Capital Campaign
Vision: We envision a community where all families thrive and participate
Visión: Visualizamos una comunidad en la que todas las familias prosperan y participan.
Historically, South Park has been the home of the largest concentrations of Latine residents in Seattle and King County, due to relatively affordable housing costs and the proximity of jobs and services in the City. Today the City of Seattle describes South Park as a High Risk of Displacement Community because of its proximity to downtown with lower costs to purchase and redevelop properties for buyers and speculators. What made South Park attractive in the past is now leading to rapid displacement and gentrification. Residents, businesses, community-based organizations like Villa Comunitaria, and other cultural anchors face mounting displacement pressures.
Currently Villa Comunitaria shares the space at the South Park Neighborhood Center (SPNC), with four other community serving organizations. Services are provided in the hallway of the SPNC, which is neither comfortable nor private for our underserved population. Furthermore, we currently lack the space to fulfill the needs of different programs and basic childhood development work.
Our children don’t have a dedicated space when parents are engaged in workshops or programs. We also need additional space for our emerging Early Learning Cooperative. Today, that Cooperative is temporarily being run outside the neighborhood. Our access to this temporary space will end in June 2023, so the need for the children and their caregivers is very urgent.
Villa Comunitaria and its staff are the “go-to” resource for people in South Park. Our bicultural and bilingual staff provides services to a growing population of Spanish speaking families coming from all over South King County.
People also turn to us in times of extraordinary need and emergencies. Two examples include the additional support during the various phases of the COVID pandemic, and the December 2022 disaster recovery when King Tides flooded many of the most vulnerable families in the neighborhood.
Our community sorely needs a dedicated building where Villa Comunitaria can expand economic advancement opportunities, development, personal growth, and provide special services during especially stressful circumstances for families and their children. We strongly believe in supporting the children in our community, and this space will be key to ability to thrive in South Park.
We envision a space that is welcoming, safe, and healthy. With a new building, our staff can assist residents with resources, services, and programs. More importantly, we can continue to develop the collective power to develop equitable community-scale solutions for South Park and the surrounding area.
Community members have identified the following needs and vision of the new space which would help our neighbors with:
Villa Comunitaria, a Latine and women-led non-profit, is a thriving 501 (c)(3) organization that has been serving the community of South Park and South King County since 2005. Since then, the organization has grown in programs and services designed by its participants to cover the needs of families and individuals in a holistic way.
Our unique approach and initiatives on community issues have provided a good foundation for current programs in:
Contributing to these programs, we have a strong outreach team who reach out to the most isolated families and individuals and a model of community leadership called Promotoras that gives room for women to participate and contribute with their work and knowledge to shape the content of our programs and services.
Chief Sealth International High School – Seattle Public School
Please reach out to our Executive Director, Analia Bertoni, to discuss opportunities to support the Community-Owned Building Capital Campaign at 206-295-6040 or by email at capital.campaign@villacomunitaria.org