Elie Mystal with Jay Willis
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Town Hall Seattle and Seattle Chamber of Connection present
Seattle Welcome Day – April 19, 2025
Discover the Secrets to Success in Seattle
Note: Each Seattle Welcome Day is approximately four hours long.
Unable to attend this session? Register for another date: May 17
Check out the Seattle Welcome Day FAQ for answers to your frequently asked questions.
“The Seattle Welcome Day is the perfect way to start your Seattle community! – Welcome Day Participant
Join us for Seattle’s Welcome Day—an event for every newcomer or resident ready for a fresh start. The day is designed to provide the tools you need to create your best socially connected life in the Seattle area:
- Meet other newcomers and long-time residents from your neighborhood and across the region who are looking to connect.
- Build a personalized action plan for your connected life in Seattle with the support of science-based prompts and professional facilitators.
- Get advice from everyone in the room on activities, events, and communities you can explore.
- Become part of an ongoing community to support each other moving forward.
Every attendee receives the Seattle Newcomers Club Journal, which includes scientifically designed prompts to help you envision a socially connected life in your new home city.
Meet the Panelists
Vivian Phillips is a communications professional and arts leader. In 2021, Vivian founded the online publication ARTE NOIR to uplift and spotlight Black art and culture from the African diaspora. By September 2022, she had expanded ARTE NOIR into a state-of-the-art exhibit gallery and cultural space that anchors the Midtown Square development in Seattle’s Central District. In December 2023, Vivian led the organization’s purchase of the physical space, fulfilling the intention of creating permanency in a highly gentrified community that was once a redlined community where her parents settled in the 1950s, having migrated from the Jim Crow South.
From producing arts for the stage and arts related programs for broadcast, to being a communications professor and consultant, to lending her leadership as an advocate to Seattle’s major arts funding agencies 4 Culture and Seattle Office of Arts, Vivian’s strategic and persuasive leadership style has contributed to significant funding policies and initiatives that benefit the whole of Seattle’s community.
Dr. Julie Pham founded CuriosityBased to help people practice curiosity in the world, starting in the workplace. She wrote the #1 Amazon New Release and Bestseller 7 Forms of Respect: A Guide to Transforming Your Communication and Relationships at Work and gave a TEDx talk on “Curiosity as a practice.” Dr. Pham is an award-winning leader who applies her community-building experience to strengthening teams. She has worked as a journalist, a historian, a tech industry marketer, and a nonprofit executive. She got her “real-life MBA” by running her family’s Vietnamese-language newspaper, Northwest Vietnamese News, during the Great Recession. She earned her PhD in history at Cambridge University as a Gates Cambridge Scholar and graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley, where she studied history.
Julie Fontanez is an English/Spanish speaking realtor with Engel & Völkers Real Estate, serving the Greater Puget Sound area. She is a member of the Seattle Welcome Committee.
Moderator: Charlotte Massey
Charlotte Massey is the Founder + Executive Director of the Seattle Chamber of Connection, the new civic organization that is tackling the national loneliness epidemic. Charlotte is also the Co-Founder and former COO of Gnara Inc, an award-winning venture-backed outdoor apparel company built around patented zipper technologies. Charlotte is a Tory Burch Fellow, Watson Fellow, RSA Fellow, and Vital Voices Fellow, and her work has been featured by ABC News, Forbes, USA Today, Women’s Health, and Good Morning America. Charlotte was recognized as Seattle Forbes 30 under 30 and is a TEDx Speaker. She lives in Ballard with her husband.
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Schedule of Events
| 8:30 AM | Check-In, Seattle Coffee and Donuts | |
| 9:00 AM | Newcomer Welcome and Intro to Seattle | |
| 9:30 AM | Panel: Community Builders Showcase | |
| 10:00 AM | Workshop: Designing Your Life in Seattle | |
| 11:30 AM | Workshop: Uncovering Places, People and Communities | |
| 12:30 PM | Neighborhood Meet Up | |
| 1:00 PM | Closing Remarks |
Each Seattle Welcome Day is limited to 100 participants, so register today to start your Seattle story with confidence and community by your side!
What people are saying about Seattle Welcome Day:
“Until today, I never felt ready to call myself a Seattleite. Thank you for giving me the confidence to truly connect with my community.” – Welcome Day Participant
“Relationships take time and energy. You have to put yourself out there, even in small ways, it can make a big difference in life. The energy in the room with people interested in taking those first steps is powerful.” – Welcome Day Participant
Presented by Town Hall Seattle and Seattle Chamber of Connection.
Seattle Chamber of Connection is the local chapter of a national nonprofit organization with a mission to reconnect our cities so people and communities thrive. Learn more about Seattle Chamber of Connection.
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