Story reposted with permission from The Times-Standard.
I tried to listen as Kimberley White spoke like a fireboat pumps water, not capturing half of what she said during our interview. She covered movie nights. The community garden, a long-time dream for her neighborhood. Chocolate making. Yogurt. Food preservation. A kayak trip. Basket-making. Multi-generational crocheting. Painting. Dance therapy. The food pantry. Cleanups and upgrades at Carlson Park. Arcata’s first dog park. The lending library. Food preservation equipment available from the lending library.
“I’m forgetting something,” she said. “We’ve been busy.”
Going back to the beginning, Community United of North Arcata, or Comunidad Unida del Norte de Arcata, was born during the pandemic because, as Kimberley puts it, the Spanish-speaking community had fallen through the cracks. She served as one of the original founders.
“We were boots on the ground bringing personal protective equipment, supplies and information,” she said. CUNA services began using delivery from cars.
For nearly two years now, CUNA has been housed in a building which serves as a year-round resilience center.
CUNA serves the “other Arcata,” Northern Arcata and Valley West, a place of mobile homes, affordable and student housing, fast food retail and hotels. It’s an area where a lot of families don’t have vehicles, and there is arguably too little bus service. It’s also a part of the city that generates a high percentage of sales and transient occupancy taxes, or TOT, from the hotels. Being remote, geographically and demographically separate, makes for resilience.
“We’re fighters,” Kimberley observed. “I want to boost this neighborhood, so that we are no longer the other Arcata, the lesser Arcata.”
Now a project of Black Humboldt, there is a programmatic mix at CUNA that feels distinct from other resource centers. A lot of that has to do with all of those events and programs listed above, but it also goes to CUNA’s birth in a time of disaster. Data shows communities bounce back from disasters faster when they have access to year-round services.
You may also recognize Kimberley as the Mayor of Arcata. It’s a full, busy life. We had to jump out of our meeting for a few minutes when Arcata’s pesky — my word, not hers — city manager called, doubtlessly with something important. Previously serving on the city’s planning commission representing Valley West, Kimberley ran for city council to have a seat at the big kids’ table, again with a mind to serve as an advocate for that other Arcata.
It’s a grassroots effort. The center benefits from grants from PG&E, the Humboldt Area Foundation, North Coast Cooperative and Coast Central Credit Union. Businesses like Mad River Gardens, Arcata’s Sunrise Rotary and residents also chip in. Kimberley is struck by the sense that it’s often those who have the least who give the most.
CUNA leans into participatory budgeting. This method comes from Latin America as a way to engage people who are typically left out of public deliberations and allocations.
One of Kimberley’s graduate projects featured participatory processes. The community gets to decide how public money — at least part of it — is spent.
Back in the pandemic era, the City of Arcata had some federal ARPA funds to distribute. As part of that process, there were over a dozen meetings in various places around the city. Arcata had held listening sessions and the like previously, but some residents believed that little came to fruition. Therefore, when invited to participate, community members didn’t necessarily buy in and were reticent.
“But,” Kimberley says, “we pushed forward, and the first round delivered what was promised. People were then excited for the second round.”
When discussing upgrades to Carlson Park, unhoused individuals and other “throwaways of society” became involved, as with the mural project painted by the Grove Residents and spearheaded by Ben Goulart and Ben Funke.
“We don’t have a lot of art out here,” Kimberley pointed out. But hopefully there’s more to come.
To access CUNA’s services or to help out, people can go on their website (https://www.cunacomestogether.com/), sign up for the newsletter and visit Facebook or Instagram. Word of mouth also plays a big role.
Despite the rapid-fire program and event descriptions, some clear and important themes came through clearly. Everything CUNA does is bilingual and free to the community.
Disaster preparedness remains a touchstone. … we all know that it’s not a matter of if; it’s when. But it’s also about being there for all walks of life, year-round.
As we were wrapping up, Kimberley said, “It’s all about community, I guess. Community and resilience.”
To nominate a deserving nonprofit organization to be profiled, please email michael@kraftconsultants.com. Michael Kraft writes the Good Work series, volunteering on behalf of the Northern California Association of Nonprofits (NorCAN). NorCAN, a DreamMaker project of the Ink People, supports connections between people and organizations that work every day to keep our communities healthy and strong by offering professional development, board support, networking connections and more. Learn more at https://norcal-nonprofits.org/.