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About Us
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The mission of SCALLOPS is to network, support, and advance sustainability initiatives in towns and neighborhoods all over Puget Sound. Through outreach, education, and community-building opportunities, we facilitate the cross-pollination of best practices, inspire and support new groups, troubleshoot challenges, and mobilize action on behalf of regional sustainability.
History
Sustainable Communities ALL Over Puget Sound (SCALLOPS) was founded in 2007 by Vic Opperman (Sustainable Ballard), Neva Welton (Sustainable Bainbridge) and Frank Hoffman (Local 2020, Port Townsend). We convened several meetings with a few key leaders from various sustainability groups to talk about our work and hopes for a larger network. From there, we began to identify and reach out to other existing groups; create a web presence so people could find us, and begain preliminary planning for a regional Summit.

Our first SCALLOPS Summit was held in Fremont at the Sustainable Solstice Festival, June 2007. It was a rousing success with over 10 towns represented. In the aftermath, two new groups were inspired and ready to begin organizing. Since then, we have had several other Summits in a variety of locations:

* Fremont Sustainable Solstice, June 2007
* Sustainable Ballard Festival, September 2007
* Port Hadlock, January 2008
* Cascadia Convergence, October 2007
* Green Festival, April 2008
* West Seattle Festival, May 2008

As the outreach and Summits progressed, word-of-mouth increased and we began to get requests for start-up consultation from leaders in communities across the region. Presentations were given at: Burien, Crown Hill, Everett, Magnolia, Ravenna, Redmond, South Seattle and West Seattle. Before SCALLOPS was founded in 2007, Sustainable Ballard reached out to several towns through presentations: Capitol Hill, Kitsap, Lake Forest Park, Queen Anne, Vashon and Wallingford, all of which are now part of the SCALLOPS network.

Specifically, the Green Festival 2008 was a watershed opportunity for SCALLOPS as we planned the first SCALLOPS Commons Café and were able to reach out to several more communities who have since showed interest in support and membership in SCALLOPS.