WHITE CENTER COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION HIRES STAFF & OPENS OFFICE IN DOWNTOWN WHITE CENTER
The White Center Community Development Association has hired David Schraer as Executive Director and Lisa Phounsavath as Summer Program Manager. The new nonprofit has opened a temporary office at 1725 Southwest Roxbury in downtown White Center. “I am exceptionally pleased and excited to be working in a community that has so many superb leaders and strong external support,” said David Schraer, new Executive Director of the WCCDA. “White Center has two amazing assets – a richness and vitality generated by cultural diversity and a climate in which everyone wants the community to succeed.”
(PRWEB) June 9, 2002
For Immediate Release
Contact White Center Community Development Association:
David Schraer, Executive Director david@inplainair. com 206-412-5376
Tim Healy, President tim@SeattleJustice. com
Peggy Weiss, Vice-President wcgt@mindspring. com
WHITE CENTER COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION
HIRES STAFF & OPENS OFFICE IN DOWNTOWN WHITE CENTER
Seattle, Washington, June 7th, 2002 --- page 1 of 2
The White Center Community Development Association has hired David Schraer as Executive Director and Lisa Phounsavath as Summer Program Manager. The new nonprofit has opened a temporary office at 1725 Southwest Roxbury in downtown White Center. “I am exceptionally pleased and excited to be working in a community that has so many superb leaders and strong external support,” said David Schraer, new Executive Director of the WCCDA. “White Center has two amazing assets – a richness and vitality generated by cultural diversity and a climate in which everyone wants the community to succeed.”
After nearly two years of community planning, the White Center Community Development Association is open for business and ready to launch its first programs. The organization is initially charged with revitalizing downtown White Center and improving the quantity and quality of affordable housing in the neighborhood.
White Center is the most diverse community in metropolitan Seattle and its large refugee and immigrant population brings a vital, entrepreneurial and cosmopolitan feel to a relatively small, unincorporated community of 22,000 people. The population includes people from Latin America, Southeast Asia, East Africa and Eastern Europe who speak dozens of languages. Among the challenges White Center residents face are crime, poverty, health, and education. Relative to King County as a whole, White Center has twice the rate of violent crime, twice the number of families living in poverty, twice the number of mothers who fail to receive timely prenatal care and almost twice the number of seniors who drop out of High School. The isolation and financial insecurity of refugee and immigrant groups contributes to these challenges. WCCDA’s community and economic development efforts will address the underlying physical and social factors that constrain residents and businesses from thriving. For instance, WCCDA will work to revitalize the downtown business district by conventional means – and may also work to help business owners overcome obstacles unique to people who are not native English speakers and who don’t understand U. S. business practice.
The WCCDA begins its operations in the midst of a flurry of positive activity in diverse White Center. Park Lake Homes, a King County Housing Authority project east of downtown White Center, is being redeveloped with 769 new housing units, many for market rate rental or sale, and King County has commissioned a major retail market study of the downtown core. The Highline School District recently passed a bond issue that will result in the essential reconstruction of the abandoned White Center Heights Elementary School and other schools in White Center.
WCCDA has received $105,000 in start-up funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Seattle Foundation and Impact Capital. Many additional government and nonprofit agencies are providing indirect support.
New Contact Information
White Center Community Development Association
1725 Southwest Roxbury, Number 7
Seattle, Washington 98106
206-412-5376
David@inplainair. com
David Schraer
David Schraer, Executive Director, is a commercial architect with twenty years of professional experience, a former Peace Corps volunteer and the founder and first Executive Director of Queen City Community Development, a community development corporation devoted to SeattleÂ’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. Queen City has over 50 nonprofit organizational members recently opened the Seattle LGBT Community Center.
Lisa Phounsavath
Lisa Phounsavath, Summer Program Manager, is an MBA candidate at the University of Washington working with the WCCDA as an intern through the Business and Economic Development Program. Lisa has extensive retail business experience in customer service, store management and merchandising. Lisa will be coordinating the White Center International Market, assisting in WCCDA's business planning process and consulting with individual merchants on business issues.
Annie E. Casey Foundation
The AECF granted WCCDA $50,000 in 2002 operating support. The AECF also provided funding for King County staff who assisted in organizing the WCCDA. AECF is a national foundation committed to helping build promising futures for millions of disadvantaged children at risk for poor educational, economic, social and health outcomes.
The Seattle Foundation
The Seattle Foundation granted WCCDA $30,000 in 2002 operating support. Founded in 1946, The Seattle Foundation is the oldest community foundation in Washington State. Over the years, its endowment has grown to over $305 million. The Seattle Foundation makes grants to the people and organizations that are working every day to enrich the greater Seattle area, now and for the future.
Impact Capital
Impact Capital granted WCCDA $25,000 in 2002 operating support. Impact Capital is a non-profit organization that provides below-market housing and community development loan products and grants, as well as technical and leadership training to Community Development Corporations in Washington State. In addition to a cash grant, Impact Capital is also supporting WCCDA with technical assistance.
About Community Development Organizations
The White Center Community Development Association (WCCDA) is a nonprofit organization run by a professional staff and a volunteer Board of Directors from neighborhood residents, business and property owners, service groups and human service providers. Like other Community Development Corporations around the country, the WCCDA will address pressing social, political and economic needs in the community. Unlike a for-profit business, the WCCDA will maintain a different “bottom line.” Rather than focusing on profits as the primary motive, the WCCDA will seek to develop a flourishing community – economically, politically, and socially. Unlike a for-profit business that answers to shareholders, the WCCDA will answer to the community.
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