As we look towards a new year, we simultaneously reflect back on our community relationships and the lived experiences of youth, children, and families across King County — honest and real stories we are fortune to share.
In 2019, Best Starts invested $6.9 million into Communities of Opportunity to build safe, healthy, thriving places for children, youth and families. Through community-driven partnerships, we are creating greater racial, economic, and health equity that enables all people in King County to thrive and prosper.
View our 2019 Digital Report here.
In our third story, we visit Sili and her team in White Center.
The White Center Community Development Association (WCCDA) has deep roots in the community, embodied in their ability to organize and implement community vision.
Our work is to elevate the voices of families and communities in White Center. We have the ability to build and hold relationships in a different way — relationships that are centered on an anti-racist, relational approach to systems change.
Sili Savusa – Executive Director of the White Center Community Development Association and resident of White Center
A project for self-determination and community ownership, the White Center Community HUB shows that power coming to life.
Led by the WCCDA, in partnership with Southwest Youth & Family Services, HealthPoint, Capitol Hill Housing and King County, the new building will provide valuable education, health and housing services while embracing White Center’s cultural diversity and sense of community.
Designed in response to the identified priorities of White Center community members, the HUB development is envisioned to be a place of “Hope, Unity and Belonging.”
As the community works toward an expected groundbreaking in early 2022, the HUB incorporates the spirit of the vibrant, ethnically and culturally diverse community that is White Center, where two-thirds of the residents are people of color and almost one-third of the residents are immigrants/refugees.
Acknowledging that the project is on the traditional land of the first people of Seattle, the Duwamish People past and present, the WCCDA and partners are working alongside tribal leadership to make that acknowledgement real in both the design and function of the building. The leaders at WCCDA hold a unique role in their ability to organize and implement a community vision of physical and social spaces that affirm and strengthen the assets of all members in the community.
Read more stories here.
Learn more about how we’re helping communities have OPPORTUNITIES TO THRIVE including greater equity in housing, health, economic opportunity and community connections. For additional information on Communities of Opportunity click here.