Former Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson won’t be the only notable Denver resident visiting Seattle this month. The Denver Metro Chamber Leadership Foundation will bring more than 160 leaders from the Mile High City here September 22-24 to learn about the region’s innovations and leadership.

The meeting is part of the 32^nd annual Denver-Seattle Leadership Exchange, which brings senior executives from the private sector, elected officials (including Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock) and community influencers to probe Seattle’s collective impact, coalition-building and social entrepreneurism.

About 40 members of the delegation will take a tour of the Rainier Beach neighborhood led by United Way of King County grantee Rainier Beach Action Coalition, a Black-led grassroots organization that is devoted to locally driven development.

The organization’s director Gregory Davis recently led United Way campaign co-chair Patty Meden and a small Denver delegation on an advance tour through Rainier Beach to show what the larger delegation will see this month. Davis also outlined the organization’s impact on the community, from its town halls to its recent Back2School Bash to efforts to ensure that local residents are hired by local developers for the many mixed-use projects going up in the neighborhood.

Meden and husband Scott Meden (a current United Way board member and former Nordstrom chief marketing officer) were recently named campaign co-chairs for 2022-23. The two will serve as the public face of United Way’s annual campaigns and help drive the organization’s strategies, messaging and fundraising.

“If you really want to make an impact on the challenges facing our community,” said Patty Meden, “United Way is the right place to do it.”

Rainier Beach Action Coalition is also a member of the Black Community Building Collective, a coalition of Black-led organizations brought together by United Way of King County to build relationships, form strategies that impact the Black community and use United Way funding as they see fit to impact their communities. For more on the Collective and Rainier Beach Action Coalition, click here.