Seattle Parks will maintain community center hours with City funding

Four Seattle community centers will be able to maintain their hours and programming despite a major funding loss from a local nonprofit.

The City of Seattle has announced it will make up for the recent funding cut with taxpayer dollars, allowing the Ballard, Loyal Heights, Queen Anne and Magnolia centers to return to their normal programming.

Rachel Schulkin from Seattle Parks says the additional hours will be added next week to the four community centers at the start of the fall term. Ballard will get 10 additional hours, Loyal Heights will get seven, Magnolia will get 15, and Queen Anne, 10.5. Drop-in programs will be added back immediately and programming will be added back based on instructor availability and registrations.

Local nonprofit the Associated Recreation Council (ARC) had been paying for the additional hours at a cost of $158,000 per year — the City will make up for most of that with an additional $152,500 that will cover the rest of 2019 and all of 2020.

“We have a responsibility to listen to community – and to work with community to help make Seattle a more inclusive and just place,” Mayor Jenny Durkan said in a release. “The City needed to step up to protect and preserve this access to our community centers that had previously been supported by our non-profit partner. It’s good news that we found a solution.”