COMMUNITY CENTER

WATCH $30 MILLION FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN CENTERS!

Background:

There are many historic African American communities located through out Montgomery County including Scotland in Potomac, Sandy Spring in Olney, Plum Gar in Germantown and Good Hope in Burtonsville. The AIM Community Centers campaign brought these historic African American community centers together with AIM congregations to collectively organize around the same issue, renovate these four sorely neglected centers now.

Success:

$30 million was won to renovate the four African American community centers.  This will impact the 3,500 families who are within walking distance of these community centers, particularly the seniors and low-income, at-risk youth who mostly utilize these centers.

Throughout the spring, AIM organized 3 actions at the community centers with 106-147 leaders each, culminating in an Action with 1,047 AIM leaders, Community Center members and the County Council.  Despite a tight budget year, after this action the Council added full funding for the renovation of these four centers in the final CIP budget.

UPDATE: Plum Gar Community Center in Germantown begins construction this summer 2011 and Scotland Community Center will begin construction this November 2011. Both projects will take approximately 18 months to complete. Ross Body in Sandy Spring and Good Hope in Silver Spring are in the final stages of Design and Development and construction on them will begin next summer.