City of Tacoma invests in youth and cultural programming 

By Michaela Ely

District Four in the Eastside area of Tacoma has allocated $800,000 from the City of Tacoma towards youth and cultural programming after District Four residents voted last year to apply participatory budgeting funds in these areas. 

All five council districts received a similar amount of funding, but District Four is one of the only districts actively in the implementation phase of the two types of programming. 

The $800,000 will be split in half between both youth and cultural programming, allocating $400,000 for each. The youth programming will consist of events like after-school curriculum and other community support programs, while the funding for cultural programming will help to fund events like Juneteenth and Vietnamese New Year. 

Deputy Director Gray Sterling of the Foundation for Tacoma Students stated in a press release from the City of Tacoma that this funding is meant to strengthen support for students beyond the classroom. 

“We will see who applies, but I hope that we get some applications from the Puyallup Tribe, from Tahoma Indian Center, and from some Latino organizations that do celebrations on the Eastside, like Calavera Collective, that does Dia de los Muertos every year,” Participatory Budgeting Analyst Liesl Santkuyl said. 

Santkuyl works with the City of Tacoma’s Office of Management and Budget to do participatory budgeting for the five council districts. Her role helps to support the grant contracting process associated with this funding. 

In an interview with The Ledger, Santkuyl stated that each council district received this kind of funding, but the idea collection from the community and voting process takes about a year to complete. 

Council District Two has also begun its implementation phase, consisting of the area around UWT and the downtown area. However, the funding for this district will result in something different than the Eastside, as District Two’s funding is helping to support the construction of a skate park near I-705. 

“That [project] is going to be implemented by Parks Tacoma, formerly known as Metro Parks, and they’re in the process of working with WSDOT to acquire the rights to use that space under I-705, and that will likely take a year. And I hate that it takes that long, but that’s likely before the design phase begins. So that one is in implementation, but it’s out of our court right now in terms of what we are actually working on,” Santkuyl said. 

The application process closes April 1 at 11:59 p.m. with applications being reviewed by two separate community organizations, Eastside Tacoma Community Leaders (ETCL) and Seeds of Peace. 

“ETCL [is] a group of leaders that are multicultural and have experience with putting on cultural events on the east side. And they will be scoring the applications that come in to award five to eight of them, if any of those individuals is applying, they have to recuse themselves from the scoring. It’s a group of about 10 people, and they represent pretty diverse community groups on the Eastside,” Santkuyl said. 

As for the Seeds of Peace, they are a youth activist group that originated from First Creek Middle School. The group does community town halls and implements youth advocacy programming funded by the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation. 

Both ETCL and Seeds of Peace were a part of determining the application process and scoring rubric. They both provided suggestions on how to make the process more welcoming and will be involved in the scoring process as well. 

While the leadership component for these events is already there, this funding will help to provide necessary monetary support to these organizations. This opens them up to more promotion towards a broader community, according to Santkuyl. 

 “I’ve seen an organization like Golden Bamboo, which puts on the Tet New Year, be able to grow it from a small audience of about 100 to 1,200 people, because they’re partnering with East Side Community Center, because they have the money to do it, they’re getting promoted. They’re building their partnership with a wider community network, and that just enriches our whole community,” Santkuyl said. 

This funding has been promoted through email and social media and as of March 6, four applications have been submitted. However, Santkuyl mentioned the desire to get as many groups as possible to apply for this funding. 

There will be in-person information and application workshops hosted on the Eastside on March 17 at the Eastside Community Center and on March 20 at the Tacoma Public Library’s Moore Library Branch. To learn more about eligibility, visit the Graduate Tacoma site. Funding recipients will be announced on April 30.