The University of Washington Resilience Lab and the Campus Sustainability Fund have joined together to award grants to UW projects designed to cultivate sustainability, compassion and resiliency; to engage hardships, setbacks and failures with empathy and vulnerability; to foster connectedness, belonging and community; and to embrace both common humanity and diversity within the human experience. Students, staff and faculty from all three campuses have applied for seed grants to fund research, workshops, retreats, activities, faculty-invited speakers and other events tailored for students, faculty and staff in support of these aims. The range of proposals demonstrate the need and collective interest to realize sustainability and compassion-building work. Funded projects are intended to benefit the broad UW community at all three campuses.
See the full list of funded projects on the Resilience Lab's Seed Grants page. These are the projects funded solely by the CSF on the UW Seattle campus.
Amount Awarded: $2,787
Project Status: Completed
Amount Awarded: $2,000
Project Status: Active: Planning phase
This project utilizes the biannual UW Food Systems Seminar (NUTR 400/500) to support student learning and dialogue about food systems amidst the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism, which together amplify the need for health and food equity. This seminar will showcase researchers and organizers working at the confluence of these pandemics for positive and impactful change. Sessions will highlight challenges as well as transformation, hope, and potential for resilience and equity to root across the food system.
Amount Awarded: $3,000
Project Status: Completed
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to nearly 14,000 confirmed cases and over 600 deaths in King County. Furthermore, people of color are dying from COVID-19 at disproportionate rates in comparison to the white population. Washington State Governor Inslee issued the “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2. However, this mandate does not apply to custodians who are considered essential workers. To protect the health of the University of Washington Seattle Campus community, 259 custodial workers continue to work, cleaning and disinfecting various campus areas.
Amount Awarded: $3,000
Project Status: Completed
The goal of this project is to better understand how food systems and traditional health care services can work together to support the needs of food-insecure families. The Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic (OBCC) is a community health clinic located in the Central District of Seattle that provides low-income and predominately BIPOC families with free or low-cost medical, dental, mental health, and nutrition services.
Amount Awarded: $2,750
Project Status: Active: Planning phase
“On The Ground” would serve as a public record or social history of the work that has been done on the ground (or ground-adjacent) at UW. People can access an archive and learn from a directory of photography, personal anecdotes, and interviews, ranging topics from cultural history to current movements in and around the UW community. OTG will feature stories on Black, Indigenous, or minority undergraduates, graduates, and faculty in and around campus, who will share their experiences with the system and their frontline work in the movement for justice within various disciplines.
Amount Awarded: $3,000
Project Status: Active: Post-implementation phase
This project is co-led by a group of graduate Students of Color at UW, Kaleb Germinaro, Kayla Chui, Jessica Ramirez, and Dr. Shaneé Washington, a faculty member in the College of Education, who volunteer at various community learning spaces outside of schools. One of these spaces is Nurturing Roots, a 1/4-acre urban farm that dedicates itself to cultivating healthy food options by growing organic produce and engaging with community members through farm tours.
Amount Awarded: $3,000
Project Status: Completed
Historically, community gardens have served as a means of accessing fresh produce when prices are prohibitively high, such as during times of war, recession or, as we’re seeing, pandemic. However, in a city marked by staggering rates of displacement and homelessness, prices on natural, organic, and healthy food are consistently inhibitory regardless of the larger context. This is especially true for the over 200 University of Washington students and 1,100 young adults in Seattle struggling to obtain food daily.
Amount Awarded: $2,990
Project Status: Active: Planning phase
The aim of this project is to better understand how frontline communities define climate resilience and identify perceived factors that support or undermine resilience. Frontline communities are communities most affected by the impacts of climate change, and are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and lower-income compared to state averages.
Amount Awarded: $750
Project Status: Active: Planning phase
As graduate students in the Division of Art History and future educators, researchers, and museum professionals, we believe that we must be attuned to questions of diversity and its implications on our field. The art historical canon encourages prioritization and hierarchies within scholarship and museum displays. We aim to create an inclusive and actively anti-racist art history, by seeking out, researching, and teaching the work of artists and scholars that are often left on the margins.