Community Guide 2017
The Community Center 2011–2017 by Dave Cort With the opening of the San Geronimo Valley Commu- nity Gym and the Loft Youth Center in the fall of 2010, the Community Center has evolved into the organization that it has become today. Human Services, Children and Youth programs, Arts and Events, along with being a facil- ity for the community to gather, are the cornerstones of the Community Center’s work. To deliver these programs, the Community Center’s annual budget has increased by almost 40% along with the size of its staff. The Commu- nity Center’s mission now includes health and wellness as a critical goal and recognizes Nicasio as part of our service area. To support this growth and to provide long-term finan- cial stability, the Community Center Board of Directors began work on a new strategic plan in 2013. This process was led by long-time Valley resident Mike Howe who worked with the Board for over two years and interviewed dozens of Valley residents. A 2015 to 2020 Strategic Plan was the result of this work. The plan focused on establish- ing an endowment, which would provide a stable source of
annual income to the Community Center; capacity build- ing in terms of organizational structures for both the Board of Directors and the staff; and a focus on the long-term needs of the Community Center facilities. In 2015 the Board established a Deepening Roots Campaign to drive all of this, steered by Center Board members and individu- als from the community. Their work to date has made sig- nificant progress and is ongoing. Over the past seven years the Human Services programs have grown and developed. Congregate Senior Lunch continued to grow at a steady pace as close to 4,000 senior lunches are served throughout the year on Monday and Thursday afternoons. The Community Center established a program called Revivir La Cultura through a grant from the Marin Community Foundation. Community Center staff members Hannah Doress and Nicole Ramirez took a lead role in working with local residents to share their native Mexican culture through music, dance, cooking, and visual arts. A fantastic event evolved from this work called the Mexican Arts Festival which brought over 200 Valley residents together to celebrate our cultural diversity. An important outgrowth of Revivir La Cultura was greater participation and outreach into the Nicasio community. In
A tradition of the Spring Art Show is the group photo of participating artists for the posters distributed throughout the county. (Photo by Donn DeAngelo)
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SGVCC
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