Filipino-American Club of the Jersey Shore, Monmouth County, New Jersey, filamorg.com

Courtesy of:  Derek Sheppard, Kitsap Sun,  www.kitsapsun.com, August 21, 2009
Photos courtesy of:  Kitsap Sun

" PORT ORCHARD —

After 20 years of efforts and little movement, there were times when Rudy Nartea wasn’t certain that the local Filipino community’s efforts to develop a community center in Kitsap would ever come to fruition. “I had doubts for a while,” Nartea, president of the Pacific Northwest Ilocandia Association said. “It seemed to be not going anywhere.” But at 2 p.m. Aug. 29, the PNIA will open its new multicultural community center in Port Orchard....

“It’s hard for me to believe it’s going to happen,” he said.  The group got its start 20 years ago as a social club and took on more charitable tasks as the years progressed. It became a nonprofit in 1996 and began working to build a community center. It bought land off Trigger Avenue in Central Kitsap, hoping to build there, but ran into challenges from the Suquamish Tribe over a proposal to encroach in some areas on stream buffers that the tribe believed would harm salmon habitat.

In January, the PNIA changed gears and decided to look for an existing building. They found the approximately 5,000-square-foot former church in Port Orchard on Sidney Avenue. A $250,000 state grant had to be modified to allow it to be used to buy property rather than build something new. Nartea credited state Sen. Phil Rockefeller, D-Bainbridge Island, and state Rep. Sherry Appleton, D-Poulsbo, with helping make that happen. The land on Trigger is for sale for $300,000, which the group plans to use to pay off a loan used to cover the remainder of the $333,000 purchase price for the Port Orchard building.

Association members and volunteers are busy renovating the building and hope to build a basketball court behind the building. The association plans to offer services at the center that focus largely on seniors. Nartea envisions computer classes to help the elderly keep in touch with family, fill prescriptions or buy groceries. A teacher is lined up to teach the Tagalog language of the Philippines. Nartea hopes the eventual basketball court will be a place where neighborhood kids can come play, and maybe a league for the kids could develop.

And while the center is formed by a Filipino organization, he said the club hopes it develops into a hub where the entire community is welcome. “I feel like I have a tremendous responsibility on my shoulders,” he said, explaining that he hopes to show the center will be a worthy expenditure of the taxpayers’ money. Roy Padaca, the PNIA public relations representative, echoed Nartea’s hopes that the center will serve the entire community, and said it’s a work in progress. “Right now we’re just getting started,” he said. “There’s a whole future in there.”

Ribbon Cutting

The Pacific Northwest Ilocandia Association Multi-Cultural Center will be dedicated 2 p.m. Aug. 29. The group has invited local lawmakers Sen. Phil Rockefeller, Rep. Sherry Appleton, the Kitsap County Commissioners and Port Orchard Mayor Lary Coppola. The center is at 1403 Sidney Ave. in Port Orchard. "