El Centro de la Raza has a lot going on in upcoming weeks at their building at 2524 16th Avenue South, including cooking and language classes, free tax prep, and electronics recycling.

Graciela Gonzalez, El Centro’s Human Services Director, is teaching a class on making tamales. The class fee is $50, and students will be able to take home a dozen tamales along with the recipe. Each class is limited to six students. The class dates are Saturday, March 20, from 10:00 am to 12:30 pm, or Saturday, April 17, also from 10:00 to 12:30. Sign up at Brown Paper Tickets.

El Centro’s conversational Spanish classes will begin on Monday, April 5, and will continue on Mondays and Wednesdays from 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm until June 9. Students will be able to learn Spanish with other adults in a relaxed, yet professional setting. The class fee is $300. Here is the registration form.

All proceeds from these classes go to support El Centro’s human service, child and youth, and education and skill-building programs.

As we wrote in January, United Way of King County is providing free tax preparation services to low-income taxpayers at El Centro. Tax assistance is provided in English and Spanish by volunteers who are trained and certified by the IRS. The free tax prep services will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5:00 – 9:00 pm and Saturdays from 10:00 am – 2:00 pm until April 15.

Those eligible for the free service include anyone whose household made less than $50,000 in 2009, and who is filing a basic tax return only (no rental income, business taxes, or sale of property or stock).

Lastly, El Centro has joined up with Cartridges for Kids to collect used electronics. Cartridges for Kids recycles the used goods, and then gives a
small donation to El Centro. You can contribute old iPods, cell
phones, video game consoles, printer cartridges, digital cameras, DVDs, and more.

The Cartridges for Kids box is in room 304, on the top floor of the El Centro building at 2524 16th Avenue South. If you have a large amount of stuff to drop off, or if you are unable to come up to the top floor for medical reasons, please call Elliott Jones at 206-957-4652 to work out the logistics.