Tag Archives: Skyway

Community

Skyway Youth Network Collaborative Encourages Kids to Advocate for Their Community

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by M. Anthony Davis

The Skyway Youth Network Collaborative (SYNC) is working with youth in the West Hill/Skyway area to provide leadership and community advocacy opportunities. SYNC, a collaborative that empowers youth to use their voices, two years ago created an opportunity for youth to engage local politicians and provide them with recommended actions that will better serve youth and families in their community.

One of the first projects the young people worked on was creating and distributing surveys in the community to determine what topics to focus on. The two major areas of concern they found were affordable housing and real investment. These topics fueled SYNC’s efforts this year. The process set them on a path that started with conversations with community members who are currently working to address concerns regarding affordable housing and culminated with a group of youth giving a presentation during a King County Council meeting. 

Continue reading Skyway Youth Network Collaborative Encourages Kids to Advocate for Their Community →
News

Food and Housing Resource Pop-Up Opens In Skyway

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by Elizabeth Turnbull

A free, multi-service resource center hosted by Renton Innovation Zone Partnership will be stationed at 12643 Renton Ave. S.on Sept. 4, Sept. 18, and three dates in October, to provide Skyway residents with housing assistance, school supplies, and food resources, among other things. 

Continue reading Food and Housing Resource Pop-Up Opens In Skyway →
Community

Photo Essay: Second Annual Afro Bite in Skyway

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by Susan Fried (words and photos)

Hundreds of people gathered in the parking lot of Catfish Corner Express in Skyway on Saturday, Aug. 9 for the Second Annual Afro Bite. Attendees sampled food from an assortment of Black-owned restaurants including the Mac Shack, Elotes Custom Corn, Heaven’s Kitchen, and of course, Seattle’s famous Catfish Corner. In addition to food, several Black-owned businesses also sold apparel, skin products, jewelry, books, and face masks. Continue reading Photo Essay: Second Annual Afro Bite in Skyway →

Community

Skyway’s Barbershop Row Returns, in Limited Form, Adjusting to Coronavirus Restrictions

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by M. Anthony Davis

Barbershops and beauty salons are more than just local businesses in Black communities. They represent safe spaces for communal gatherings and often serve as a hub for civic discourse, playing host to important cultural dialogue and connection. I vividly remember my early hair cut days, sitting in Greg’s chair — Greg was one of my first barbers — getting a skin-tight fade way back in 1996, as he explained to me in detail how the SuperSonics could beat Jordan’s Bulls and become NBA Champions. The barbershop is the one of the first places you’ll hear complex debates over sports, politics, religion, relationships, and everything in between. It’s also one of the few public spaces in a city with demographics like Seattle’s, where members of the Black community can have these debates without being under the microscope of whiteness. 

Continue reading Skyway’s Barbershop Row Returns, in Limited Form, Adjusting to Coronavirus Restrictions →
News

Skyway Residents Gather to Highlight Black-Led, Community-Driven Solutions

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by Carolyn Bick

When Elijah L. Lewis was born in Skyway Park two decades ago, he carried his mother’s grief over his father’s death inside himself.

“My father had been walking my little sister down the stairs when he had collapsed. At the time, we did not have a phone, because of the inequities we were suffering because of the poverty mindset … and the reality that we have to face,” Lewis said, describing how difficult it was for his family to summon medical aid. “My six-year-old [sibling], my nine-year-old sister, and my 10-year-old brother and mother, witnessed my father, who was a Black man, turn purple and die in front of their face. … We did not have any financial stability left when he passed, so we had to struggle.”

Continue reading Skyway Residents Gather to Highlight Black-Led, Community-Driven Solutions →
Community

Grandma’s Hands Sew Masks to Strengthen Community Ties in Skyway

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by Thea White

“Grandma’s hands clapped in church on Sunday morning

Grandma’s hands played a tambourine so well

Grandma’s hands used to issue out a warning

She’d say, ‘Billy don’t you run so fast

Might fall on a piece of glass

Might be snakes there in that grass,’

Grandma’s hands”

— Bill Withers

In the face of overwhelming uncertainty, Women United’s Pepper Pot Kinship Support Group is proving that Bill Withers was on to something when he spoke of the healing properties of a grandmother’s hands in his 1971 song “Grandma’s Hands.” 

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Voices

OPINION: A Pandemic May Not Discriminate, But Its Recovery Likely Will

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Coronavirus recovery can’t lead to a more gentrified Seattle.

by Marcus Harrison Green

(This article is published as part of an agreement with Crosscut)

On a typical Tuesday, the bench at Paul’s Customs Cuts in Skyway is jammed with aspiring “Ebony Men of the Year.”

But in these atypical times it sits empty, as its proprietor sits at home.

Continue reading OPINION: A Pandemic May Not Discriminate, But Its Recovery Likely Will →
Community, News

Skyway Park Set for $370,000 Revitalization Effort

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by Vivian Cheung

(This article was produced as part of the University of Washington’s Newslab that gives student journalists an opportunity to have their work appear in local publications )

Skyway Park will soon be getting a $370,000 facelift.

The King County Parks Division received a grant in that amount to revitalize and better activate the park for the local community. This grant is funded by the King County Parks’ Youth and Amateur Sports Grants program and through the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). Continue reading Skyway Park Set for $370,000 Revitalization Effort →

Feature

In Seattle, grandmothers raising kids have to rely on each other

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(This article originally appeared on Crosscut and has been reprinted with permission.)

For kinship caregivers raising another family member’s children, state support lags behind assistance for foster parents.

by Dorothy Edwards

At ages 69 and 71, Sadie Pimpleton and Gloria Johnson are both well into retirement. But instead of relaxing, the sisters are raising their grandchildren as their own.

Johnson is caring for two grandchildren, while Pimpleton is providing a home to three, including a 6-month-old. It is challenging, they say, but Pimpleton and Johnson have always counted on each other for support.

“I guess we are like each others right hand,” Pimpleton said.

The challenges grew in 2014 after Pimpleton’s husband of 43 years passed away, leaving her in a state of depression.

“Even though I had the grandkids, I would stay in and not go anywhere,” Pimpleton said.

It was during this low point that the family met Alesia Cannady and learned about her support group for grandparents raising their grandkids. Soon the sisters were attending a regular meetup called Pepper Pot, which was run by Cannady’s nonprofit Women United Seattle, mostly out of her Skyway home.

Continue reading In Seattle, grandmothers raising kids have to rely on each other →

Community, Education

Partnership Tackles Opportunity Gaps Facing Skyway Youth

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by Carolyn Bick

Ryan Quigtar grew up in the Skyway community. Even then, he said, there was a lack of educational and enrichment opportunities for school kids like him. Decades later, this lack of opportunity persists. But as the Executive Director of the Renton Innovation Zone Partnership, Quigtar is now in a place to help do something about it. Continue reading Partnership Tackles Opportunity Gaps Facing Skyway Youth →