King County Councilmember Dave Upthegrove presented a symbolic check during the Nov. 21 Renton City Council meeting, representing the $500,000 secured by the county council in the recently approved 2023-2024 budget. The money will help finish Renton’s Family First Community Center and reportedly help close the gap of the remaining $1.75 million needed to finance construction of the center.

The Family First Community Center was the vision of former Seattle Seahawk Doug Baldwin and former Renton Mayor Denis Law. The project is a partnership between the Family First Community Center Foundation, HealthPoint, the City of Renton, and the Renton School District. The Family First Community Center Foundation, with Doug Baldwin as Executive Director, and HealthPoint will partner in operating the facility.

“The City of Renton thanks Councilmember Upthegrove for this funding in the county budget, which will bring the Family First Community Center closer to the funding it needs,” said Renton Mayor Armondo Pavone in a statement. “The idea envisioned by Mayor Law and Doug Baldwin was a community focused facility to help young people in need, and it has been my privilege to work on making it a reality.”

The Family First Community Center is currently being built next to Cascade Elementary School. The project broke ground in October of 2019.

As currently planned, the roughly 25,000 square-foot facility will host programs for youth and children for after school, youth sports, art classes, music classes and technology classes. It will also have health and wellness programs for adults such as group exercise, health education, cooking classes, personal training, yoga, sports recreation and others.

“Working together we can overcome any obstacle, and that’s what the City of Renton is doing by working together with the Doug Baldwin Foundation, with HealthPoint, with the Renton School District,” Upthegrove said to the Renton City Council during the Nov. 21 meeting. “To help young people and families overcome obstacles, particularly young people and families from our most marginalized communities, to allow them to be healthy and to achieve their best possible self here in Renton.”