SEED and SEEDArts Celebrate 50 Years of Uplifting Community in Southeast Seattle

Back in 1975, Seattle looked a lot different. The city was just recovering from the massive Boeing recession in the early '70s, Harper's Magazine dubbed Seattle the nation's "most livable city," and the Kingdome was near completion. But down in the South End, Seattleites in racially diverse neighborhoods had to contend with poorly developed infrastructure, institutional racism, and near economic abandonment by the city government.

Those conditions are what led 32 community groups to come together and form SouthEast Effective Development (SEED), an organization dedicated to bolstering affordable housing, economic development, and the arts in the city's southeastern region, which remains one of the most ethnically diverse areas in Seattle. For the past 50 years, SEED and its arts-focused org, SEEDArts, have funded public art, revived a business corridor, and brought more affordable housing developments to the South End.

And on Saturday, Aug. 23, SEED and SEEDArts will put on 98118 Fest and 50th Anniversary Party at Columbia Park to celebrate their five decades of supporting equitable growth in the area. The lineup includes a host of South End bands, performers, food trucks, and vendors who all represent the cultural diversity of the ZIP code. Primarily, the festival and celebration are rooted in what SEED does best — fostering community.

"At a time when there's so many challenges at the federal level, we really think a lot of the great solutions are going to come up from the community and up from grassroots initiatives," said Michael Seiwerath, SEED's executive director. "We're continuing to listen to the community and what its priorities are."

Over the years, SEED has accomplished a lot, from owning more than 1,000 affordable housing units like Columbia Gardens, Claremont, and the MLK Apartments to being part of an effort to facilitate the creation of the Columbia Hillman Arts & Cultural District and the Rainier Valley Creative District. They are responsible for developing Rainier Valley Square, keeping an affordable grocery store, Safeway, in the neighborhood, and developing two health clinics. Even just strolling down a 2-mile stretch of Rainier Avenue South, you can see tons of SEED- and SEEDArts-supported projects and housing developments from over the years.

Take, for example, the giant colorful mural on the side of the Darigold building, which depicts the diverse cultures of the Rainier Valley with Chief Sealth presiding over all as the sun beams around his head. SEEDArts commissioned artist Carlos Callejo to paint the mural in 1998, and he brought Joan Robbins and Deborah Bigelow-Johnson to assist in gridding and painting his design.

Those artists subsequently saw a need for an art gallery in southeast Seattle, and they formed a collective and opened Columbia City Gallery in 1999, a mile down from the mural. After the gallery lost its lease, they turned to SEEDArts, which started a capital campaign in 2002 to raise money to purchase the space so that the neighborhood would have a permanent gallery. Now, 26 years later, the Columbia City Gallery remains a strong art outpost. For SEED, development of the arts goes hand-in-hand with housing and development.

"What I think is amazing is that even in 1975, SEED had this great mission of affordable housing, economic development, and the arts," said Kathy Fowells, SEEDArts director. "So even back then, they really recognized that the arts can improve the quality of life and play a role in the community and economic development alongside affordable housing."

Just three years ago, the southeast Seattle community also celebrated the 100th anniversary of Rainier Arts Center. In 1995, SEED purchased the building, which sat unused as the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, and converted it into a thriving, multicultural community center now known as RAC. And last year, SEED officially signed over the low-power radio station KVRU 105.7, which serves the 98144 ZIP code, to Media for Informed Communities for more community-based programming.

Looking toward the next five decades, SEED and SEEDArts have ambitious goals. The cost of living across the country is perilously rising, and economic inequality makes things like owning a home or affording rent even more difficult in Seattle. 

Lots of effort is going into connecting families with resources and financial education around homeownership; currently, they are piloting a program with Black Home Initiative to assist stabilized families in SEED's buildings to enter a path to homeownership at their own speed. Seiwerath said that he and the team at SEED are looking forward to the construction of the Sam Smith Apartments — named after the first Black member of the Seattle City Council — that specifically includes family-sized affordable apartments over the next few years.

"We hear again and again about multi-generational families and the desire for one roof to have a grandparent, parents, and kids," said Seiwerath. "So we're building housing that the community wants and keeping it affordable."

Additionally, last year SEEDArts teamed up with the Black & Tan Hall and the Multicultural Community Coalition to complete the purchase of Hillman Hub, with plans to turn it into a community-controlled, affordable arts space in the heart of Hillman City. In January, SEED received $1.75 million from the Equitable Development Initiative to complete construction and development of the building. Over the next two months, all three organizations are hosting open forums for community feedback on what the new Hillman Hub will look like, from the people who need it the most.

"When you're pushing artists out of southeast Seattle, there's no further south they can go — they're getting pushed to the suburbs. Once the city loses that vitality, it doesn't come back, or it's very hard to recruit new people," said Fowells. "What we want is to make sure that all kinds of artists — visual artists, performing artists, media artists, public artists — have the space they need to do their work."

The 98118 Fest reflects the vibrancy of artists who called the South End home. The day's events start off with a Columbia City yoga session at noon with KEXP's DJ Riz Rollins, a Hillman City resident, behind the decks spinning tunes. Performance groups and Rainier Arts Center mainstays Adefua, Khmer Amarak, Double Dutch Divas, Jawbone Puppet Theater, and Let Them Create will also be on the lineup, with Latin funk group Reposado and rock duo The Black Tones headlining the event. Four food trucks will be on site to serve food, with the beloved but permanently closed Senegalese restaurant La Teranga making a one-day comeback.

For SEED, this celebration marks both how far the southeast Seattle community has come and how much there is still to accomplish.

98118 Fest takes place at Columbia Park, Saturday, Aug. 23, 12–6 p.m. SEED has a 50th Anniversary Community Survey that you can take online.