How Green (and Hopeful) It Is

In the earliest days of One Roof Foundation, Mari Horita and colleagues were determining the nonprofit organization’s three action pillars. The concept was for each pillar to tangibly and positively change our Seattle and Pacific Northwest community for the better.  

“Because we had identified our other two pillars [ending youth homelessness and more access to play for underserved youth], we were looking for a third pillar back in 2020,” said Horita, Kraken senior vice president for social impact & civil affairs and executive director of One Roof Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Kraken and Climate Pledge Arena. “We decided to overlay sustainability and social justice, which becomes environmental justice.” 

The foundation chose the pillar, inspired by both the Amazon naming rights Climate Pledge Arena partnership committing all-in to sustainability plus the desire to advance social justice.  

Horita and colleagues were wise enough to acknowledge: “We didn’t know what that meant.” Horita spent 10 months seeking that answer by connecting with city,  county  and foundation leaders in the space, plus asking with whom the foundation should consult about partnering on environmental justice projects. 

“They all said reach out to Paulina Lopez in the South Park neighborhood,” said Horita. “She was running a group, the Duwamish River Community Coalition [DRCC]. We met with her time and time again.” 

Lopez, DRCC executive director, was understandably skeptical at first. Many companies flashed interest, leveraging the DRCC to generate a measure of goodwill before moving on to pressing business initiatives. One Roof committed to a long-term partnership to help support the community and raise awareness of the environmental harms they face, in South Park and Duwamish Valley. The latter flanks the lower Duwamish River through South Seattle and into parts of Tukwila and unincorporated King County. 

As an initial show of good faith, One Roof gathered Kraken and arena employees and their families to participate in a cleanup day along Seattle’s only river in April 2022. It represented the first of what are now annual hands-on volunteer river cleanup days. The most recent effort during this spring totaled 900 pounds of litter picked up and removed from the site. The Duwamish Valley Youth Corps, founding partner Alaska Airlines employees and members of the city’s Office of Sustainability & Environment participated as well.

"Alaska is committed to minimizing the impacts of waste in our communities, whether eliminating plastic from our onboard service or cleaning up trash in our local neighborhoods,” said Ryan Spies, managing director of sustainability for Alaska Airlines. “It’s an important way for us to give back to our hometown.” 

One Roof, DRCC and Alaska Airlines have deepened and furthered the partnership since that first cleanup effort. To that end, Lopez asked the partners to help address water and air pollution overall, plus support youth in South Park, many of whom grow up in low-income families.  

“Duwamish Valley has the highest asthma hospitalization rates in the Seattle area and very high air pollution levels,” said Lopez. “We have been working on reducing the pollution through our Duwamish Valley Clean Air Program. Part of the strategy is to establish greenery in the community as a way of lowering the air pollution rates that we have.”

A new initiative is the installation of living green walls in the South Park and Georgetown neighborhoods this spring, with completion set for early May. It started with Lopez brainstorming with former Kraken vice president of sustainability, Rob Johnson, who also consulted with  Kraken director of sustainability, Brianna Treat. The question posed to  athe DRCC leader was what did she think  can make a big difference in the Duwamish Valley.  

“My answer was trees,” said Lopez, who has been leading community action ranging from civil rights to social and environmental justice to education to equity and diversity for 25 years in the Duwamish Valley.“It would make a difference to plant a lot of trees in our industrial area, because that's where the most cement and gray exists. What if we could collaboratively transform the gray to green? That was the idea.” 

While One Roof Foundation,  Alaska Airlines and the city’s Office of Sustainability & Environment  provided the funds , Lopez brought another collaborator to the greening initiative. Namely Dirt Corps, a collective of tradespeople and mentor-teachers who both do the green walls work and fulfill the Dirt Corps mission “to create access to green [sustainability] careers.”  

Along with green wall installation, Dirt Corps offers hands-on training focused on rain garden and cistern design/build, operations and maintenance, vegetation management and ecological restoration. The collective aims to pass on strategies to others in the growing field of ecologically-focused careers. 

“We work very closely with Dirt Corps here in the community,” said Lopez. “They hire our local youth to be part of their team ... We decided to start with the specific green wall [in South Park], because it's located along the main corridor of the industries. It will be a good opportunity to show other industries what they can do with their outside areas to bring more green to the community.” 

Serving South Park’s Youth 

When One Roof and the DRCC first connected years back on its purposeful and practical partnership, Lopez asked outright for support of youth in Duwamish Valley. The answer from Horita was an immediate and enthusiastic “Yes.” 

“We were happy to provide more opportunities for those kids and their futures,” said Horita. “We did sports clinics down there, brought kids to our team/arena preview center and other field trips. We are providing internships, training's and panels, all to show what is possible for the kids from school age and into adult years.” 

The youth-oriented work and career objective remains central to the efforts to reduce air and water pollution in Duwamish Valley. What’s more, the partnership has directly and positively impacted young students’ health. To help offset some of the resulting negative health impacts of industries, major highways and Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, One Roof Foundation partnered with the DRCC and the University of Washington School of Public Health  in 2022 to purchase and install HEPA grade air filters in every classroom and learning space in South Park’s Concord Elementary School.

This spring, all of the Concord Elementary air filters were replaced. Plus, there was another installation of the HEPA grade filters completed at Rainier Prep, a fifth to eighth grade, open-enrollment, full inclusion, public charter school in the Highline neighborhood. Full Circle with City’s Office of Sustainability & Environment 
Office of Sustainability & Environment on a career track that has included roles of equity and environment manager, climate justice director and deputy director addressing the root causes and impact of climate change. Allala was recently appointed Acting Director for the Office of  Sustainability and Environment by Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson.  

“Our office is always looking for long-term partnerships with community organizations like the One Roof Foundation and DRCC that are working in Duwamish Valley,” said Allala. “It is a community with immigrants, refugees and people of color who experience a cumulative and negative impact on their health due to water and air pollution from manufacturing and other industries. That includes higher instances of pulmonary health problems and disparate life expectancy.  

“It’s all the more reason to be ameliorating those deficiencies the best we can, thanks to Paula Lopez, DRCC and One Roof Foundation. When they get together on environmental justice, you can see what civic action looks like. Over the years, they have continued engagement, and now with the installation of green walls.” 

“The green walls provide education in the community and among businesses, showing a way to step up and improve environmental impact. It can be everyone doing their part.” 

Allala is equally impressed and enthused about the on-the-job-training element of the living walls installations.  

“I have so much hope about the leadership development of young people,” said Allala about teaching members of the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps about how to counteract pollution and climate change. “The youth have really answered the call. I sense they feel the passion and the duty. They have contextual reasons for why this work is important ... they can be leaders we need in the future.”