Week 7:
Space Needle 

August 11, 2018

Almost at the End

It’s crazy to think that I only have one more week left in Seattle! I’ve been trying to spend the last week taking in the city and enjoying the beautiful views.  I visited the space needle last week and got to see a fantastic view of the city, as well as Mount Rainier, Mount Baker, and the Olympic mountains.  Something I’ve come to enjoy about Seattle is that although it’s a growing city, it has also has so many opportunities to access nature.  It’s an easy two hour or so drive to some of the most scenic places.  This weekend I’m hoping to visit Lake Wenatchee, a state park with a beautiful waterfront view to go camping!  

Farestart

One of my favorite places to treat myself for lunch every once in a while is right downstairs at FareStart cafe! FareStart is a nonprofit with a mission to help individuals facing poverty and homelessness.  They offer job training in the foodservice industry to help them find employment.  The Farestart cafe in our building has a barista training program which gives homeless youth resources to succeed and gain experience as baristas.  75% of graduates from this program have jobs within 180 days of finishing this program.  It’s an excellent program which gives back to the community and also serves a great chai (my go-to order).  Being introduced to so many awesome non-profit missions has been such a perk of the Ventures office being in the building it is – with so many other non-profits filling the space it’s opened my eye to some of the beautiful things happening in the community because of non-profit work.  Speaking of which, something I’ve been noticing a lot of while out and about in Seattle is spotting Ventures clients selling their goods at various stores.  The other day I was taking a walk and spotted these two amazing Ventures clients – one who sells artisan ice cream, and the other who makes fabulous jewelry and clothing.  I was so excited to recognize their names.

Projects

This week I finally finished gathering all of the information for my profiles. After a lot of reaching out to clients and doing a bit of investigating of my own, I’ve finally gathered all of the information I need for each of the profiles. This process has been such a great way to get to know the Venture’s clients and their businesses.  By seeing their websites and looking at their social media handles, I have a better sense of each product in the store. It’s also been so fun to read through their product and story blurbs which I hope can create a connection between them and possible customers at the store.  I’ve also finished the templates for the labels, and I’m super excited to see how they look printed.  Next week will be a busy one – printing, laminating and putting up the signage – but I’m excited to see how it all looks!