The current 5 year lease on our Elysian Valley space will be coming to an end in March 2020 (Ah, time flies!). While there is an opportunity to stay for an additional, shorter, lease period, the landlord intends to raise our rent significantly. While this could be a short-term solution, we ultimately decided we want to focus on finding a new, sustainable, long-term home for WCCW, that truly fits our current needs and gives us some space to grow.

Looking towards this change obviously brings up a lot of feelings — we’re sad to say goodbye to this space that has held all of the dynamism of WCCW these past five years, and we’re proud that what started as a real experiment has become such a thriving community arts organization, and we’re excited for the future promise of what WCCW could be.

We have been talking about this openly for the past few months, and have been looking at buildings and assessing our needs. Most people who find out about the imminent move ask us how they can help in this process. With that, we wanted to reach out to our expanded community—truly one of our greatest resources—to let you know where we are in the process, what kind of help we could really use, and how you can join us in planning for the future!

The move will entail many new costs, and in order to make these transitions and sustain the health and operation of the organization, we will need all the financial support we can get! This organization was truly built on collective support, and now more than ever we’re relying on it. You can help by making a contribution to our building fund. For this phase we are hoping to raise $100,000 by March.

We’ll be hosting a community meeting on Thursday, November 7th from 7-9pm. We’ll have drinks and snacks, we’ll be sharing our progress and thoughts on a next space, and be welcoming ideas and feedback from our community. Anyone who makes a donation will receive a special invite to the event.