Seattle Neighborhood Leads the Sustainability Charge
In her mid-40s, Vic Opperman was ready to take up the toughest job she'd ever love. The Seattle resident had long planned to join the U.S. Peace Corps, and the time to do so had finally come.
"But right before the second Iraq war," she says, "I changed my mind. I decided the U.S. needs more help than some of these other countries."
So instead, Opperman stayed put. And in 2003 -- along with Artemis Jones and David Wright -- she founded one of the most progressive green neighborhood groups in any of the country's large cities. Sustainable Ballard (SB), named after the Ballard neighborhood where the project began, was originally a response to the war in Iraq. Opperman explains that she and fellow co-founders wanted to do something tangible "and something that had to do with energy conservation because we really felt like the war had to do with energy scarcity."
That year, Opperman and co-founders Jones and Wright, helped put on Ballard's first-ever sustainability festival as a way to connect with like-minded neighbors and reach out to others. The two-day program had a $1,500 budget and drew about 1,000 people. By 2007, the annual community festival's budget had grown to $35,000 and attracted some 10,000 participants. It includes keynote speakers on sustainability, displays and demonstrations about energy conservation in the home, and information about alternative transportation and local eating.
Opperman considers the annual fair a feat for the grassroots group, whose motto is, "Be the We." The annual event increases awareness of sustainability issues and encourages neighbors to get involved. Perhaps most importantly, it gets the wheels spinning, inspiring productive brainstorming at monthly meetings. Out of these get-togethers have come innovative community projects and events that run the eco-gamut, from holding locally-sourced neighborhood dinners and issuing "undrivers" licenses, to constructing community-designed bike racks and mobile hygiene centers for the homeless.
With more and more Seattleites riding bikes in recent years, SB members noticed that there were very few places to park and lock them. The group decided to sponsor a bike rack design contest, calling for submissions from Ballard's middle- and high-schoolers and from adults. With labor donated by local metal shops, six of the designs are now being built.The city's Department of Neighborhoods gave the group a $15,000 grant for project materials.
Seattle's Neighborhood Matching Fund provides money to groups and organizations for neighborhood-initiated improvement, organizing or planning projects. When a project is approved, the city matches the community's contribution with labor, materials, professional services or cash.
Opperman says several businesses in the city are now using the designs to build racks in front of their stores, and at least one shopping plaza has requested blueprints.
SB is also driving an initiative that supports the city's ten-year plan to end homelessness. About two years ago, one member came up with the idea to construct a 12-story, $10 million resource center for the 10,000 or so homeless residents of King County. The idea has since been scaled back into something more bite-sized. Designers and builders are constructing a prototype for a mobile hygiene center that has two showers, two toilets and two sinks. They will use recycled materials and include solar hot water and LED lighting. The 10'x15' center on wheels is expected to be ready for Ballard's sustainability festival in fall 2008.
SB's work has had an impact at the district and city council levels as well as on other communities. Opperman is the first sustainability chair of the Ballard Chamber, which is part of the district council. SB also has the ear of its city council representative, who supports the homeless center idea.
"A Blueprint for Everytown U.S.A." is SB's tagline. As Opperman explains, the group is meant to serve not so much as a schematic, but as an attitude guide -- to show people how to work with a community and inspire them to tackle the issues that most concern them.
To this end, Opperman helped found SCALLOPS (Sustainable Communities All Over Puget Sound) in 2007. Now comprised of sixty groups, SCALLOPS has some exciting sponsorship prospects, like Microsoft and the Seattle Foundation. It acts as an umbrella organization under which green Seattle neighborhood groups are organizing.
"We don’t set what the issues are, and we don’t have a template for each town," says Opperman. "The organization works as a conduit for best practices."
Opperman dreams, for example, of the mobile hygiene center idea taking root in other neighborhoods. "You can imagine 20 communities doing this, and each community having ten in various church parking lots."
One large joint project the group is researching is tentatively called, "Watertown Transit and Trade." The idea is to re-create a trade network between communities on Puget Sound, using sailboats and non-motorized vehicles. The idea is not new; up until the 1930s, all goods were moved by water transport, and every community on the water had some sort of dock for loading and unloading trade items. Quantities exchanged under the new system would be small, so as not to fall under the purview of maritime laws and taxes, says Opperman. Products could include locally-produced beer, wine, cheese, and bicycles.
"We're just starting to pencil this out, and what we're trying to do is bring this to a scale that we can actually work on," says Opperman.
As for Opperman’s dream of joining the Peace Corps, she says it’s been replaced with a passion for sustainable living.
"My life's work is focused here at home on the sustainability front ... slogging it out as an equal neighbor in my neighborhood and region," she says. "Most everyone truly wants to make a positive contribution to their families, friends, themselves and the world. Sustainable Ballard was created to give people tools and resources for making positive contributions."
Photo Caption: This rendering shows a 10x15 foot mobile hygiene center for the homeless. The idea is being developed by Sustainable Ballard, a grassroots neighborhood group in Seattle, in support of a city initiative to end homelessness. A full-scale prototype of the center is expected to be ready for the group’s fall festival in 2008. (Photo courtesy of Sustainable Ballard).
