MLK Community Center grows into its space

 

The Martin Luther King Jr. Family Center programs for preschoolers, before and after school and a summer program for children and teens have doubled in size since they moved in 2018 from the former firehouse on Sherman into the former East Central Community Center (ECCC) at 500 S. Stone.

Since becoming the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center, it has built a 5,000 square foot addition to house Early Head Start, remodeled an empty space into be a teen tech center, remodeled an old garage into two preschool classrooms, remodeled and expanded the food bank and taken on the ECCC's program that provides seniors with breakfast, lunch and activities. SNAP and WIC programs have closed.

"We serve 1,500 to 2,000 people a year. The food bank serves 500 families a month—with about 1,400 members. We track them by age," said Freda Gandy, executive director.

The preschool added 20 slots with Early Head Start, and they added 40 more slots for infants and toddlers.

"By partnering with Community Colleges of Spokane (Spokane Colleges), we give families one more service under this roof. Families with a one- or two-year-old can bring that child. We receive three-to-five-year-olds in the preschool, plus school-aged kids before and after school," she said. "So, parents don't have to drop off their children of different ages at different locations."

While the center on Sherman has been vacant, Freda has been working with the city and an architect, using $100,000 from American Rescue Plan Act funds to do a community needs assessment. They identified a need for childcare and affordable housing.

Freda and the board are proposing to replace the old fire station with a 20,000-square-foot building with 16 units of affordable housing on two floors and a ground floor for childcare and community gatherings.

"We bought the building in 2017," she said. "The city gave us credit for 20 years of improvements we had made and sold it to us for $10,000."

The MLK Community Center leases the buildings at 500 S. Stone for $1 a year from the City of Spokane.

"When we had the opportunity to manage and operate the community center, we realized we could house more services and have a larger impact," Freda said.

Staff doubled from eight to 15 with the expanded programs and additional programs, like the food bank, which is run by staff and volunteers from 1 to 3 p.m., Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. In addition to food from Northwest Harvest and Second Harvest, companies, social services and churches do food drives.

"We ask for foods that homeless people can readily use—fruit, perishables, canned goods with pull tabs, breads, cereal and milk for those on special diets," she said. "We also seek foods culturally relevant to neighborhood families and refugee families—especially Ukrainian and Afghan families—from around Spokane."

Each month the food bank gives out 30,000 to 40,000 pounds of food. People from any zip code can visit the food bank once a week.

The center serves 100 to 125 kids a year in the preschool, before and after school and summer teen programs.

It partners with other organizations to house services and use the gym for cultural events like Juneteenth and Black Earth Day. It also rents the space for gatherings of the Nigerian Association and Filipino Association, for first birthday parties for the Marshallese community, weddings and other events.

"The gym is a gathering place for the community and people of diverse backgrounds to access resources and gather to connect," Freda added.

Other center spaces are used by groups like Take up the Cause, which works to increase the number of Black homeowners by addressing barriers to homeownership.

The Carl Maxey Center occasionally uses the larger space, such as for its Black Business Expo, which will take place in September this year.

On May 12, there will be a ribbon cutting for another new program as the MLK Jr. Community Center becomes Spokane's and Eastern Washington's first resiliency hub.

As a resiliency hub, with solar back up and a natural gas generator, the center will provide resources to families during emergencies and natural disasters—such as windstorms, wildfires—that lead to power outages.

"Families come here for day-to-day services, so it's a natural place to come in a disaster," Freds said.

There will be first aid and emergency supplies, electrical power, water and food. While the power is out, people can come to charge medical devices and phones for people who stay at home.

This project has developed over two years in partnership with the Washington State Department of Commerce, Avista and the City of Spokane.

In a disaster, seniors in housing across the street can continue to come as they do from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Mondays to Fridays for breakfast, lunch, a fitness program, health workshops, medication management and STA paratransit to medical appointments. About 30 come each day.

Since expanding beyond early learning and youth empowerment programs, Freda has seen a major increase in food insecurity, especially since the government shutdown and cut in food stamps last October.

With seniors whose families live elsewhere, she has seen their community family step in to fill their need to connect and access resources to improve their lives.

"We grow and step up to challenges to meet needs," said Freda, noting how her leadership has expanded.

In East Central Spokane, she sees health care as a big issue, especially for people of color, who do not feel heard when visiting health care providers. Other issues are affordable housing.

"People want to feel connected and safe and to be able to access resources in the neighborhood," she said.

Funding for the MLK Community Center's $1.5 million annual budget comes from the state, city, foundation grants, Avista and donations.

With the new freeway connection to North Spokane coming closer, Freda hopes developers remember what happened when I-90 split East Central Spokane and displaced families.

"We want to continue the neighborhood's African American and multicultural identity, and the legacy and connectivity of seniors and families who have lived here from 40 to 60 years," said Freda. "This is one of Spokane's most culturally and racially diverse neighborhoods."

"In a multicultural community, children grow up in school beside children of diverse backgrounds. Regularly seeing others who do not look like them, they are not afraid of people who are different," pointed out Freda, who grew up in West Point, Miss.

"I moved here in the summer 1995 to attend Eastern Washington University to be a school counselor. As a single mom, I looked for services to help me be the best parent," she said. "I stumbled into the MLK Center with my preschool son. I volunteered and after graduating from EWU, I worked at the center as a social worker in the preschool, a kindergarten teacher and the director of children's and youth services before becoming executive director.

"Who would have thought that when I came looking for free childcare, I would develop a passion for this nonprofit work," she said, appreciative of the support she has had from other staff and community leaders like Happy Watkins, pastor of New Hope Baptist, and Ivan Bush, her predecessor, "who saw in me things I did not see."

With Happy and Ivan, she helped build the Martin Luther King Jr. Day Rally, March and Resource Fair that has grown from 500 gathering at the Performing Arts Center steps in 2011 to 3,000, filling three ballrooms at the Spokane Convention Center.

"I am committed to engage in this community, listen to people and their needs and address them with resources at the center, staying true to our mission when the MLK center started more than 50 years ago," she said.

"MLK Day celebrates the life and legacy of one of the greatest civil rights leaders. He left a blueprint, so we know what we need to do and know there is more to do," she said. "Dr. King's words resonate with what is going on in our world today."

For information, call 868-0856 or visit mlkspokane.org.