Anna Pier sat down with Vanessa Rognlien (pron.”rung-lin,”) in the Board Room of the Sonoma Community Center (SCC) to learn about its Executive Director, and discover some of the reasons the Center is flourishing
How did you connect with the Community Center? I began as a board member, for a couple of years, working with the Programs Team. I was particularly interested in feedback from the community about the programs we were offering.
Programs are what we do at SCC. Then when the ED resigned, the Board asked me to step in as Interim Executive Director. After six months, I became the ED. That was three years and three months ago.
Where did you grow up? I’m from the East coast, New York – Long Island. I moved to LA in 1992 to work in the entertainment industry.
What did you do in LA? My first job was as a bank teller in Studio City. I chatted with everyone till I landed a job as a Production Assistant, working on commercials. Then I became a stylist. I got hired to do the Marlboro cigarette ads. That was when they didn’t allow cigarette ads on tv, so the company did photo ads for print. I traveled all over the West. This was their last gasp in advertising.
That’s literally, right? So what next? I decided to go back to school. I wanted to study art therapy, and enrolled at USC, but they never managed to get their program going. But then I found a wonderful job.
Talk about that.
It was with the HeART Project, offering Youth Arts education. I was working with teens in continuation high schools – drop-out kids, teenage moms, people that high school wasn’t working for. It was a ten-week program for them, doing something in the arts, like bookmaking, or filmmaking, or animation. The students’ work would be shown at LACMA (LA County Museum of Art), MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) or the Huntington. I also did some development and fund raising for the organization, and learned I was good at it.
Something I loved was finding art-based career paths to introduce students to. We would visit for instance, an architects’ firm, or an animation studio. I think it gave them the hope that they could follow a dream, they could make a living doing what they loved to do.
Tell me more. I love working with teenagers, I find it such an exciting time. It’s when adults kind of pull away, but it’s when they most need support. I would like to have more youth programs here.
Do you have children? Three. The 25-year-old lives in LA, the 21-year-old is graduating from University of Arizona, and a 15 year-old who is a high school sophomore. They’re all doing well.
How long have you been in Sonoma? 17 years.
How did you end up here? I never felt at home in LA, never could find community. Then we came up here for a wedding, and stayed over a few days. We went to the Tuesday Farmers Market. This felt like community. So we decided to try it out by renting a home in Sonoma for six months. There were several experiences in that time, one involving a tragedy to a family at our children’s school. The way people came together around that felt like they really cared about each other, that this was real community. So here I am at the Community Center.
Was this your first job in Sonoma? For two years I worked in the Youth and Family Services Program run through the City. My office was in the police department. It was juvenile justice. Students with a citation from the Resource Officer at Sonoma High could keep it off their permanent record. The program included a ropes course, career and vocational online counseling, and community service hours that related to that vocational/career counseling.
Talk about your work at SCC. I love it because it brings together arts and culture. I love being around artists. And I see the job as figuring out how to build spaces where people can connect. Many people no longer meet at what were traditional gathering places, such as churches. So here at SCC we are offering programs that help people build community. The Center is that space.
Is it a challenge to bring in people from the Springs, especially the Latino community? It is. But we have a full-time bilingual Engagement Coordinator, Gerado Díaz, who also runs the culinary department. And spoils us with great dishes. We have a 12-passenger van for transportation after school and for our summer camps. There is a saying, “You can only make change at the speed of trust.”
Are you making strides in connecting with the Latino community? Our Día de los Muertos celebration has become a big part of the Día celebrations across the Valley. Sadly, we felt we had to scale it back this year, out of concern for the safety of the Latino community.
Talk about your funding. It is a hard balance to maintain high quality teachers, supply our studios, and still offer classes at the lowest price possible. But we offer scholarships to some classes and programs. We get some funding from the City of Sonoma, but we are a private nonprofit, dependent on donor support. The upkeep of our beautiful building is a challenge, to steward its health for generations to come.
We are always working on that balance between accessibility on the one hand, and on the other, the high-quality and breadth of our offerings. TaiChi, storytelling, culinary classes, Trashion Fashion and all the workshops around that, master print making classes, just to name a few.
Other challenges? Getting more people to know about us. We have lots of partnerships – Mentoring Alliance, Creekside Alternative High School, Altimira Middle School, Sweetwater, DeColores Artes for disabled adults. We’re teaching a class in American Sign Language, and we are offering some classes that are signed. If we can see what the community wants, our role is to be responsive. I would like to offer more free programs to the community.
What do you do in your free time? I love to hike all over the Valley. My favorite spot is Bart (Bartholomew) Park .
Last thoughts? The Community Center belongs to all of us – the community. It is our shared resource and responsibility. Building community and connection and creativity are key to vibrant, thriving lives and places. Come see us. Get involved. There is something for everyone here.
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