Meet Our Rainmakers: Jody Thorsen Grage

Rainmaker Jody Thorsen Grage says, "Supporting the Emerald is a small but meaningful way to support the communities it serves."

by Amanda Sorell

Welcome to a new series: Meet Our Rainmakers!

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Jody Thorsen Grage

About a decade ago, Rainmaker Jody Thorsen Grage met the Emerald's founder, Marcus Harrison Green, an encounter that sparked admiration and, eventually, garnered her financial support. "I've known Marcus Harrison Green for a long time and feel that supporting the paper is a tribute to him," she said, noting that she became a Rainmaker a couple of years ago. "I regard it as an act of reparation. Supporting the Emerald is a small but meaningful way to support the communities it serves."

Thorsen Grage is enthusiastic about repairing in more ways than one, whether through financial reparations to specific communities or through mending clothing for other people. She's intent on finding ways to repair and reuse items to avoid discarding them. "There is no away to throw things," she said. "I'm 88, and I think us older people grew up in a different time when things were repaired. … My mother made all our clothes for my sister and I, and then there was an eight-year gap, and then when kid three was on the way, she said we were gonna have to … do the sewing ourselves. So we did."

She has made and mended clothes ever since. She volunteers at the Ballard Food Bank every Tuesday, mending the items people bring in to be fixed. Her specialty is zippers. "Your favorite things, packs and other things that you use or wear all the time, are the first things to wear out. So repairing packs is very important. … And there's a lot of things that go wrong with zippers. Zippers that come apart, or the bottom is wonky, those things can be repaired." She attends King County Repair Events, and other repair events she learns about through Zero-Waste Washington, to gift her skills to other members of the community. She says she'd love for the presence of menders at food banks to spread. "I think there should be someone fixing clothes in every food bank. I would be more than happy to help someone get the mending project going at other food banks."

Her interest in sewing and textiles overlaps with her Norwegian heritage. For decades, she's participated in Leikarringen Practice, or Norwegian folk dancing, and through this long-standing association with Norwegian groups across the United States and her many trips to Norway, she gathered myriad records and reference materials about Norwegian folk costumes — an informational treasure trove that she eventually shared with the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa.

Thorsen Grage is also a co-captain of the Ballard Commons Park Emergency Hub. "I encourage people to find out where their emergency-preparedness hub is and get involved," she said. And while she mostly engages with projects in the northern part of the city, in the past, she has also ventured into the South End to volunteer, such as by dropping off bike parts at Bike Works. Of South Seattle, she says, "I love to see and hear the great mix of people." And no matter what part of the city they're in, she believes food banks and emergency hubs "are both good, local community-building projects. And it seems to me that community-building is sometimes, in some places, a little hard to find," she said. She looks to the Emerald for its ability to bring community-building to the fore. "[There are] little things that people can do to help that aren't really, you know, difficult for them, but really help build the community and connect people. … Those little connections really help people feel like they live in a community that is supportive and connects individuals. So I think that's really what we need a lot more of these days. I really appreciate the approach that the Emerald has, and I think it is a good community-building venue for people. … That's a lot of the attitude I see in the Emerald, and I really appreciate that."

Amanda Sorell is a storyteller who lives in Seattle. She's an editor for the Emerald. Read her newsletter at eClips.Substack.com.

Featured Image designed by the Emerald team; photo courtesy of Jody Thorsen Grage.