CHIEF SEATTLE CLUB

Five days a week, we offer a place where urban American Indians and Alaska Natives, many of whom are homeless and low-income, can join to share a common meal, speak their own languages, access social services, and find peace, without fear of public censure or discrimination.

We have served over 60,000 meals in the past year, and also provide:

• Basic Needs: Breakfast, take-out lunches, showers, laundry service, hygiene items, clothing, blankets, baby and mother items, bus tickets, and eye glasses. Telephones for local and long distance calls, state and tribal ID, birth certificates, and mail service to Club members.
• Health Care: On-site visiting nurses from the Seattle Indian Health Board and King County Public Health, which will be augmented once a week with an on-site naturopathic physician.
• Legal: CSC provides Seattle's only Urban Indian Legal Clinic. Providing on-site, specialized legal assistance via the Northwest Indian Bar Association.
• Chemical Dependency Services: Drug and alcohol treatment programs through REACH and White Bison (an American Indian "Wellbriety" and Healing program administered by CSC staff), and a weekly Native American 12-step class.
• Housing: Assisting members into shelters, search and placement into transitional and permanent housing, and financial assistance for move-in costs and eviction prevention.
• Education: Job readiness, Rental Readiness class, computer training, professional mentoring.

But that is only part of the Club's story. Chief Seattle Club is engaging the homeless and low-income Native community in an effective and culturally relevant way. We provide cultural, artistic, and spiritual programs and events to Club members. In many ways, this is the most exciting and groundbreaking program of all, and the one for which our new center is especially well suited.

• Gathering Circle: This year's slate of activities and invited guests include a variety of Native professionals, drummers, singers, tribal elders, poets, musicians, activists, traditional healers, entrepreneurs, and Native films. For some tribes this type of learning, sharing, or healing experience is known as The Way of Gratitude or The Blessing Way. Time will be spent remembering, honoring, and believing and owning their sacred path. We will draw on the rich lives of our invited guests for inspiration, direction, and wisdom, all of whom are well-respected cultural people, and several of our very own members. We also have a Native American mass twice a month.
• Art Studio: Weekly arts and crafts programs that allow the people to express their culture and creativity through beadwork, leather carving, wood carving, drum making, dream catchers, painting and even storytelling. Members supplement their income by selling their art to the public and now have a place to really hone their trade and store their projects. Also Chief Seattle Club's "Hilbert Gallery" will provide opportunities for our members to sell their art to the wider public - particularly through the Art Walk on "1st Thursdays". Participants in the gallery will learn to create their own bio, business cards, and learn public speaking skills.
• Events: Special outings with our members to local tribal and community events, such as a trip to the Warm Springs reservation for Root Feast, local pow wows, canoe journeys, sweat lodges, tribal ceremonies, picnics, and other events.