As We Heart Seattle enters its fifth year, its mission remains both simple and revolutionary: to empower the community, both the housed and the unhoused, by organizing movements to clean up trash across the city. For founder Andrea Suarez, litter is more than waste. It's a gateway to community transformation, civic engagement, and ultimately, the reclamation of human dignity.
Suarez's initiative has cleared nearly two million pounds of garbage from Seattle's parks, sidewalks, and greenbelts, a visible, calculated impact. But it's what lies beneath the trash, both literally and metaphorically, that defines We Heart Seattle's true power. "The trash is the surface," Suarez says. "What lies beneath are people living with trauma, drug addiction, and broken relationships. When we clean up the environment, we start to heal the people, too."
