By Mark Ufkes

The White Center Community Development Association (White Center CDA) Executive Director Sili Savusa wants to thank everyone for helping with the 2021 White Center Refresh/Spring Clean during the past two weekends.  Our community of volunteers commented over and over again to our organizing staff how much they love being part of White Center and are proud to live here.  This year’s White Center Refresh/Spring Clean resulted in;

• 65 volunteers signed up, contributing over 200 hours of community service to White Center.
• 15 projects were completed, including the restoration of our White Center Community Bulletin Board on 16th and 98th.
• 21 buildings had graffiti cleaned or removed.
• All five White Center Welcome signs were restored, cleaned-up or had flowers added.
• Volunteers used 15 gallons of paint to cover graffiti.
• Volunteer artists restored the West Seattle Lions mural and the large mural at Rosticeria y Cocina El Paisano from graffiti damage.
• Five business or property owners, including El Paisano, thanked our crews by donating excellent meals and water to our site volunteers.
• Over 25 large lawn bags of clean green and/or trash were removed from White Center.
• Eight future Eagle Scouts helped out. 
• Dozens of cars honked as they passed our sites to thank our crews for improving White Center.

The White Center CDA reminds businesses, property owners and residents that the best way to help White Center reduce graffiti is to;

• Keep your building clean and neat. It will be less likely to be vandalized in the future.   
• Cover graffiti quickly when it shows up and replace any broken windows or other damage. This will reduce future graffiti vandalism.
• Paint murals on your building. Graffiti is less likely at sites that have existing public art on building walls already.
• Monitor your business or building with video cameras to document graffiti vandalism.

Thanks everyone again for helping make our effort a success.   White Center gets better every year thanks to all of you.