 City Cooling Centers in King County for August 11-14
Note: Information as of 8/11, 5 pm. These locations and times may change. Please check links at kcemergency.com for updates and more information. Auburn Senior Activity Center, 808 Ninth Street SE, Auburn (Thursday and Friday 8 am-5pm) North Bellevue Community Center, 4063 148th Ave. NE (Thursday and Friday, 8:30 am – 6pm) Covington City Hall Community Room, 16720 SE 271st St (Thursday and Friday, 8am – 5 pm) Issaquah Senior Center, 75 NE Creek Way (Thursday and Friday, 8:30 am – 9 pm) Kent
Maple Valley
Air-conditioned Seattle libraries open on Wednesday, August 11 Open hours for these locations are from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Open hours for these locations are from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Open hours for these locations are from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Open hours for these locations are from 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Seattle Center Armory is open to the public and is equipped with air conditioning and filtration. View the campus map PDF.
Seattle Parks and Recreation will open cooling centers at the following sites with air-conditioning Thursday – Saturday from 2:00 PM – 8:00 PM:
Please call ahead to confirm hours and availability. All sites have air-conditioning unless noted.
The following day center locations for people experiencing homelessness are open to the public (with some restrictions), accept pets, and have air-conditioning:
Snoqualmie
Tukwila
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 Living Well Kent is excited to be hosting our annual farmers market, for the first time since 2019. After a year of curveballs being thrown at us all, things are slowly falling back into place. During this time frame, we’ve had plenty of time to ponder the food systems we are currently living under, while crafting up exciting new projects for the future. With our farmers market set to open on Saturday, June 12th, we thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to look into the history of farmers markets: how did we get here today, and why is it important for us all? What we refer to as “Farmers Markets” was the standard way of buying, selling, or trading produce and merchandise in the past. They have been designated spaces for not only physical goods, but also as important social hubs; where community members who may otherwise never meet are able to get to know one-another personally. The middleman, whether it be grocery stores or other third-party sellers, are cut out and you have the opportunity to receive your products from the source itself.  Globally, farmers markets can be traced back at least 5000 years, where they were in abundance along the Nile River of Egypt. In the US, we can date our first official farmers market to 1730, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The city planners at the time were the first to intentionally plan their construction with a designated market space in the city center. This 120-square foot area became known as the Lancaster Central Market, and it’s still running today. It is believed that this market may have hosted up to 400 vendors at a certain point. At the time, both markets and farmer’s stands (known as “curb markets”) were commonplace and essential to daily life. For many communities, such as Lancaster, farmers markets were the place to purchase fresh and local produce, meats, or baked goods. Today, quality produce is seen as a commodity; but going back 300 years, this was the norm.  Things started to shift around the timeframe of Westward Expansion. For the first time, communities were settling in towns and cities away from established farmlands. Shortly after, these cities had newfound access to improved roads, faster transportation, and refrigeration. All of these shifts led to a drastic downfall in farmers markets and an uprise in grocery stores. In 1970, only about 340 farmers markets remained nationwide. Most of these were run by resellers, rather than farmers themselves. Luckily, the 70s brought a new wave of interest, concerning the support of local businesses while becoming health-conscious, environmentally friendly individuals. Right as they were on the verge of eradication, farmers markets started to gain serious traction again. Within a couple of decades, they were back in abundance and stronger than ever. Between 1994 and 2008, there was a 300% increase in markets nationwide. Today, there are more than 8,600 farmers markets registered in the USDA Farmers Market Directory, with numbers still growing today.  Farmer’s Markets are a direct way of rebuilding local food production, which is beneficial to us all! Humans, plus all of the flora and fauna on this earth we call home. Food is a way to celebrate our roots and bring us together. Farmers markets maintain the ingredients and social relationships which directly fuel our communities. They provide accessible and affordable nourishment, while keeping our farmers and artisans alive. Environmentally, the small-scale farms responsible for local foods have a significant impact on the restoration of our soil and air quality. When we consider the ways of the future, LWK is committed to feeding our communities, while keeping our planet alive and healthy. We hope to see you all at this year’s market!
Today marks the 51st anniversary of the first recognized Earth Day. 1970 went down in history as the year in which the modern environmental movement was born. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin is coined as the leader of this movement. After witnessing an oil spill off the shore of Santa Barbara in 1969, he recruited a staff of 85 members to organize a coalition whose goal would be to raise awareness concerning air and water pollution. Senator Nelson specifically targeted student campuses, seeing the strength of their activism throughout the anti-war movement. Earth Day served as a binding force between groups who had previously been fighting against issues such as pollution, toxic dump sites, oil spills, the use of pesticides, and endangered animal species as separate causes. Within one decade of the first Earth Day celebration, numerous new federal environmentally protective laws had been introduced and passed, along with the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
As wonderful as these changes were, the modern movement towards environmental justice has a persisting problem with diversity. The concerns of environmental destruction has always been a relevant issue to non-white communities. Many Black and Indigenous peoples were exploited through physical labor, in order to sustain the very infrastructures which ended up polluting our society. There were also several BIPOC activists who had been organizing prior to the modern environmental movement. Such as Dolores Huerta, who began organizing with Cesar Chavez in the early 1960s. Together, they founded the United Farmworkers or UFW. Her work was implemental in gaining rights for agricultural workers, as well as the banning of harmful pesticides like DDT. There is a societal expectation for every human to bare equal responsibility in the undoing of our ecological damage but there have been disproportionate effects of environmental destruction on BIPOC and low-income communities: from the proximity of landfill sites to communities of color; to lead-pipes serving the water supply for predominantly Black neighborhoods; or the lack of fresh and affordable produce in low-income communities. Predominantly middle-to-upper-class and white communities typically do not experience the direct effects of climate change, which enables their lens to focus on the larger climate issues: such as the ozone layer or recycling. The history of red-lining and segregation has allowed these communities to mainly thrive in environmentally safe neighborhoods. Meanwhile, the frequent environmental injustices that take place in low-income areas and communities of color expose already vulnerable populations to even greater health risks. One of the ways we support community wellness and environmental justice at Living Well Kent is through our Farming Program. Our program grants farmland and a year-round greenhouse, to BIPOC farmers to grow their own food. This space allows our immigrant and refugee communities to have culturally appropriate foods, organic and accessible fresh produce, and the opportunity to directly reap the benefits of their own labor. This is one of the many ongoing steps we have taken towards tackling environmental justice and ensuring our community that they are deserving of healthy food and land. This Earth Day, we are grateful for all steps taken with the well-being of the planet in mind. We celebrate all who have organized, advocated, and sought to bring justice to our environment. At Living Well Kent we also advocate for those who are commonly left out of the decision-making dialogue, those overlooked within the mainstream environmental justice movement, and those who live with the everyday repercussions of climate change. If you would like to support Living Well Kent, our farm program, and our farmers, please consider signing up for our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program for this summer. All details can be found on our website at https://livingwellkent.org/csa.html If interested, please contact our Food Access and Farm Manager, Xavier, at xavier@livingwellkent.org |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2021
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Living Well Kent is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Tax ID 81-4451307 Contributions are tax deductible to the extent allowable by law, and every gift is appreciated and bound by our Privacy Policy.
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