Independent staff report
Kitsap Community Resources is launching a fundraising campaign to supplement grant funding the agency has received for construction of its South Kitsap Community Services Center.
Work began last month on the $2.5 million center on Jackson Avenue near the intersection with Lund Avenue. KCR, a Bremerton-based nonprofit, has provided a variety of social services from a satellite office on Bay Street in Port Orchard for about 10 years.
KCR also plans to build eight “cottages” on the 2.2-acre Jackson Avenue site in a second phase of the project, which has a total estimated cost of $5.2 million. The eight units will provide long-term affordable rental housing for clients.
The nonprofit’s capital campaign to raise the rest of the funding for the new center has secured a Challenge Matching grant of $200,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation through its Family Interest Program. To receive the money, KCR projects director Mike Botkin explained, the nonprofit will have to raise $115,000 locally.
But the organization has set a goal of raising $150,000 in its capital campaign, which will be directed at area businesses, foundations, service clubs and individual donors. Botkin said almost $35,000 already has been committed.
Federal, state and local grants have provided about 75 percent of the funding for the new center, which Botkin said allowed KCR to begin construction on the two-story, 6,900-square-foot building. That funding included a Kitsap County Community Development Block Grant to purchase the land.
In the capital campaign, Botkin said KCR will appeal to donors who have supported the organization in the past, “and we’ll be expanding and reaching out to make new contacts in the community.”
KCR has recruited a committee of civic leaders to support the capital campaign for the South Kitsap center. They include the area’s state legislators, Sen. Derek Kilmer and Reps. Jan Angel and Larry Sequist; Kitsap County Commissioner Charlotte Gar-rido; county prosecutor Russ Hauge; Sheriff Steve Boyer; South Kitsap School District Superintendent Dave LaRose; Port Orchard City Councilman Rob Putaansuu; and Richard Brown and Gary Anderson, partners in Kitsap Commercial Group real estate agency.
