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TACC’s primary goal is to unite the Turkish community in an American society. Creating a sense of community and security is extremely important to our organization. We intend to accomplish this by stimulating a sense of cultural, religious, and nationalistic unification. Also, assimilation of Turkish and American cultures and the pursuit to live cordially among one another and allowing both to show their uniqueness is a sincere goal we strive to accomplish. The TACC embraces diversity and differs from other organizations by including Turks, Turkish-Americans, International Muslims, and non-Muslims alike to pursue its goal of unification. We are here to introduce our honorable Turkish history, our just religion, and wholesome culture to all those who are also open to embracing it.

TACC envisions building a community center to foster the diverse needs of our Turkish-American population in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area. You can find detailed information on our community center project below.

Purposes of the Community Center

Need for Community Center

Sections at Community Center

Location

Permissible Buildings

Donations

Community Center as a Whole

Models of the Community Center

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Purposes of the Community Center

In building this Cultural Center we attempt to achieve the following:

• To first and foremost build a Mosque in which the Turkish Community can worship;
• To create an Education Center where children and adults alike may come to learn Turkish culture, history, and language; as well as teach Americans about Turkish culture and provide the necessary guidance for Turks to assimilate to the American culture;
• To establish a Conference Hall in which to discuss community matters;
• To offer Day Care services to working families with children.

All of this among the many other benefits that we look forward to providing includes a Retirement Community for our aged and a Study Hall / Library for our students.

In taking our first steps towards achieving our goals and making the Cultural Center a reality, we have held and will continue to organize several events for our community. The events are intended to engage the community in our endeavors as well as to represent the many facets of the Turkish and Islamic culture.

Need for Community Center

The idea of founding a community center in Washington, DC Metropolitan Area is a common ground that unites the Turkish society in the region. There is a variety of reasons for establishing a community center in this region. The most important ones can be listed as follows:

• Helping people feel a part of a community and belong to somewhere
• Minimizing the solitude of our citizens who are away from their homeland
• Creating a day care center where working parents can leave their children with confidence
• Preventing our people from dissolving in American culture, enabling them to synthesize Turkish and American cultures
• Helping our citizens, new to the US, during their adaptation period, providing English language education if there is a need
• Advertising Turkey and Turkish people, constructing an everlasting structure that represents our country
• Serving the Turkish community in the area by all means

Sections at Community Center

In order to serve the needs explained above, our community center will contain the following sections:

Mosque – Targeting to satisfy the religious needs of our people while providing the feeling of a community, a mosque, with a capacity of 800 to 1000, that reflects Turkish architecture and interior design, will be constructed.

Meeting and Conference Rooms – The center will include a multi purpose room with a capacity of 500 people to realize social and cultural activities, organize meetings and seminars and gather for celebrating our national and religious holidays.

Day Care Center – One of our aims is to construct a day care center where children between the ages of 3 and 6 will be brought up with a blend of Turkish and American culture.

Library and Computer Center – This part of the community center will provide a place to access Turkish and foreign publications as well as the Internet, while enabling everyone to use high-tech office equipment such as printers and scanners.

Classrooms – Our community center will include classrooms where we will teach Turkish language and culture to children, youth and foreigners in this region as well as English to Turks who have immigrated to the United States.

Guesthouse – Our community center will offer guesthouses for permanent employees and our temporary visitors. This service is especially provided for new students in the region and for imam assigned by the Presidency of Religious Affairs

Playground, picnic and recreational area – The outdoor areas that are planned for our children to play, our youth to engage in sports, and adults to have pleasant time together form an important part of our community.

Administrative Offices – These offices will be used to manage our organization and community center.

Parking Lots – Our community center will possess a parking lot for 200 vehicles where our visitors can safely leave their cars.

Location

The proposed location of the community center is a central location for the Turkish community around Washington, DC Metropolitan Area. It is conveniently located 2 miles from the Capital Beltway, 1 mile from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 6 miles from the University of Maryland, 15 miles from Washington, DC, and 29 miles from Baltimore.

Kaya Biron of We Design Build, served as the architect and consultant in planning and developing the conceptual design of the TACC project.