The May Cause of the month is the Connect Casino Road. “Connect Casino Road” is a collaborative of the people, for the people. Through inclusive, innovative, and transformative collaboration, Connect Casino Road identifies, champions, resources, and brings to life the vision and dreams of the Casino Road community.
The Casino Road neighborhood, located about 4 miles south of Everett’s downtown core, is a densely populated area home to around 13,000 people. Over half of all the households in Casino Road’s zip code belong to families, and those families are extremely diverse; 1 in 4 residents are foreign born and 80% of the student body at the local elementary school identify as a race other than white. Casino Road also has some of the highest rates of poverty in all of Snohomish County.
Like other communities battling poverty, the families living in this community face a number of challenges. High-rise apartment buildings line the stretch of the 2-mile long Casino Road, and like the rest of Western Washington, rents in this community are rising much faster than incomes. Families work hard to provide for their families, but a myriad of systemic barriers keep families firmly entrenched in cycles of intergenerational poverty.
Connect Casino Road relies on a unique combination of family lived experience and research-based approaches to shape our work. Our community defines what we do and why we do it, and science helps to inform us how to do it. As they say on their website. “If we can help families access what they need to thrive while building a safer, more supportive, and equitable community for families to live in, we think our impacts can ripple out for generations to come.”
Considering the evolving and uncertain political landscape over the coming year, and with respect for the leadership of this organization the funds donated by EUUC will be dedicated to the organization’s self-determined Area of Greatest Need.
As always, thank you for your generous donations.
If you have an organization that you wish to nominate for Sunday cause of the month, we invite you to fill out the online nomination form at https://euuc.org/sunday-offering/
This Sunday Cause was nominated by Nora Thompson