The West Seattle Blockwatch Captains' Network received good news last week in the form of a check. Co-chair Karen Berge said the network received a $4000 grant from the Bill Wright Technology Fund, a matching program through the City of Seattle.

WSBCN co-chair Deb Greer officially accepted the grant during a special session of the Seattle City Council Energy, Technology and Civil Rights committee on Thursday, Sept. 22.

The video of Greer’s speech is available online here. She begins speaking 66 minutes and 15 seconds into the video.

Berge said the grant, “will allow us to achieve our primary goal of having an online tool that blockwatch captains can use to contact and locate each other.”

While accepting the grant from the City Council, Greer said, “the main part of our grant is to get people online and make it an open system,” so people can find blockwatch captains for their neighborhood, communicate with neighboring captains and identify parts of West Seattle that are in need of blockwatches.

Committee chair and councilmember Bruce Harrell said of the WSBCN’s plan: “I think that we can witness how rich Seattle is in terms of the novelty and commitment from our non-profit community … and this is a clear demonstration of that.”

Greer also said while blockwatches are traditionally thought of as crime prevention, the WSBCN is working towards every blockwatch functioning as an emergency preparedness and community building hub as well.

“West Seattle is in the forefront of Seattle area community preparedness efforts with "West Seattle Be Prepared" (online at www.westseattlebeprepared.wordpress.com and www.westseattlebeprepared.org),” Berge said. “11 emergency communication hubs throughout West Seattle have been established so far.”

The West Seattle Blockwatch Captains Network meets the fourth Tuesday of each month at the SPD Southwest Precinct (2300 S.W. Webster). They are open to the public and the next meeting will be Oct. 21.