Most readers of this update are aware that the Village Green Community Center, Village Green Park, the pavilion and tennis courts are operated and maintained by the Village Green Metropolitan Park District (MPD), which local voters approved in 2010.
It’s another part of the story of Village Green promises kept. We promised a “lean and local” operation, and that’s what you’ve got. There are only two paid contract staff: our program coordinator and our bookkeeper. Both are part-time and both devoted community volunteers.
The MPD is governed by five locally elected commissioners, each serving a six-year term. We have kept our costs low by multiple means, including refusing compensation and using the services of volunteers. We depend on volunteers both for mowing and weed-whacking the park — which some volunteers have been doing since the park was built in 2009 — and for staffing the welcome desk at the community center.
Other cost containment is possible because the Village Green Community Center’s two main tenants, Kitsap Regional Library and Boys &Girls Clubs of Snohomish County, provide services (custodial and building management, respectively) that reduce direct cost to the MPD.
Linda Fyfe, our program coordinator, has extensive experience with program planning and volunteer coordination. She has been responsive and proactive about senior exercise programs, dance classes, pickleball for adults, free AARP tax preparation services, cooking classes, sewing circles, board and card games and myriad other options. We have an extensive array of activities. Check them out at the center or by visiting the calendar at www.my villagegreen.org. Or call the Community Center at 360-297-1263.
We have also kept our eye on financial sustainability by building a capital reserve that will see us past the end of warranties on the building’s new equipment. All of this is exactly what we said we’d do in the July 2009 Community News: “We’re going ahead with plans for a Kingston-based Metropolitan Park District. Our strategy still calls for the MPD’s purpose to be maintenance and operation of the planned multi-purpose community center and library. ‘Operation’ includes recreational programs, which we plan to subcontract to an experienced program administrator.”
Our most recent contribution to the sustainability of the project was to approve payment of rent to Village Green Foundation, which owns the building, so that the foundation can count on using all of its donations to complete its capital campaign.
Finally, the MPD commissioners will be supporting the foundation’s campaign at a fabulous fundraising breakfast, coffee and registration, 7-8:30 a.m. April 26. Breakfast is on the foundation with support from Market Fresh Catering and Borrowed Kitchen Bakery, but attendance comes with an expectation that you will respond to a motivational speaker by making a pledge or a payment to the foundation’s capital campaign.
Call the front desk at 360-297-1263 to pre-register. You must pre-register as seating is limited.
— Bobbie Moore is chair of the Village Green Metropolitan Park District. Contact her at elliott moore@comcast.net.
