Thousands of SU community members — students, staff, faculty and alumni — have contributed to solving homelessness in our region. They’ve led nonprofits, done service learning, worked on research and advocacy projects, served as case managers, driven policy change, hosted major community events to serve people experiencing homelessness and so much more. We honored many of them Saturday night, Feb. 22 with an event we called “HEH Hall of Fame,” working with our SU members of Higher Ed on Homelessness (HEH) and the SU Athletic Department.
For our project, it was an especially joyous reunion, as we greeted many of our past student assistants, friends, Journalism Fellows and our founding director, Barry Mitzman.
The night started with a happy hour at Southpaw Pizza. Many thanks to Southpaw for their hospitality, and to the Athletic Department and Institute of Public Service for comping the food and beverages for the attendees. The Athletic Department also provided comp tickets for honorees. During halftime, we celebrated on court as a video montage of about 100 honorees — below — played on the monitors.
Our student assistants Anneke Karreman and Mary Lacey recapped the night in this blog post, which features some photo highlights from a very memorable night.
Many thanks to:
The Athletic Department and Athletic Director Shaney Fink for inviting us to host our event at a men’s basketball game and for all their generous contributions of time and resources, especially Eric Guttorp, Bill Peck and Joseph Knight.
Our fantastic organizing committee: Katie Bradshaw (SU ’18), David Moser, Armen Papyan, Lincoln Vander Veen and Professor Zach Wood; and from our project, Anneke, Catherine and Mary.
Our terrific halftime hosts, Gordon McHenry Jr. of United Way King County and Armen Papyan, staff member in the Albers School and MPA grad student
The Center for Community Engagement for pitching in, including recruiting student volunteer Danielle to help at the Action Table
Everyone who came out to celebrate with us, and everyone in the SU community working to solve homelessness. We could not recognize that night everyone who deserves to be honored. If we are able to do this event again, we hope you’ll join us. Feel free to suggest future honorees!
Higher Ed on Homelessness is a coalition of faculty, staff and student leaders from Western Washington higher-ed institutions who collaborate to share research, teaching, service learning, community engagement and advocacy best practices. The group will also explore the unique role of higher education in addressing homelessness; define how universities make a difference; highlight what benefits higher education brings to our region and our state on homelessness; and celebrate the accomplishments of students and alumni working to solve homelessness. It was founded in summer 2018 by faculty and staff from SU, Seattle Pacific University and University of Washington. The SU group of about 30 people is organized by Catherine Hinrichsen, Professor Sara Rankin and Lincoln Vander Veen.
projectonfamilyhomelessness.org 