Community pressure has saved the Youth Reach Out Center (YROC) in Othello from a cloud of uncertainity. On Tuesday, youth ministers at Othello’s Youth Reach Out Center (YROC) held a townhall and protest against Union Gospel Mission (UGM) pulling funding for the youth services program amid budget shortfalls. The sustained community effort convinced UGM to ensure the program lives on in its existing building and to clarify its efforts to find a new organization to take over.
Back in April, The Seattle Times reported that UGM had cut YROC’s budget and planned to shutter the building and layoff staff. At Tuesday’s townhall youth who use the program and workers who relied on meager wages as youth ministers shared their stories.
“The Union Gospel Mission [YROC] saved my life,” former student and current summer camp staffer Jonathan Amosa said. “To see how this was handled is what angered me. We must remain a community.”
Seventeen-year-old Cyrus Kirk has been coming to YROC since the sixth grade and said he remembered before light rail came and has witnessed the displacement as people of color are pushed out to the suburbs.
“I’m getting to the edge–I’m living on my own now. I want to live in Seattle where I’m from, but I can’t afford it,” Kirk said. “This is just another step to push us out, and I’m not going to stay quiet. I’m going to fight.”
To summarize over an hour of stirring testimony, single mothers shared how crucial the daycare and after-school programs YROC offers had been to holding their family together, allowing them to hold down jobs to make ends meet. Mission kids–as youth who use the program call themselves–testified that YROC had provided them a safe place when their own homes were not. Some said YROC had helped them avoid getting sucked into joining gangs, even as their siblings weren’t so luckily and ended up incarcerated. YROC had helped some community members avoid homelessness, they said. Marcus Harrison Green of South Seattle Emerald recounted more examples of the community’s testimony in his article.
Community leader Paul Patu issued three demands to Union Gospel Mission’s board on behalf of staff. You can watch him deliver those demands in the video below.
- Pay staff for one more year to stabilize their families an extend youth services while the next lead organization raises funds.
- A public apology from the UGM’s executive leadership for how they handled the situation.
- A do no harm pledge.
