Project overview

Cascadia worked with students aged 13-19 in the Duwamish Valley Youth Corps, an environmental justice youth engagement program, to design and craft messaging to prevent dumping waste into storm drains leading to the Duwamish River.

Approach and Impact

Cascadia led an educational session about graphic design and messaging, which included an opportunity for youth participants to draw designs for a storm drain stencil they would later place throughout their community. Using their drawings as inspiration, Cascadia designed several stencil options and fielded a survey to gather input from the Duwamish Valley community. Once the stencil was finalized and printed, Cascadia collaborated with the students to create a “how-to” video demonstrating its use. We also created Spanish-language materials based on community feedback.

This project also included outreach to local food truck businesses to prevent dumping fats, oils, and grease into storm drains. In addition to offering educational sessions about site visits and outreach best practices, Cascadia used the themes from the stencil co-design effort to create a pledge decal for food trucks to display. The pledge was distributed to food trucks along with waste sorting signage and labeling, as well as a sticker reminding businesses not to dump waste down the drain.

We worked with students to create messaging that could help prevent pollution in the Duwamish.

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