Tanya March lives across the street from Couch Park and the Metropolitan Learning Center, where her oldest son, age 7, attends school. in the past, her son benefited from small, creative after school classes provided by the SUN program. He enjoyed activities like singing and photography in relaxed classes with kids of different ages. Now the SUN program, which began in 1978, has been cancelled for MLC. It was one of three such similar programs cut in the city. The original idea behind the SUN program was that rather than build new community centers it would be better to utilize existing schools, keeping them active in summer and during the winter month's after school hours.
Resources are scarce, and getting scarcer, March says. Getting up to Hillside Center, run by Portland Parks, for her son's soccer practice once a week isn't easy for those who live without a car. Buses are few and far between. A pool? Not likely to be in the picture.
"There's that perception that all the parents in Northwest Portland are rich," says March, who feels that word of the SUN program offerings weren't well communicated to parents who might take advantage of them. "Also, a lot of MLC students come from out of the area, so they aren't likely to use this program in the summer." But as more families lose their jobs she feels demand would only have risen.
The fate of this particular program is tied to the Portland Parks and Recreation budget, March explains, unlike the other 50 odd SUN programs that operate in Multnomah County. Commissioner Fish and Fritz have been responsive to her concerns, says March, who has a volunteer temporary position as chair of the Northwest Neighborhood Association's Park and Recreation Committee.
On an up note, Opus Northwest, which developed the new Park Northwest apartment building by Couch park spent $50,000 on park improvements recently, but a crackdown on drug dealing in downtown Portland has directed the industry up to Couch Park. March isn't bothered by the homeless people who spend time in the park and are only trying to avoid trouble, but she is concerned about prostitution in the public restrooms. Still, she looks forward to the three new planned pieces of park equipment which will arrive in the park this summer.
