The Dublin Community Center is requesting $5,000 from the Town of Dublin in a petition warrant article this year. The Community Center has asked for and received funds from the town for years since its 2014 opening, board president Susan Stover said, the only variations being amount and method, depending on whether the Select Board recommends the expenditure. This was a year where the Select Board did not recommend the expenditure, she said, prompting them to petition to get on the warrant.
The DubHub’s requests for town funding have decreased every year since their first $9,000 ask, Stover said, as a result of a coordinated effort to increase revenue from individual donations and events. Although the community center’s finances are doing all right and is operating on a smaller, alternate budget for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic, Stover said she believes it’s valuable to have the support of the community reflected in the community center’s budget. The funds requested from the town would go to the general operating budget and allow the DubHub to run more community programs this year, she said.
Lack of income from events and renting out their first floor space is putting a dent in the DubHub’s income, she said, and they’ve had to scale back their paid program coordinator’s activities to cover the gap. Even so, the DubHub was able to be present in the community in 2020, Stover said, through outdoor events in the spring and summer, monthly free takeaway lunches, and song circles and open mic events held outdoors and virtually as conditions allowed. “We’re trying to be as innovative and creative as we can be with our physical doors still closed,” she said. “In the winter, it’s pretty hard,” she said, but there’s an upcoming snow building contest scheduled for when conditions allow, and a “Complex Conversations” series via Zoom. A discussion of the Yankee Magazine article by Rebecca Carroll, “Growing Up Black in New England,” is scheduled for Feb. 18 at 7 p.m.