Editor’s Note: Made Possible By Community: King County Local Services is checking in with some of the winners of the first Participatory Budgeting vote to see how the funding – which the county’s new process made possible by giving voters an opportunity to choose how funds are spent in their neighborhoods – has helped.

  • Grant winner: Nepantla Cultural Arts Gallery
  • Amount: $150,000
  • Project: Funding to provide capacity building and programming to the Nepantla Center cultural arts space for artists who are Latinx and the White Center community. Nepantla is a multi-use cultural arts space grounded in the Chicana/o Latinx arts.

  • Reason funds are important: “White Center, unincorporated King County, we don’t have a lot of access to art that a lot of Seattle kids have,” says Jake Prendez, co-director at Nepantla. “All the money that’s coming in, it’s going straight back to community. It’s paying for the workshops. It’s paying for the artist stipends. It’s paying for all of the supplies. It’s paying for art shows. We want to make sure that artists are taken care of, so that helps us support doing that and keep our doors open.”

“Our mission really is to make art an accessible experience,” adds Judy Avitia-Gonzalez, Nepantla’s co-director. “Being from White Center, and now raising our children here in White Center, art isn’t something that’s visibly accessible to our families. We’re hoping to bridge that gap. Our workshops are always 100-percent free. All supplies are provided. With that money, we were able to fund events like (Nepantla’s 3rd Annual Lowrider Block Party) and keep it free, and to keep art and culture to White Center.”

  • Participatory Budgeting made it possible. Reaction?: “To me, I’m incredibly proud,” she said. “The fact that we’ve been here four years, and two of those years were during the pandemic, I think it speaks volumes about what the community wants. We’re doing something right. We’re offering a good space for our families, for our neighbors, for our communities. I’m just honored.”

“We are so grateful to have that community support,” “Prendez added. “Even in a pandemic, people were still coming in. They were still supporting folks in the gift shop. They were still buying art in the exhibitions. It speaks volumes to that commitment we have from community, that people believe in this dream that we have. We’re just completely honored.”

  • Anything else?: “We’re just continuing the mission to make art accessible,” Avitia-Gonzalez said. “White Center deserves it. Our kids deserve it. We deserve it, as Chicanos. We’re repping hard in the Pacific Northwest.”