11:37 AM: The doors are open at a first-of-its-kind event inside the biggest vacant spot at Westwood Village (former Bed Bath Beyond/Spirit Halloween) – a Resource Fair organized by Seattle Police, primarily their Community Service Officer team. They have gathered more than 40 organizations, agencies, and other participants here, until 3 pm; we obtained and published this full list last night. We’ll add more info when back at HQ.
ADDED 12:15 PM: If you approach from the southwest WWV parking lot, you’ll see the Care-A-Van, but most of the medical services – blood pressure/blood sugar check, sign up for vaccinations, etc. – are provided inside. And just inside the main entrance, you can meet some of the SPD CSOs making this happen:
CSOs are non-enforcement, non-sworn officers, and connecting people with resources is what they’re all about. In our photo are CSOs Heslin, Phelps, and Masyr. We walked the aisles of tables and it’s truly a wide array of possibilities (even info on how to get free vaccinations for pets). We also learned about some agencies/organizations we’d never heard of before. Here’s one example – they’re at the table where you can get free Narcan, no questions asked, so you can have it on hand in case you encounter someone overdosing:
This table answers the question a commenter asked after one of our previews – “what service is the Medical Examiner’s Office going to offer?” In short, this is one way to try to reduce the need for the ME’s main job (investigating deaths). At left is Emily Dalgo, coordinator of the ME’s Overdose Fatality Review (based on a national model) team. People are dying of overdoses every day, and OFR talks about strategies to fight that. One is community outreach, and that’s why she’s at the Resource Fair, along with volunteers from the Public Health Reserve Corps (we hadn’t heard of that either).
Other people we talked to included a rep from State Labor and Industries, offering lots of info about workers’ rights. Even if you don’t think you need “resources,” this is an interesting educational event, again, continuing until 3 pm.
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