By Lora Swift

The West Seattle Junction is pleased to announce the 6th year of partnerships between Summer Fest and Sustainable West Seattle. Sustainable West Seattle volunteer their time to program GreenLife, a community stage and area full of interesting sustainability demos, debates, and world music. As you may not know much about Sustainable West Seattle, this article I thought I would give you some background about the organization’s President and why they were chosen as one of our community partners.
The mission and vision of Sustainable West Seattle is to educate, create and be advocates for urban sustainability in their local community. Their vision is a West Seattle community of empowered citizens who actively lead us toward greater self-reliance, local democracy, social justice, and existence in harmony with life on earth.

President Stu Henessey, a longtime West Seattle neighbor and lifetime Seattle resident, grew up surrounded by trees, mountains and seas the instinctive feeling of being one with nature. He’s a part of the core group that develops several Sustainable West Seattle endeavors. His interests are carbon free transportation associated with West Seattle Spokespeople and DIY Bikes as well as growing food locally at COWS (Community Orchard of West Seattle).

You may know him as the owner of Alki Bike and Board in the Admiral District. Typical of a gardener/farmer, he likes to plant seeds of change in his community and watch them grow.

It was important Summer Fest programming also included an element of green sustainable outreach, something that truly understood the roots of community giving. The team at Sustainable West Seattle was everything the Junction was looking for in a nonprofit partner.

The GreenLife features 3 days of sustainability demonstrations, music and hand-on experiences. In years past, topics have included:  building with reclaimed materials; backyard beer making; and home canning and preservation.  GreenLife also excited to program a wide variety of music, ranging from world beats, to local Seattle homespun bands.

GreenLife area is located in the Chase Bank parking lot, off California Ave SW and SW Edmunds St and run from Friday, July 14th through Sunday, July 16th. Make sure you check out everything GreenLife has to offer this year.