Community Stories
As part of the Shape Our Water project, we invited community-based organizations throughout Seattle to tell us about their connections to urban waters, and what they value about how water shapes their lives.
We invite you to explore these stories from community members and think about what you value about places where you live, work, and play.
Production Partners
Community storytelling happens through close collaboration between the storytellers and a team of professional writers, broadcasters, and artists. Together, our co-creators and production partners are exploring the power of storytelling to illuminate what matters most to us as individuals and as a community.
Marcus Harrison Green (he/him) is the founder of the South Seattle Emerald, a columnist for The Seattle Times, a former Reporting Fellow with YES! Magazine, a past board member of the Western Washington Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and a recipient of Crosscut’s Courage Award for Culture. After an unfulfilling stint working for a Los Angeles based hedge-fund in his twenties, Marcus returned to his community determined to tell its true story, which led him to start the South Seattle Emerald, and eventually move on to cover the area as a reporter for The Seattle Times.
To be able to connect water with the beautiful surroundings and community of South Seattle is a dream come true for him.
For nearly six years the South Seattle Emerald has operated as an amplifier for Seattle’s communities of color. It was created as a nonprofit news outlet with the mission of offering a wider lens of Seattle’s most diverse, least affluent, and woefully underreported communities.
It serves today as one of the dwindling number of POC-centered media publications in the city, as most others have had to shutter their doors due to financial difficulties. This reality has made its presence even more critical in a city with yawning inequality and racial disparities.
Luzviminda Uzuri “Lulu” Carpenter, Ms. Lulu or LuluNation (she/her) is a Media Justice Advocate, Educator, and Organizer, the Station Manager of KVRU 105.7 FM in SouthEnd Seattle; a Performance & Media Arts Teacher at Seattle Girls’ School, a social justice and STEAM middle school; Director of Alphabet Alliance of Color (AAoC), a grassroots organizing alliance for Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (QTBIPOC); Teacher Advisory Board Member at MoPop Museum; and member of Washington State Advisory Board to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. She has worked and performed for over 15 years in Seattle with community organizations that helped to form her analysis around youth and intergenerational work, gender-based violence, media justice, art, and cultural work.
Lisl Stadler (she/her) is a volunteer producer and programmer with KVRU 105.7 FM, a community radio station dedicated to bringing diverse voices onto the airwaves. Initially from rural, incorporated Klickitat County, Lisl was first introduced to radio in eighth grade when producers from BBC World Have Your Say hosted a recording in The Dalles, Oregon. Lisl says: “When I came to KVRU I thought I wanted to have a show of my own, but the more I got into radio hosting, the more I realized that this was my version of the BBC Radio host’s job – that building community throughout the world by sharing stories, and building the confidence in individuals that their story matters, is what matters most to me. That’s what I see in the Shape Our Water project. There’s a huge difference between creating a plan for a community and creating a plan with a community.”
Broadcasting from Southeast Seattle, KVRU 105.7 FM is a low-power radio station packed with high-powered ideas for supporting local creativity and working toward a more just society. Our goal is to provide our listeners with opportunities to share their stories and develop ongoing, community-focused programming. KVRU is located in the Dakota Place apartment building in the Mt. Baker/Genesee neighborhood. Signal coverage includes most of Southeast Seattle and some areas beyond.
Chloe Collyer (they/them) is a 5th-generation Seattleite who works as a freelance photojournalist and teaches photography to young people.
After 10 years of studying photography all around the Puget Sound area, Chloe graduated from the Seattle Central Creative Academy and has now dedicated their life to telling the stories of others and documenting issues of human rights for both local and national news organizations, nonprofits, and government entities.