Image is of FEEST Student Organizers and Staff at Fresh Flavor 2023!

On Friday, September 22nd, we welcomed over 150 community members back through the doors of Washington Hall to celebrate our youth and growth as an organization, and WOW did we have a great TIME! The fam at FEEST took several months planning an intentional event that we haven’t hosted in person since 2019. We were joined by many longtime FEEST friends and Fam, and were fed by some of the best chefs in Seattle! We wanna give a special thank you to Phresh Eats, Musang, That Brown Girl Cooks, Macadons, Macrina Bakery, Mighty-O Donuts, Brown Liquor, Métier Brewing Company, and Tinte Cellars for keeping us fed and hydrated throughout the evening!

We were lucky enough to have our very own Student Organizer, Amelie, and Seattle’s very own Black Auntie, Adra Boo as our co-emcees for the evening. They led us through a fun and engaging program with energy, joy, and passion!

Image is of co-emcee’s Amelie & Adra

Image is of Jamiée Marsh, FEEST Executive Director, giving their speech at Fresh Flavor!

Our Executive Director Jaimée Marsh gave a powerful speech honoring FEEST’s 15 years of history, our roots in food justice, the direction we are moving in, as well as celebrating and honoring their very own FEESTiversary, and the growth they’ve had since joining FEEST. Jaimée had the honor of introducing a special FEEST Family Recipe Video, where Student Organizers Eva, Elkram, Liz, and Amelie taught us how to make FEEST’s Special Sauce.

You can watch our Students make this Special Sauce Recipe in the video Below!

We also want to give a big shout-out to Micheal B. Maine, who not only held down event photography at Fresh Flavor but also helped the FEEST fam create this special video to share in our community. Thank you, Micheal!

After the premiere of this video, we welcomed student organizers Siham and Liz to the stage to share a bit about why they joined FEEST, their aspirations for a better future, solidarity, youth organizing, and youth-led revolution. Thank you Siham and Liz for sharing your truth and leading us towards a better future!

Image is of Liz giving her speech

Image is of Siham giving her speech

After these amazing moments, longtime friend of FEEST and Executive Director of Delridge Neighborhood Development Association, David Bestock, joined the stage to lead the room through a raise the paddle section. He brought his energetic and fun approach to get the crowd excited and active! Our favorite part was the round of cheers and applause from our student organizers every time someone raised their paddle to donate to FEEST. We want to personally thank each and every one of you who donated to support FEEST’s mission. It’s extremely meaningful to have our students witness in real time what it looks like to have adults from all different walks of life show up and support them and their goals.

After an energizing raise the paddle, we announced our six raffle winners, who’re all able to take home some amazing prizes, from a 3-night getaway in a Bellingham Cabin to a year-long membership at the Pacific Science Center, to tickets to several shows hosted by the Seattle Theatre Group, and much much more!

Image is of David Bestock hyping the crowd during the Paddle Raise!

We closed the night with a fun and sweet dance party, where we got to dance the night away with our friends and family. The fam at FEEST also wants to extend our deepest gratitude to Youth in Focus, another youth-led organization that held down our famous photo booth all night long!

We are thrilled to announce that together we raised over $75,000! These funds will help us continue to train youth of color and working-class youth to organize for systemic changes in their schools, which takes us one step closer to a world where schools are beautiful learning centers for Black and Brown students. We are so grateful to everyone who made a gift, spread the word, invited their loved ones, and supported Fresh Flavor, even if they weren’t able to attend.

We appreciate you showing up and supporting FEEST! Thank you!