Meet Our Rainmakers: Sharon Maeda

Rainmaker Sharon Maeda says, "The Emerald is about getting to the heart and the soul of the people."

by Amanda Sorell

Welcome to a new series: Meet Our Rainmakers!

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Sharon Maeda

Sharon Maeda isn't technically a Rainmaker. She was for many years, but then she learned she could give more money to the Emerald if she used her IRA distribution as a one-time annual donation. Still, her ongoing support for the Emerald over the years has earned her honorary Rainmaker status.

In time, she would have a hand in shaping the Emerald as its interim managing editor and planning director, but she started as an avid reader. "I've been reading the Emerald since the beginning. As a longtime media maker and activist, I know that local BIPOC news, culture, and information is essential to maintain democracy." Maeda says the Emerald is "the best local source of diverse news, culture, and information about everything BIPOC, including guides on everything from LGBTQIA resources to great ethnic food!"

Maeda lives in the Judkins Park neighborhood, but she's lived and worked all over the South End: "I've lived in Mt. Baker, Lakewood, White Center; worked in Delridge, White Center, CID, Columbia City." After getting her start as a public school teacher, she pivoted into media, where she felt she could make more of a difference. "I found that so much that the kids were watching on primetime TV was negative or violent. So I started taking filmmaking classes on the side, and I ended up leaving teaching and going into media, because I felt that media had a bigger impact on whatever social justice issues I cared about." And while she worked in television and radio and "online print media was not something that I was used to," she took notice when the Emerald emerged, "because another part of what I've been involved in is inclusion of People of Color and women in the media, because we have a different perspective. And it wasn't really present."

Shortly before her retirement, Maeda befriended the Emerald's founder, Marcus Harrison Green, through their mutual involvement in KVRU, a community radio station in Columbia City. And over drinks to celebrate her retirement, she says, "little did I know that by the time we finished our little happy hours, he had convinced me to be interim managing editor of the Emerald for three months," from January to March of 2020. From there, she took note of the Emerald's limited operating budget and tasked herself with raising more money. "So I said, 'Okay, I'll raise half a million dollars, and then I'm out, I'm retired, period, no matter what. So that's what I did. And I threw spaghetti on the wall and raised every dime I could get from anywhere."

After that, Maeda did retire. But that doesn't mean she slowed down. She has served on multiple local and national boards and been part of "too many organizations to name." She's also on the committee for the Emerald's upcoming birthday party. But heading into this year, she decided to dedicate all of her energy and time to the November election, doing everything from "sending 500 postcards to Nevada, where there are a lot of Asian American and Native Hawaiians," to strategizing with friends about how to alert people to Project 2025. "And as we get closer to the election, I don't know if I'm going to be on the ground in Wisconsin or Nevada, but I've offered myself to do that. I've worked on presidential campaigns since Bobby Kennedy. So I've been involved in this kind of stuff for a long, long time. And I decided to basically clear the deck, because our democracy is at risk."

When she's not engaged in activism, Maeda loves to eat across the South End: "I love all the different family-owned cafes, ethnic cafes, all up and down Rainier and MLK, and all the way to White Center and Skyway and Federal Way." She likes to eat with friends at Musang and learn at the Wing Luke Museum. She spends time at the Beacon Hill library doing "research just for the fun of it on various topics that are interesting." And she swims every morning at the Meredith Mathews East Madison YMCA with other retiree women: "We have great conversations, we've saved the world a million times over. We're very engaged in political things in the community."

Amid all this activity, she still makes time to read the Emerald every day. "The first thing I do every morning is click on the Emerald. … It uplifts voices and cultures and stories. A week doesn't go by when I don't read something in the Emerald that I'd never heard of before. And I think I'm pretty informed. But there are just so many wonderful things going on in so many groups that are working to empower." A story that has deeply impacted her and that she often shares with others to introduce them to the Emerald is a story Marcus Harrison Green wrote, "How I Survived the Collision of Racism and the Stigma of Mental Illness." She said, "That story, no matter how many times I read it, still [gives me] chills. … And people have told me that they were in tears when they finished reading it."

Maeda's decades of diverse media work and widespread involvement give her unique insight into the Emerald's vital role. "I'm somebody who, at one point, was reading 14 daily newspapers every morning. … The Emerald touches people in a very special way, and moreso than other places. … The Emerald is about getting to the heart and the soul of the people."

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 Sharon Maeda.