Once a symbol of neighborhood blight, Jefferson Center now thrives as a Westside hub.

When trying to describe what’s happening at the Jefferson Community Center and Park in Eureka, the simplest way might just be to say, well, a lot.

Walking around the B Street site, it’s almost hard to imagine this was once an empty, dilapidated building on a weed-covered lot enclosed by a chain-link fence hung with no-trespassing signs that left the surrounding neighborhood itself feeling abandoned.

But from that sense of disenfranchisement, a grassroots movement took root, led by a group of local residents determined to transform the shuttered school campus and fallow grounds into the bustling hub that stands today.

Among them was Heidi Benzonelli, president of the nonprofit Westside Community Improvement Association, which purchased the Eureka property in 2011. Benzonelli now oversees the center’s operations, which have been shaped by the people it serves.

An encyclopedia of knowledge about all things Jefferson, Benzonelli moves at a fast clip as she makes her way across the center’s well-worn hardwood floors during a recent tour, opening door after door in the rectangular-shaped building to reveal what’s happening inside.

There’s the community closet set up like a small boutique, with donated clothing neatly arranged by size and type, from school outfits for children to job interview attire for adults. Then there’s the emergency food pantry stacked with canned goods and basic necessities, like toothbrushes and diapers. A little farther down, there’s a library teeming with shelves of books in a room boasting bright purple, green and blue walls and cozy reading nooks.

On any given day, other former classrooms dotting the long hallway might be hosting Al-Anon group meetings, a First 5 playgroup, English language courses, computer training or a pre-apprenticeship workshop for people looking to enter the trades.

Another room houses the Imagination Playground, a place kids can come while their parents are taking classes, “because we know what it takes to get them in the door is you feed them and offer youth activities,” Benzonelli says.

Just in the last few years, Benzonelli says, more than 50 people from around the world have become U.S. citizens with the help of the immigration services offered at the center, including citizenship classes.

At the front of the building sits the J Cafe, a warm space painted in a sky-blue hue that doubles as a workforce training program and community gathering spot, where locals can enjoy a cup of coffee and a bite to eat at the collection of tables as light filters in through a tall stretch of windows on one side.

Just steps away is the Jefferson Family Resource Center, funded in part by the county Department of Health and Human Services, with staff on hand to assist connecting people to services, including Cal-Fresh, Cal-Works and Medi-Cal, Benzonelli says.

Over in another wing, neighborhood children in the Head Start preschool program run by Northcoast Children’s Services are down for a nap, with more classes taking place in a building nearby.

“Just in this neighborhood, just on this city block, we serve 75 kids a day, four days a week,” Benzonelli says.

Across the hallway in Jefferson’s industrial kitchen, staff is preparing some of the 300 meals they serve up each weekday, including lunches catered for local charter schools and the Head Start program. Meanwhile, an instructor preps for a teen culinary course taking place later in the day.

At every stop, Benzonelli takes time to chat with the people she encounters along the way. Many of the staff and volunteers, she notes, are homegrown products of the Jefferson project, pointing out how a young woman busy prepping for a Saturday produce distribution was once a student in the center’s Seed program, which teaches neighborhood youth about gardening, cooking, food preservation and nutrition.

The week’s contributions from Food for People, local farmers and gardeners in the community who share their bounty included crates filled with pears, apples, onions, limes and lemons, alongside others laden with bags of lentils, loaves of bread, lettuce and even a few boxes of pineapple laid out on tables set up in the main entryway.

“We really live by the adage, ‘Many hands make light work,’” Benzonelli says, noting the center’s array of services are only made possible by a dedicated team of volunteers, staff and community partners coming together with the shared vision of uplifting and empowering local residents.

Central to that, as the Westside Community Improvement Association’s mission statement reads, is supporting and facilitating “programs to combat urban blight and revitalize neighborhoods by increasing recreational, educational and vocational opportunities where they are either lacking altogether or insufficient to the needs of the community.”

“The association’s activities,” it continues, “are dedicated to fostering a sense of working together for the benefit of the greater Eureka community.”

Sometimes, Benzonelli says, when she’s asked to give a presentation about the Jefferson Center, she’ll wrap up by reading from a list of all the events, activities and classes that have taken place in recent weeks.

“It’s breathtaking to see,” she says.

In addition to the grant funding and what Benzonelli describes as “a lot of public donations” — about $60,000 a year toward the center’s annual operating budget of $800,000 — the nonprofit also brings in revenue from catering jobs and renting out rooms to community groups and for events, like a recent wildflower show.

“It all goes back into the operations of the community center but it gives us unrestricted funds,” she says. “It gives us flexibility.”

Twenty years ago was a much different story.

Eureka City Schools’ decision to close Jefferson School in 2005 due to declining district enrollment was, Benzonelli says, akin to “stripping the rug out from under” residents in one of the city’s most diverse and economically challenged neighborhoods. But, she notes, “discontent can be powerful.”

As the former campus became a symbol of blight over the ensuing years, neighbors started talking with neighbors, then meeting in living rooms or anywhere else they could find. Over time, from a loosely knit group, they developed into a community organization determined to reclaim what had served as a cornerstone of the Westside Eureka neighborhood for more than 60 years.

As those conversations grew larger, a collective vision of a new neighborhood center with a park and playgrounds, a community kitchen, a library and more came into focus, one that remained steadfast even as the Westside group encountered roadblocks in their effort to turn those dreams into reality.

“It grew, our little community organization grew, and it grew powerful,” Benzonelli says. “As soon as people got the feeling it was possible, there was no reason not to make the community a better place.”

And, for a few months, there seemed to be a cause for celebration, with the Eureka City Council approving a plan for the city to purchase the property and lease it to the group. But, in early 2011, a newly elected Eureka City Council majority put the brakes on the previous council’s decision.

Undeterred, Benzonelli says, the neighborhood persisted and the citizen’s group that evolved into the Westside Community Improvement Association succeeded that same year in acquiring the property itself, using a $3.3 million grant to cover the $600,000 purchase price and the long list of major renovations that would follow.

When the nonprofit received the keys, Benzonelli notes, there were 156 broken windows that needed to be fixed.

Still a work in progress, she says all of the things happening at Jefferson now can not only be traced back to those early days but to ongoing input from the people who called Eureka’s Westside community home.

“It wasn’t because we said: ‘This is what you need,’” Benzonelli says. “It’s because the community said: ‘This is what we want.’”

Eureka Police Chief Brian Stephens says he’s seen first-hand the difference in the neighborhood in the half-dozen years since he began working with Benzonelli and the Jefferson Center, helping to facilitate community improvement programs in the area — from alley cleanups to large furniture removals.

“It’s really great to see the impact,” he says. “I think everything about it has been incredibly positive.”

Noting an “across the board” decline in calls for police service in the neighborhood in recent years, Stephens says he views the Jefferson Center as a central link in the Westside community’s ability to come together and “take ownership of their neighborhood.”

When everyone is on the same page, working toward a common goal, Stephens says, the results are “powerful and remarkable and you can see it in the Jefferson project, from its start to where it is today.”

Benzonelli, he says, has “really worked to make it a very inclusive program to serve the community as a whole,” from providing a safe space to gather to helping those experiencing homelessness or financial insecurity find the jobs needed to change their life’s trajectory.

“It’s something tangible,” Stephens says. “You can walk through the neighborhood and you can feel it.”

From humble beginnings, the Westside Community Improvement Association has grown into a force for change, not only in transforming the physical site of the Jefferson Center but the lives of people who walk in the doors.

“We want to project hope,” says Pliny McCovey, the center’s special projects manager. “The ability to not be struck in the past, that the past does not define you. … No matter where you were coming from in your past, there are ways to change your life.”

One of the ways the center works toward that, Benzonelli says, is getting to know the people using the services, noting the community closet and emergency pantry isn’t just “free stuff” but an opening to find out about the root causes of what brought people there.

After a few visits, Benzonelli says, the center’s staff will walk them through an intake process, helping them access resources and services, including job training programs aimed at helping them land not just any job but ones that provide a living wage and benefits.

“The biggest hurdle to really having the life of your dreams is poverty,” she says.

As a prime example, Benzonelli points out a pre-apprenticeship training program taking place in one of the rooms, a 12-week course that’s the product of a partnership between the center, Cal Poly Humboldt and the Building and Construction Trades Council of Humboldt and Del Norte Counties.

It’s the third cohort of 20 to move through the program specifically geared toward helping people who may have barriers to entering into an apprenticeship — including those with criminal records, in recovery or experiences being houseless — as well as those who are underrepresented in the trades.

Out of the previous two cohorts, Benzonelli says, 23 have landed high-paying labor union jobs over the last two years, allowing them to “jump class and hold,” noting these are individuals who were once longtime employed.

A complement to those efforts is the field lab operating at the historic Old Town building — formerly known as the “Heroin Hilton” — that the nonprofit purchased in 2021 and is working to transform into a European-style hostel.

There, revolving crews receive hands-on training about what it’s like to work on a construction site, gaining the experience needed to not only transition back into the workforce but into living wage positions.

“It’s not having it handed to you,” Benzonelli says of the programs. “It’s having the ability to open that door yourself.”

Along similar lines, she says, the center is working with a local developer looking for a workforce to build three large apartment buildings in the area.

“People are calling us now when they need workers,” McCovey says. “And people are coming here now when they are looking for jobs.”

As the tour continues outside, Benzonelli points out the community garden with the last vestiges of the season’s fresh fruits and vegetables still hanging on in raised beds that overlook a large grassy area, a playground — one of three onsite — and a bocce ball court.

All of the grounds, she notes, are maintained using 100-percent sustainable irrigation.

Off in the distance in the southwest corner, she points to a remnant of the chain link fencing that serves as a reminder of how neighborhood children once had to crawl through holes bent out of the metal to access the only large open space around.

Those barriers have now been removed.

“We didn’t know if this was going to work but we were never going to stop fighting for this neighborhood, and look where we are now,” Benzonelli says.