By Stacy Nguyen
Northwest Asian Weekly

Hyeok Kim, executive director of InterIm CDA, speaks about the merger to supporters at the Cullom Gallery on Oct. 20. Also pictured (left), Sharyne Shiu Thornton, executive director of the International District Housing Alliance (IDHA), and Joel Ing (right), incoming board president. (Photo provided by InterIm CDA)

This week, two local nonprofit organizations have announced their plans to merge. Read the full story

Guests at the summit included, from left: Daphne Kwok, chair of the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPI’s; Christina Lagdameo, Deputy Director, White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; Ronnie Chatterji, Senior Economist, White House Council of Economic Advisors; Christopher Lu, Assistant to the President and Cabinet Secretary; Umni Song, member of the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs; Kamuela Enos, member of the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs and director of enterprise at MA’O Organic Farms; and Hyeok Kim, member of the President’s Advisory Commission on AAPIs and executive director of Interim Community Development Association (Photo by Rebecca Ip/SCP)

By Janelle Wetzstein
UW News Lab

Sustainability is no longer just about the environment, according to White House Cabinet Secretary Chris Lu, who spoke in Seattle last weekend.   Read the full story

Ho, ho, ho, yes, yes, yes!

I looked back on 2010 to see if our blessings exceeded our losses. Indeed, they did

1. Welcome, Cobalt, our new neighbor

Vulcan building

So Amazon moved out last summer, and we lost a lot of business in the Chinatown/International District.  Cobalt, which provides digital marketing services, has signed in as the new tenant to use up some of the space that Amazon occupied in the Vulcan buildings. Cobalt might not have as big of a crowd as Amazon. But having 800 additional bodies in our community is nothing to sneeze at. Hopefully, Cobalt folks like to dine out as much as the Amazon people did.

Read the full story

From left: U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee, Ron Sims, InterIm Executive Director Hyeok Kim, and former InterIm Executive Director and community activist Bob Santos

InterIm Community Development Association held its 2010 Annual Gala Luncheon at the Renaissance Seattle Hotel. Read the full story

Hyeok Kim

Hyeok Kim, executive director of InterIm Community Development Association, is one of several persons appointed to serve on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.

Established by an executive order, the commission is part of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.  Its purpose is to improve quality of life and opportunities for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders by facilitating increased access to and participation in federal programs where they remain underserved.  The co-chairs of the initiative are Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

Kim and more than a dozen other new members of the commission were sworn in at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 21. ♦

InterIm Executive Director Hyeok Kim

Hyeok Kim, the executive director of the InterIm Community Development Association (ICDA), was recently named as one of the 54 Marshall Memorial Fellows for 2010 through the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF). The GMF is a nonpartisan American public policy and grant-making institution dedicated to promoting greater cooperation and understanding between the United States and Europe.

The ICDA is a nonprofit community development corporation that has been serving Seattle’s Chinatown/International District for nearly 40 years. Kim’s goal has been to expand the ICDA to reach more Asian Pacific Islander communities.

She previously worked in the Washington state legislature from 2001 to 2008. Kim was nominated by Northwest Asian Weekly for the fellowship. ♦