity Puzzle - Research on early births could hold clues to disorders like autism and cerebral palsy.
• One of our panelists also quoted this Wired magazine article from June 2010 that referred to biobanks as "libraries of flesh".
• Update! One more article from MSNBC - hat tip to @UWMedicineNews - "Who owns your genes? In many cases, not you: Many companies hold patents on patient's genes, affecting testing, cancer research "
• One more: Genetics & Public Policy Center.
• And yet another! Hooray! Northwest Association for Biomedical Research blogger Brian Glanz published some very detailed reporting from the event! Click here to see all the posts. Thanks, Brian and NWABR.

Another fascinating resource is a recently published book titled The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot - the book tackles some of the ethical issues involved. Here's a little preview:

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells—taken without her knowledge—became one of the most important tools in medicine. The first “immortal” human cells grown in culture, they are still alive today, though she has been dead for more than sixty years. If you could pile all HeLa cells ever grown onto a scale, they’d weigh more than 50 million metric tons—as much as a hundred Empire State Buildings. HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the effects of the atom bomb; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions.

Yet Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown, buried in an unmarked grave. Henrietta’s family did not learn of her “immortality” until more than twenty years after her death, when scientists investigating HeLa began using her husband and children in research without informed consent. And though the cells had launched a multimillion-dollar industry that sells human biological materials, her family never saw any of the profits.

Seattle Public Library has this book in "regular" as well as large print, audiobook on CD and audio e-book - click here to find it. (Full disclosure: When I looked the book up at the library, I put it on hold for myself before I published this post! But, I promise to read and return it in a timely fashion.)

We experimented with a new, as yet untested method of recording audio of the conversation - should it prove successful, we will add it to this post! (Update: audio is now live on our past events page!)

Have more resources? Let us know in the comments! Again, the full Twitter feed from the event is after the cut - click the read more button to see it.

Read more

We've been talking a lot lately about the Living Voters Guide - but for the most part we've really only told you the very basics, and encouraged you to register on the site and explore for yourself.  

Now that ballots have dropped, we wanted to take a moment to tell you a little bit more about how exactly the Living Voters Guide works: Why is it a "living" voters guide (versus, as I have heard many say, "a dead voters guide")? How does it help voters make decisions on the initiatives? Aren't people just sitting at home on their computers posting rants about taxes?

Additionally, if you haven't actually registered for an account, or had much time to explore, you haven't seen some of the inner workings of the Living Voters Guide in action. In that spirit, we put together a little more detail about the Living Voters Guide and included some screenshots to show you more about how the Living Voters Guide works - and has been working since our launch on September 21. Click the link below to read more! 

Read more

If you missed our Seattle Speaks program on Initiative 1098, it's available for streaming now - but you can also watch it on your television! Here are the upcoming opportunities:

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - 6:30 a.m.
Thursday, October 21, 2010 - 6:30 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.
Friday, October 22, 2010 - 12:00 a.m.
Sunday, October 24, 2010 - 3:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010 - 5:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.
Thursday, October 28, 2010 - 6:00 a.m.
Friday, October 29, 2010 - 5:00 a.m.
Sunday, October 31, 2010 - 4:30 a.m

The Seattle Channel has also uploaded all of the comments submitted during the program - you can read them all and chime in with your thoughts on their Seattle Speaks page.

There's a lot going on over at Countywide Community Forums. Right now, CCF is addressing the topic "Citizen Priorities for Government in Challenging Economic Times" - and they're looking for your feedback on the King County budget shortfall.

"Why should you care about the King County budget?  In more ways than most people realize, county services are a part of your day.  How you get to work or school, the water you drink, the votes you cast, public parks, and response time for 911, are just a few examples of what the county does."

If you've got thoughts about this topic, click on over to watch a video, take a survey, and leave your comments.

Countywide Community Forums publishes reports with the results of their findings; CityClub is using information from a previous report for this year's Community Matters Campaign on public trust.

CityClub's co-presenters often help promote our events because the topic we're discussing is directly related to work they already do, and of interest to their audience. Not only does this relationship help us get the word out about our programming; it also provides us with the ability to send enthusiastic attendees in the right direction for getting involved. There's an energy in the room after a CityClub forum - the drive to take action, to get involved.

YWCA of Seattle | King | Snohomish is a great partner, and is co-presenting our upcoming education series program, "Repaving the Road to Higher Education." This morning they shared with me a few of their programs that are right up the alley of this topic. I wanted to share them with you, as well. You can contact the YWCA directly to find out how to get involved, or talk to them at our event - a representative from YWCA of Seattle | King | Snohomish will be present at our materials table, with more information about the programs and the knowledge to answer your questions and get you plugged in.

• YWCA College Attainment Program:  Breaks down barriers to community college by equipping low-income adults with the basic skills and class prerequisites needed.  YWCA staff support each student’s individual success as they work toward certificates or degrees in Information Technology and Office Administration.  
• YWCA Girls First: Works with girls of color entering their freshman year to foster a strong sense of self and build confidence by breaking down barriers to completing high school. The girls receive culturally specific curriculum, social and academic support including volunteer mentors and  paid internships in a variety of fields. 
• YWCA Greenbridge Youth Employment Program: Breaks down barriers to high school graduation for low-income young adults living in the Greenbridge area.  Students work one-on-one with YWCA staff to set education and career goals, connecting them with paid and unpaid internship opportunities in a variety of fields. 
• YWCA Young Parent Program: Breaks down barriers to employment and college by providing homeless young parents with support and opportunities needed to follow career and educational goals.  YWCA provides intensive one-on-one case management and support services to help parents stabilize their housing and access higher education and career opportunities through internships, occupational trainings, and tutoring programs.

"Repaving the Road to Higher Education" is one week away! Register now and don't miss this fabulous conversation.

Tickets are sold out for our in-studio audience, but you can still participate in our Seattle Speaks conversation about Initiative 1098.

The program will be broadcast live online and on television - visit the Seattle Channel's Seattle Speaks website or tune in to Comcast Cable 21 or Broadstripe Channel 21. Via the website, you'll be able to take the polls online along with the studio audience, and send in your feedback.

We'll be monitoring online messages throughout the show. Ways to let us know your thoughts:

• Tune in to the live program and take the polls along with our studio audience at SeattleChannel.org
• Email the Seattle Channel at contact (at) seattlechannel.org with your comments
  
• CityClub's Facebook and Twitter
• Seattle Channel's Facebook and Twitter
  

If you want to give your question or comment the best chance of getting on-air, make sure it is coherent and expletive-free!

In the past, people have hosted Seattle Speaks watch parties - if you are planning one, attending one, or have heard of one, let us know! We'd be happy to spread the word if you're looking to expand your party.