This summer Mētis engaged in a number of community focused, mission driven projects for the Wing Luke Museum (Eng Family Homestead & Canton Alley Window Repair and Rebuild), Chief Seattle Club, Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, and Lambert House.
Your The Eng Family Home is a unique historical property made significant because a Chinese family was able to purchase the land and build the modest home despite the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. This family raised 4+ generations in the house while using the basement to grow bean sprouts for the Chinese restaurants in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District neighborhood. In the last couple years, the property was donated to the Wing Luke Museum and will become an immersive museum tour where visitors can get a sense of the hardships a different type of pioneer endured in their American Story. Mētis is bringing both the interior and exterior back to an original and period condition, while at the same time providing ADA accessibility for guests. We are installing a 3-stop elevator and creating passages in the house that meet modern requirements for safety and accessibility.Goes Here
The Wing Luke Museum also reached out for help with another significant project in Canton Alley. On September 14, 2023 a hostile person attacked and damaged the storefront windows in the historic Alley, breaking glass and yelling Chinese slurs. It was a traumatic day for the Museum and the community. After raising funds, the Museum engaged Mētis to upgrade and repair the damage with a goal of completing the work before the 1 year anniversary. There is a wonderful brass plaque in the Alley forged by our friend Frances Nelson that honors the history of the Alley and the role it played in defining the community. One of the symbols on the plaque includes a hammer in honor of the carpenters who worked out of the Alley and built the neighborhood. It’s a true privilege for Mētis to become part of the vibrant history of Canton Alley and the broader C-ID neighborhood.
Additional mission driven work includes our continued partnership with the Chief Seattle Club. Chief Seattle Club is a Native led organization centered in the Pioneer Square neighborhood focused on supporting the urban Native population with both transitional housing and spiritual support. As part of our continued transitional housing work with the agency, Mētis installed 80 air conditioning units in the ?al ?al building. This building is just around the corner from our Salmonberry House renovation project. It was a valuable opportunity for Metis to gain deeper insight into the needs of the Chief Seattle Club, its members, and our ongoing collaboration with the organization.
Thanks to our relationships with both Chief Seattle Club and our friends at Jensen Marina, Mētis was also selected to develop an exciting project for the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe on newly endowed Trust land in Snoqualmie. The Harvest Kitchen Project kicked off late this summer. This multi-phased project will connect a childcare facility and the broader community to an Elk harvesting facility. In Phase 1, Mētis is building a small processing facility that will allow elders to teach children how Elk are hung, gutted, and processed. The project includes an outdoor community kitchen where both Elk and Salmon will be prepared. Phase 2 will include building an educational greenhouse and more gathering space to celebrate Native traditions.
Mētis, also, recently broke ground on a long anticipated foundation replacement for the Lambert House on Capitol Hill. Since 1981 the Lambert House LGBTQ+ Youth Center has supported minors and young adults in the LGBTQ+ community. Founded by a University of Washington child and adolescent medicine clinic director, the Lambert House was the first non-collegiate daily drop-in center for LGBTQ+ youth in the United States and Mētis is proud to partner with this important community organization. The project will be a house lift, followed by the demolition of the existing brick foundation which will be replaced with a modern concrete foundation. This type of project involves many moving parts, not least of which is the accelerated timeline needed to move the organization out of its temporary facility and back to providing vital support to the community.
