October 31, 2002
Community Outreach Partnership Center created in Toppenish
The UW’s Office of Educational Partnerships and Learning Technologies and its partners in Eastern Washington — Heritage College, the City of Toppenish, the Northwest Communities Education Center/Radio KDNA and the Yakama Nation — have been awarded a three-year grant for $534,126 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The grant will create a new Community Outreach Partnership Center to direct projects in which community members and university faculty and students work together to improve living and working conditions in Toppenish, a diverse but economically disadvantaged community in the heart of the Yakima Valley.
“We are very excited about establishing a stronger working partnership between the University of Washington, Heritage College and the City of Toppenish that will benefit all residents in Toppenish,” said Mayor Clara R. Jimenez. “This HUD grant will complement the work of our Community Development Plan to address our housing and small businesses’ needs. The grant will also help in our desire to increase the City of Toppenish’s economic development activities.”
The grant will support UW faculty and students from the College of Architecture and Urban Planning and the College of Business to work with community members on small business development and neighborhood revitalization. It will also support UW and Heritage College faculty and students to create information technology training for members of the Yakama Nation. The proposal was one of 16 selected from a pool of 87 applicants.
Provost Lee Huntsman said: “For the past several years, we have sought to renew and strengthen the university’s partnerships with communities across the state, particularly those in rural areas. Many university faculty, staff and community members have worked in support of this effort. This grant provides resources to support projects that address critical areas of community need while providing faculty and students opportunities for learning and research in real world settings.”
The grant is the second to be received this fall to support Yakima Valley-UW partnerships. On Oct. 10, University of Washington’s Educational Partnerships and Learning Technologies and its partners in Eastern Washington — Northwest Communities Education Center/Radio KDNA and Horizons Inc. — announced a $576,331 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to create two community technology centers in Granger and Sunnyside. Together, these grants will bring more than $1.1 million in resources to work in the Yakima Valley over the next three years.
The new Community Outreach Partnership Center, a project of the UW-Yakima Valley Community Partnership, will be based at Heritage College. “This grant provides more resources for Heritage to pursue its long-standing service to the Yakama Nation and the residents of Toppenish, and it increases once again the level of collaboration between Heritage and the UW,” said Sister Kathleen Ross, President of Heritage College. “These partnerships are so important for truly successful community education in central Washington, and we are proud to be a part of another successful effort to grow these partnerships.”
Michael Verchot, Director of the UW Business School’s Business and Economic Development Program, will lead the effort to work with 45 business owners in downtown Toppenish to create strategies to meet the consumer needs of the growing Hispanic market and take advantage of the opportunities presented by tourism.
“We strive to prepare our students to work in diverse communities and business settings. The opportunity to build on our collaboration with Heritage College and Yakima Valley businesses through this grant provides our students with a broader range of learning experiences and learning environments, preparing them to lead in increasingly complex and culturally diverse business contexts,” said Yash Gupta, dean of the UW School of Business Administration.
Ryan Landvoy, Professor of Computer Science at Heritage College, will lead an effort to provide information technology job skills training to 500 Yakama Nation tribal members and tribal government employees. This training will be conducted in the community technology center created in January 2002 by Educational Partnerships and Learning Technologies with the Yakama Nation through a grant from the US Department of Education.
Sergio Palleroni, professor in the UW College of Architecture and Urban Planning, will spearhead a program of neighborhood revitalization, working with over 300 Toppenish residents. In speaking about the long-term benefits of this work, Robert Mugerauer, dean of the UW College of Architecture, said: “This joint project shows how much can be done for the residents of the state when institutions cooperate with each other and include genuine community participation in the process. The emphasis on bringing resources and technology, along with critical expertise, into partnerships that focus on neighborhood-scale projects is realistic and very encouraging. Especially valuable are the plans to make what is created sustainable, so that the achievements do not disappear, but multiply as time goes on.”
