By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
The Center for Active Living “wants to be your community gathering place,” even if you’re not a senior – yet.
So declared The Center’s executive director Amy Lee Derenthal as she spoke to supporters at Tuesday’s “The Center of It All” benefit breakfast, an event so big that it has a new home, Brockey Center at South Seattle College. Besides The Center’s own West Seattle Junction building being a “community gathering place,” she said while making the case for giving, it is also a home to services that you might not need when you first start visiting in your 50s or 60s, “but that eventually become absolutely essential.” Here’s everything Derenthal told the crowd:
A theme woven through the speakers was that The Center is more than it seems, in so many ways. Each week, myriad health and fitness classes are offered (you can see them on The Center’s calendar). Line-dance teacher Chris Banta noted that her specialty isn’t just performed to country music – she and her students have line-danced recently to decidedly not-country artists like Elvis Costello and The Spice Girls.
She didn’t lead a demonstration, but Tai Chi teacher Richard Lazeres did, saying he’d do his best to condense 30 years of teaching into five minutes:
(We also note, checking The Center’s calendar for this report, Lazeres is leading a birding class there as we write!) In a nod to the calendar date – May 5th – Cinco de Mayo music was provided by the mariachi musicians of Estrellas de México, before breakfast was served.
During breakfast, the most moving story came from Katy Aversenti Schumaker, a Center board member who talked about her mom’s time at The Center, while fighting eventually deadly cancer
For anyone in the crowd who wasn’t already a Center volunteer and/or member, a new “Day at The Center” video was shown to give them a taste of what happens there, day in and day out (and some nights too!)
As a fundraiser, this event was fairly simple – rather than auctions, there was a raffle, with tickets sold in the early going, and a monetary donation opportunity toward the end. Attendees had been reminded that memberships only cover 10 percent of The Center’s budget. Some of it comes from grants and government allocations – one elected official that got a shout-out for being there was District 1 City Councilmember Rob Saka:
Now that the final totals are in today, Derenthal had this message for supporters:
Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Annual Fundraising Breakfast, “The Center Of It All.” It was such a joy to see so many new and familiar faces celebrating together. I’m proud to share that we had 300 people in attendance, a new record for this event!
To our donors who couldn’t be there in person but still contributed to our campaign, thank you! Your support of our work means the world to me.
And a big thank you to Nucor, who surprised us again with a $12,000 matching gift, on top of their already generous sponsorship.
I’m excited to share that, thanks to you, we exceeded our $125,000 fundraising goal and raised more than $150,000! These funds will have a lasting impact on our organization, putting us in a great position to serve more community members in 2026.
Kudos to our peer-to-peer fundraisers, table captains, board members and volunteers for their help to make our event a success.
The message at the heart of it all is, as said at the event, “to meet the broad needs that come up as we all age as human beings.” You can support that any time by going here.