By JACK HOPKINS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

While students talk about constant change, community activist Patty Whisler speaks of "anchors," gathering places that help build community. She talks of institutions such as the University Heights Center for the Community.

University Heights schoolhouse was completed in 1907. When the elementary school closed in 1988, community members envisioned an educational center of a different kind, one offering adult classes and events.

The scantly funded University Heights Center for the Community is used for the Experimental College, a day-care center and a meeting place. More than 130,000 people use the center each year, says executive director Ken Scholes.

Renovations are badly needed, Scholes says. The roof leaks, the outside paint is peeling, the plaster is cracking and the old wood floors could use a buff and shine.

The center's efforts have been hampered by the lack of a long-term lease from the Seattle Public School District, which owns the building. Scholes hopes to sign a multiyear lease this month and a capital fund-raising campaign is under way.

Matthew Bissen, a 1996 graduate of the UW's School of Architecture, is heading the campaign. While many of his college friends moved on, Bissen settled into one of three apartments carved out of a two-story house on 11th Avenue.

"I love movies, I love books and I don't have a car," says Bissen, explaining why the U-District is a perfect place for him to live.

Bissen had never set foot in the schoolhouse while he was a student. "This is an amazingly beautiful building," he said to himself when he saw it. "Why is it so run down?"

So he joined the cause. Since last December, the center has raised nearly the $20,000 needed to replace the roof.

The center's playground transforms into the University District Farmer's Market every Saturday (through Nov. 1).

Produce, flowers, bread and honey are spread out beneath a patchwork for bright canopies. Heaping tables offer mushrooms from Bellingham, honey from Puyallup, beets, broccoli and bok choy from Everett.

On a recent morning, one table bore the remnants of the Tomato Taste-Off, a sampler of 22 varieties of tomatoes, including Taxi-Yellows, Black Plums and Brandywines.

Forty-five vendors pack into the 10,000-square-foot playground, and there's a waiting list.

The farmer's market is the labor of love for Chris Curtis, a Wallingford resident who once owned the Haagen-Dazs store on the Ave. About six years ago, she and her husband sold the store -- along with their big house and fancy car.

"We decided to simplify, scale back," Curtis says. She didn't know it was a movement.

She started the market five years ago, which drew 60,000 customers in 1996. The market has a neighborly feel, with tables set up against the fence so folks can chat over a cup of coffee.

There's even an educational edge to the market: Every Saturday at 10 a.m., a guest chef sets up in the corner to give a demonstration. Guests have included John Trejo of ObaChine and Johnathan Sundstrom of the Dahlia Lounge.