The City of Seattle is launching 'Engage Seattle' a civic engagement initiative that will concentrate on three primary means of getting people involved with the city.

The first of these is a Public Engagement Calendar that will list, in one place for the first time all the meetings and events taking place in each of Seattle's neighborhoods.

The second aspect of the program is the encouragement of volunteerism as a means of leveraging those who care about their community to help their neighbors. The priorities identified in the Youth and Families Initiative provide the framework for volunteer opportunities.

Thirdly, the effort will seek community leaders, and help them increase their leadership skills. The first wave of these future leaders was identified during the Youth and Families initiative workshop in early June which saw 2800 people attend. To carry this forward the city will host 4 workshops for Engage Seattle during which people will be able to improve their skills and take the next steps toward being effective community leaders.

A meeting is scheduled at the Mayor's office for Tuesday, July 27 from 6pm to 7pm (but seating is very limited) during which the Engagement Calendar will make its debut and other aspects of the program will be explained.

If you'd like to attend please RSVP to sol.villarreal@seattle.gov.

Work on the initiative had already begun when the City of Seattle was awarded a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in the Cities of Service program, in which ten cities were awarded $200,000 leadership grants over a two year period to hire a Chief Service Officer whose role it is to plan and direct these efforts. A second round of grants was announced on June, 30.

If you have any questions, please contact Sol Villarreal, the Civic Engagement Coordinator at 206.233.2656 or Lynda Petersen, the Chief Service Officer at 206.684.7020.