Pounding the pavement, knocking on doors and entering businesses where she wasn’t fluent in the language spoken there, Rachel Myers did outreach to Renton’s vulnerable and underserved populations about disaster preparedness, starting in the fall of 2008.
A lot of what she did, as an AmeriCorps volunteer for the city’s Fire and Emergency Management Department, was to connect different communities with the city and sometimes she was the first city representative to speak with them.
The job could be challenging, as she was sometimes met with no response and had to visit more often.
But to Myers, giving up was not an option.
“Because if you give up, you aren’t going to get any results,” she said. “They’re not looking to come to you, you have to go out and reach out to them. That’s what outreach is about.”
Myers along with two other panelists dispensed advice to a crowded room of city residents at the Neighborhood Program’s meeting on “Embracing Diversity in our Neighborhoods” Oct. 5.
If Renton residents want to embrace and engage the city’s diverse population, it’s going to take patience, persistence and establishing trust the panelists said.
That was the re-occurring message conveyed by panelists Myers, Kevin Henry, the City of Bellevue’s communications coordinator for cultural diversity, and Renee Emerson, a resident of the Evendell neighborhood and program board member.
The panel discussion was a chance for residents to get ideas on how to engage their neighbors who may come from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
Renton’s population is slightly more than 50 percent people of color.
Thirty-five residents attended the event, representing 18 neighborhoods, along with City Council member Greg Taylor, Renton School Board President Al Talley and City Council candidate Phyllis Forister.
The audience posed questions, including where to get their materials translated and by whom, how to engage their neighbors in events and what the panelists have learned about their experiences.
One woman asked how to embrace diversity without putting someone off in the (white) mainstream.
Henry provided this analogy: “I go to movies all the time where I don’t see anybody black in the movie.”
He went on to say that diversity should be inclusive of everybody, including the white “mainstream.”
When asked why does this event about diversity or a specific ethnic group apply to me, Henry said it’s best to draw them out. By asking them what background their lineage is from, for example Irish, which provides them with a context to participate.
He has been creating understanding and bridging cultures in his role for Bellevue for 18 years. He shared his successes and failures with the group.
One of the biggest challenges Henry noticed as a re-occurring topic at the meeting was establishing a sense of trust.
“If I come up and knock on your door and I’m one culture and you’re from another culture, it’s going to take more time for you to trust me,” he said.
This can be a problem, especially with language differences, Henry said.
“So it takes a certain amount of redundancy of several phone calls, knocking on your door, maybe once a week,” he said. “And then finally people say, ‘hey you know this person has been here five times, maybe now I’ll go to their event.'”
In her work with the city, Myers identified the three largest diverse populations in Renton: Latinos, Vietnamese and Russian-speaking people, meaning Russian and Ukrainian.
“(Outreach) can be a ton of work,” she said, but “it is so worth the effort.”
Mary Dunlap has had some success in her President Park neighborhood in the Highlands.
They have Filipinos, Mexicans, Asians, African Americans and Caucasians, she said, and many turned out for their summer picnic.
“And that’s good because they got to meet each other,” Dunlap said. “So, when something happens, hopefully they feel like they can come out of their houses and talk to each other – you know, (if) something bad happens or good happens.”
