To call Diane Davies’s resume of work in the Columbia City neighborhood extensive would be an understatement. In 1995, two years after moving to Rainier Valley, she was hired by the Rainier Valley Chamber of Commerce to help beautify the streetscape of the neighborhood.

It was a natural fit for Diane who graduated from the University of Idaho with a degree in horticulture. For two years she coordinated the planting of 2,500 to 3,000 Rugosa roses at 33 different sites along Rainier Avenue South and Martin Luther King Jr.

She then was hired as a fundraiser by the Southeast Seattle Senior Foundation which was trying to raise $1 million to purchase the Brighton Place Apartments. In a year and half, the campaign goal was reached and she began working with the Rainier Valley Transit Advisory Council on the light rail system. For four years, Diane helped neighborhood businesses, organizations, and concerned citizens work with the City of Seattle and Sound Transit to come up with a viable plan that would support Light Rail and benefit the neighborhood.

Out of her work with the council, the Rainier Valley Community Development Fund was formed to preserve and strengthen the cultural diversity and economic opportunity of the community. Diane served on its board of directors until she was hired by the organization as a program director.

Diane recently left the Development Fund to take some classes in non-profit management, a field of work in which she clearly could teach a few courses herself. Still a horticulturist at heart, she maintains several gardens at her home that she shares with her husband, A. J. White.

Like the positive changes she helped create within the community, the roses Diane planted ten years ago are still in bloom. And like those roses, Diane’s commitment to the neighborhood is deeply rooted.