By Eastside Pathways

As the Partner Leadership Committee for Eastside Pathways, we represent nearly 60 community organizations making up the partnership including government, businesses, faith-based and community organizations working to serve children in this community from cradle to career. We are saddened by the recent events in Orlando, Baton Rouge, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Dallas and other communities that are experiencing the heartbreak of injustice and racial violence. We stand as a partnership and reinforce the call for equity in all systems and do not tolerate racial injustice nor violence from any person or system.

Eastside Pathways utilizes our community-wide partnership to build systemic support for all children and youth from cradle to career, follows the evidence-based Collective Impact Framework and believes in shared responsibility. One of the core tenets of the partnership’s work is racial equity.

Eastside Pathways seeks to inform and change hearts, minds and the deeply-held, often unconscious biases that are frequently at the core of structural racism. By elevating awareness and understanding of the inequities faced by children of color in our community and by working together to change the way we support and partner, we seek to fundamentally improve outcomes for children and families confronted by these barriers and build pathways of opportunities for all.

“Eastside Pathways mobilizes community support for all children,” said Amy R. Mack, executive director of Year Up Puget Sound and Eastside Pathways Partner Leadership Committee Chair. “It is our collective responsibility to ensure our children live in a peaceful, supportive community free of structural racism.

Headquartered in Bellevue and founded in 2011, Eastside Pathways mobilizes the community to support every child, step-by-step, from cradle to career. The partnership unites around common goals, measurements and strategies to maximize each child’s opportunity for a productive, fulfilling life. Eastside Pathways uses a Collective Impact model that has been developed by the StriveTogether Network and that has been successful in other communities. For more information, visit the organization’s website at www.eastsidepathways.org.