With assistance from public officials, efforts to secure capital funds for a recreation center in Little Tokyo are well underway. In 1999 State Assembly member Gilbert Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), who represents the Little Tokyo area obtained a $250,000 from the state of California.

In addition to the $250,000 from the State of California, the Rec Center campaign has raised $500,000 from the federal government, $500,000 from the City of Los Angeles and about $25,000 from community donors, for a total of approximately $1.25 million.

In May-June 2000, we attempted to get additional funding for the gym from the 2000-2001 state budget. We did not succeed, primarily because we were too late in getting into the process, and because our request got lost in the torrent of better organized efforts. Our request did get into several legislators' funding lists however, and we did learn some things about the process. Many supporters made calls and sent letters and emails to legislators. Your actions had an impact; at least the legislators knew about the Rec Center. We will try again next year.

For next time, we hope to have a bill introduced specifically for funding the Rec Center. If you'd like to get involved with this part of the gym, please contact the Coalition's volunteer Political Committee. In summary, initial funding for the Rec Center has not been difficult to obtain. The experience of the LTSC-CDC in developing other projects is that funding from grants and low-cost loans is much easier to obtain once a project has secured a site.

The main obstacle in the campaign has been getting a site to build the Little Tokyo Recreation Center.