The newly invigorated Capitol Hill Community Council officers wanted to take a different approach to our summer programming. This month, we’re asking you to help us raise money to provide much needed items for the people experiencing homelessness in our community. We’re also inviting local homelessness experts and service providers to present critical information, ways we can help, advocacy efforts, and the work still needed from a grassroots level to adequately address homelessness in our neighborhood and city. DONATE HERE

On July 30th, the Capitol Hill Community Council will use the money raised to pay for the supplies and items most requested by area homeless shelters/service providers. At the July 30th meeting, we’ll put together packs to give to the people most in need while listening to guests from DESC, YouthCare, Mary’s Place, Urban Rest Stop, and Chief Seattle Club.

Capitol Hill Community Council July Meeting
Thursday, July 30th — 6:30 PM — Cal Anderson Shelterhouse

A community is not a monument to individual preferences. It is a collective and living organism.

When I was 5 years old I remember attending my cousin/godfather’s high school graduation on the Rocky Boy Reservation in Montana. Watching him walk across that stage into a world unknown scared me, causing me to cry as I couldn’t reconcile the fear and sadness of change.

At such a young age, it was difficult to physically imagine what life would look like for him, for his relationship with his parents, or for our relationship; his graduation felt more like a funeral.

I often reflect on that memory and my feelings about change. Change is intimidating because it challenges the ego in its affirmation of our mortality; they don’t have funerals for change. We find comfort in the idea that in death, though we no longer are physically part of community, our story might live on after we’re gone. We hope that the way we made people feel, the joyful memories created, and our service to each other – components of what it takes to create a legend — might be applied to us.

It took me a long time to come to a place of peace in the context of change: even though our story fades away, we must continue to create the community we want to see ourselves in. Change may be scary, intimidating, equalizing, and humbling, but if I’m averse to change it says more about whether I’m even living today or not because we do all change.

We are not the same people we were when we graduated from high school, met our first love, or lost a loved one. We’ve embraced those changes because we’ve become more authentically who we are. In community, we are charged to help our communities do the same and that only happens by engaging with others. A community is not a monument to individual preferences. It is a collective and living organism.

I imagine a healthy, responsible parent nurtures unique, curious, empathetic progeny who will respect and demonstrate many of the values modeled to them by that parent and then feel empowered to take those values further, deeper, wider than ever dreamed. We must do that in community.

Because many available articles and statistics have highlighted homelessness, it is certainly easy to recognize drastic change through the stories of people experiencing homelessness across our city. Increases of more than 20% of people on the streets each night, criminalization in parks, and stigmatization of homelessness have created a gulf of empathy between our community and the people who most need support.

That’s why this month we are focusing on homelessness. In addition to a fundraiser to support the creation of 100 packs of most-needed items (e.g. socks, toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, sunscreen, tissue, chapstick, and more; you can still donate here), we are hosting an information and advocacy conversation this Thursday, July 30 at 6:30 pm at Cal Anderson Park Shelter House. Guests from Community Lunch Capitol Hill, DESC, YouthCare, and Chief Seattle Club will share more about their work, the current state of homelessness, and share actionable ways our community can help address homelessness.