Get to Know Us: Q&A with Rebecca Bear

Seattle Parks Foundation is celebrating 25 years of partnering with community to champion thriving and equitable parks and public spaces! What are SPF’s priorities moving forward, and how are we activating to achieve our goals?
Our first priority is to celebrate the amazing work of 300 projects over that 25 year period. The Seattle Parks Foundation is only successful if our community partners are able to accomplish their goals. We are thrilled to celebrate them and the special awardees from our gala. As we look ahead to the next 25 years, we are grounded in our four key strategic priorities – Neighborhood-Based Climate Solutions, Equity in Public Spaces, Activated Parks and Healthy People, and Increased Civic Engagement and Community Building. Over the course of the next year, we will be sharing our direction and projects for each of these priorities.

We have grown to serve over 120 volunteer groups focused in these strategic priorities– everything from supporting food equity and local food systems at Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands, to engaging in community advocacy to fund critical functions of our parks like environmental education. To ensure projects throughout the city and King County are achieved, we provide high touch services like grant writing and management, capacity building for community leaders, and we build bridges between communities and civic decision makers.

We kicked off our anniversary year with the Love Parks Gala in September, and we have so much more planned in the months ahead. What are you most looking forward to in 2025?
There is so much to look forward to in the coming year. Our goal is to bring our community together in rich dialogue about issues that matter to us as a city. I am excited for our Earth Day Town Hall focused on Climate and Equity which will be a chance for great conversations. I’m also really excited to activate our under activated park stages next summer with concerts in the parks in partnership with the youth musicians of The Residency. We hope these events not only introduce new folks to Seattle Parks Foundation, but also are ways to engage more deeply in our work.

Since offering fiscal sponsorship in 2011, Seattle Parks Foundation has supported over 300 community projects and alliances throughout King County. What kind of barriers do we strive to eliminate when supporting our partners through this model?
Imagine you have an idea to improve your local park. You get together with your neighbors and imagine a safe, fun, accessible play space for your kids. Then what? Often what happens at this point is a labyrinthian process of trying to navigate how to accomplish a project on public lands that can sometimes take 5-10 years. That is where Seattle Parks Foundation can help. We help reduce the mystery in public projects, help community members identify and build a vision, connect with public agencies to ensure community voices are heard, and help our partners every step of the way from fundraising to project completion. We supercharge community ideas and catalyze projects so improvements happen quicker and work hard to ensure your preschool child won’t be out of high school when that playground is built!

How does the City of Seattle budget impact our parks and public spaces?
We are blessed in Seattle to have some of the most gorgeous parks and public spaces in the country. Maintaining, operating and ensuring the safety in these parks costs money and needs a community commitment to their health. When the city budget is tightened like this upcoming biennium, the parks department has to reduce maintenance hours, shift operating plans, and do what they can to control costs, while keeping important basic services functioning. As with most businesses and organizations, their costs have gone up significantly since the start of the pandemic. If you value well maintained and activated parks, it’s important you let your Councilmember know that funding parks and recreation should be a top priority as they review the city budget this November.

Seattle’s welcoming the world to our city with the FIFA World Cup in 2026. How is Seattle Parks Foundation working with the City of Seattle, the FIFA World Cup, and neighborhood organizations to make this the best experience possible for our community and visitors?
We are thrilled to be welcoming people from around the world at the FIFA World Cup in 2026. Our focus is to prepare public spaces closest to where visitors will discover the city AND ensure positive lasting impact for those communities for the years after the event. That is why we are working in partnership with the Seattle FIFA 2026 Local Organizing Committee, residents in our downtown and Pioneer Square communities, business owners, the Downtown Seattle Association, the Pioneer Square Alliance, the Stadiums, the Mayor’s Office and agencies within the City of Seattle to beautify two key areas of the city: Westlake Park and Occidental Avenue between King and Royal Brougham.

At Westlake Park, we have engaged with Berger Partnership to reimagine the heart of downtown, a major transit hub, and Seattle’s living room. Westlake Park is the connecting location between the new Summit Convention Center, Pike Place Market and Waterfront Park and the monorail to Climate Pledge Arena. This project aims to make improvements at the park like improving lighting, removing old infrastructure, adding places to play and sit, and new landscaping. On November 18th, we will be hosting an open house at the park with concept designs, and we invite all to participate.

On Occidental Avenue, we have engaged with MIG to gather community, business and property owner feedback on short term improvements that could be done prior to the World Cup that will set the stage for much larger long-term street improvements. To ensure this work progresses, it is important that voters in Seattle vote YES on Prop 1, which has special funding to improve this important part of Pioneer Square.