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Mayor announces ‘One Seattle Day of Service,’ volunteer event to clean up city

SEATTLE — A new citywide volunteer event will give people a chance to clean up and beautify parts of Seattle.

On Monday morning, Mayor Bruce Harrell announced the One Seattle Day of Service on May 21.

There will be more than 2,200 volunteer opportunities across over 80 different activities.

Lin Thai and his group “The Mission Continues” cleaned up graffiti at the corner of 12th Avenue South and South Jackson Street in Chinatown-International District Monday morning as Harrell made the announcement.

Thai said his group has been working in the area for some time and they will be back for the One Seattle Day of Service next month.

“This area, CID, is one of our key operations territories for the past five years,” said Thai. “(We) do a lot of litter pickup, making sure to the keep the neighborhood clean and viable for businesses and people. Today, we’re going to be tackling and removing some of that graffiti.”

Harrell also did some painting to promote the day when dozens of groups will participate in cleaning as well as gardening, restoration, and helping neighbors in need.

“We’ve had a significant increase in graffiti over the last couple of years and I think the mayor’s charge here is to address that situation and get all hands on deck to help us get on this other side,” said Monisha Singh, executive director of the Chinatown-International District Business Improvement Area.

Singh said the service of cleaning up graffiti is important for Little Saigon in the CID. She said the area has been hit hard by the pandemic and the work that is happening now and will happen later in May during the day of service is vital.

“Creating a clean and safe environment is really critical for the economic vitality of our businesses. So creating something like a mural is attractive to our businesses and attractive to our customers to come down to our neighborhood to feel safe,” Singh said.

The One Seattle Day of Service, with more than 80 partner organizations participating, will be a first for Seattle.

Visit seattle.gov/dayofservice to learn more about the event and register to volunteer.