Last week, The Sacramento Press wrote about local youth and hip-hop legend KRS-One spearheading a fundraiser for the Washington Neighborhood Center. Unfortunately, the event was not "well-attended enough on its own to make a significant dent in our financial burden," said the center's vice president Adria Banihashemi.

The center's financial problems have been building over the last five years, Banihashemi explained. One of the center's main donors, United Way, a budget-challenged non-profit itself, has sent the center significantly less money in the last few years.

But it wasn't one grant, person or event that caused the struggle for money, Banihashemi said.

"Lower attendance at events and reduced United Way contributions are both the result of an overall struggling economy," she added. "Many folks in Sacramento are just not donating or spending as much at events, and that really affects us."

The Washington Neighborhood Center first opened in 1952 as an outreach center for the Fremont Presbyterian Church. Since then, it has provided the Alkali Flat and Washington neighborhoods with educational, health, arts and cultural programs, with an emphasis on youth.

In the early 1980s, Banihashemi's grandfather Don Conley became the first coach of the center's boxing program. Under Conley's training, Sacramento boxer Loreto Garza won the World Boxing Association's light welterweight world title in 1990.

Before his death in 1998, local restaurant owner Sam Gordon (of Sam's Hof Brau) donated money to the center, making it the Sam Gordon Washington Neighborhood Center. Since that time, the center has seen very few individual donors.

Then in 2006, a severe rainstorm damaged the center's roof, library and computer center. The center operated for nearly a year without a roof or proper insulation, until Cesar Chavez Day in 2007.

On that particular day, the Maloof Sports and Entertainment organization and the Sacramento Kings renovated the entire facility, including the roof, the building's foundation and the electrical system. They also renovated the tutoring room, game room, kitchen, basketball court and boxing gym.

Currently-held programs at the center include the CSUS Barrio Art Program, where Sac State students work with young and old community members to create cultural works of art, a bi-weekly Aztec dance group and a daily training program in the boxing gym.

To run the facility at its full capacity -- internet, phones, electricity, program leader stipends, and loan payments -- the group needs to bring in about $3,000 per month, Banihashemi said. But since they have only been receiving about a third of this money, they are operating on a deficit and in danger of shutting down completely.

To cut costs, the center recently limited "drop-in" days, where students could come use free tutoring services and a computer lab, to two days per week. It's usually open Monday through Friday, from 4 to 8 p.m.

"We need a lot more volunteers giving supervision time during our open hours, more grant writers to help us secure larger chunks of funding, and regular events that are well-planned and well-attended so we have regular monthly income to pay our bills," Banihashemi added.

"We are being very creative right now with how we organize our programs to be the most efficient and we would love more involvement from community members to make these changes work."