Many people hear the acronym RB ABSPY and wonder, what is  RB ABSPY? Well, it stands for Rainier Beach A Beautiful Safe Place for Youth. It’s an initiative that is funded by the City of Seattle’s Department of Neighborhood who contracts the work out to Seattle Neighborhood Group (SNG) and the Southeast Network Safety Net Rainier Vista Boys and Girls Club. SNG subcontracts with RBAC to do youth and neighborhood and crime prevention through environmental design. RBAC has partnered with several other organizations and institutions in the community who are leading and brainstorming innovative ways to reduce the violence that is affecting youth in Rainier Beach. Some of the amazing staff at RBAC are activating hotspots in the Rainier Beach neighborhood through the Clean Crew, Circle Keepers, Corner Greeters, CW PBIS (CW PBIS is another acronym people raise eyebrows at, it means Community-Wide Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports).

We’re going to elaborate only on Rainier Beach United (RBU) in this article. RBU was started when Mahogany Purpose was laying the foundation for CW PBIS. AlMahogany Purpose, formerly with RBAC, Marty Jackson and Tanisha Scott with the Southeast Safety Network/RVBGC, Jenny Frankl, formerly with Seattle Neighborhood Group (SNG) now City of Seattle Public Utilities, Hana Mohamad, who was with Seattle’s Office of the City Auditors and Danielle Jackson, contracting with  RBAC through her organization CHAMPS (RSC) Resource & Service Center were at a table brainstorming how to activate space.

One thing Mahogany had in mind when joining RBAC was how to amplify the community values and create an approach to activate prevention and wellness that could include the heroes and stakeholders in the community. After many brainstorming meetings, we later activated RBU Luncheons. In the beginning, the luncheons had small attendance. So, it was suggested that CHAMPS RSC who was hosting monthly CONNECT luncheons in SE Seattle and SNG join RBU Luncheons. They decided to combine their contacts of businesses, organizations, stakeholders and heroes in SE Seattle. With that collaboration, we brainstormed how the community could provide violence prevention and intervention around our young people over lunch to address the violence that haunts young people.

Our next two luncheons at Rainier Beach Community Center were well attended. The 1st one was circles and the 2nd was speed networking. We were having so much fun and then COVID happened.  When we realized that we are going to have a long haul of COVID we (Marty, Tanisha, Danielle, and newly hired Cathie Wilmore.with SNG) decided to implement a virtual luncheon and invite anyone and everyone interested in having a conversation on building a partnership that will collaborate to provide healing, resources, services, interventions and preventions to stop the violence amongst our young people in our community. Doing this COVID season violence and mental illnesses has risen globally, but we must continue the work right here in our community.

So please join the luncheon at 11:30am on the 3rd Friday of every month and learn more about Rainier Beach United Luncheon, you can contact Danielle Jackson at danielle@rbactioncoalition.org. A Grubhub Gift Card is provided by SNG for your attendance and participation in our efforts to partner to make our neighborhood a safer place for youth and our community. Gift cards are limited, it’s first come first serve, so arrive on time.

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