Oregon Encounters

I spent the week in the Central Willamette Valley last week.  My base was in Corvallis, home to Oregon State University. Oregon State University has been endowed with major gifts for building a center for families, scholarships to first generation college students from rural areas and to promote parenting education throughout the state of Oregon.  The Ford Family Foundation has been a leader in the process and has joined forces with other foundations in Oregon, including the Oregon Community Foundation and the Meyer Trust.  The Oregon Parenting Education Collaborative (OPEC) is coordinated by Denise Rennekamp at OSU.  Doris and I were fortunate to be abler to meet with Denise at her office in the lovely Hallie E. Ford Center for Healthy Children and Families.

Pictures do not do justice to the beauty of this building.  The wood all came from Oregon as a condition of the funders who made their fortune in the timber industry.  

It was a pleasure to catch up with Denise who both Doris and I know from our work.  Doris earned her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies at OSU and I know Denise from a multi-state collaboration in which we were both involved for a number of years.   I spent most of the time listening to her share about the evolution of the OPEC Hubs and the real expectation that the hubs are about developing community based sustainable collaborations and not to fund programs long term.  She shared some success stories and some not so successful examples.  I admire the work OSU and the greater statewide community of funders have tackled the need to support parents of young children.

I had contacted Denise early in my sabbatical planning about making some program visits and she recommended several exemplary programs.  The one program I connected with is Adelante Mujeres based in the city of Forest Grove in Washington County, Oregon, west of Portland.  I was able to travel to Forest Grove after landing at Portland Airport and before I drove to Corvallis through the verdant orchards of the Willamette Valley.  I was a little familiar with Adelante Mujeres because I had done research on their programs on Denise's recommendation and had met the director, Bridget Cooke, at a WSU event some years before.  

I drove into Forest Grove, a sleepy little college town (home to Pacific University) on Monday morning.  Thanks to my trusty GPS I had no trouble finding my way to the Adelante headquarters.  I was immediately charmed.

Adelante Mujeres: Education, Empowerment, Enterprise

Bridget Cooke, co-founder and director

Adelante Mujeres (Forward Women!) was founded by a small group of low income Latina immigrant women and their allies to improve the quality of life for themselves and their community in 2002.  I highly recommend you visit their website and learn more about the mission and the amazing work that is being done.  Two of the programs Bridget told me about that I wanted to return to visit are the Chicas Program and ESPERE.  I took the descriptions right off their website.

• Chicas is an innovative youth development program empowering Latina girls to develop their leadership potential, adapt healthy lifestyles, develop cultural identity and achieve academic success with high school graduation and college enrollment.
• ESPERE stands for Escuela de Perdón y Reconciliación (School of Forgiveness and Reconciliation) and is a workshop that helps people develop proactive strategies to address and overcome conflict and learn the power of forgiveness. ESPERE trains families to manage conflict with compassion and understanding in a way that leads to healthy, violent-free relationships.

The Chicas program is an afterschool and summer program and soccer camp for girls from 3rd-12th grade.  It currently operates in 13 schools.  The program began in 2008 and has grown exponentially. Bridget shared that the big event everyone was getting ready for was the soccer tournament for the girls teams that were drawn from the different Chicas programs.  Chicas works with girls in the following age breakdown: Grades 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 and 9-12.  Some of the graduates are now on staff with the program.  The Spring 2015 newsletter that Bridget shared with me features the inspiring story of one such young woman.

I am also very intrigued by the ESPERE program.    The six sessions are taught within the context of a a leadership class for Latina women and focuses on letting go of fear, sense of danger, desire for revenge and related feelings that come from historical trauma from being victimized.  Many of the Latinas who have come to this country in recent years have experienced sexual assault, domestic violence and other forms of abuse.  ESPERE provides a space to explore and release the feelings of shame, anger, fear and more.  Bridget reports that it has been very powerful for the women who participate.  I want to know more and to talk with both participants and facilitators.

Adelante Mujeres takes a holistic approach to their work with Latinas.  I have not addressed the other projects they operate.  A visit to their website is worth the time.

I left Forest Grove wanting to return and spend a couple of days there. 

I drove from Forest Grove through the lovely Willamette Valley and was surrounded by hazel nut groves, vineyards and rolling green hills.  It was a great way to travel to Corvallis.  My long journey to Arizona and back has diminished my already lukewarm feelings about interstate freeways.  I arrived in Corvallis to meet Doris at the Multicultural Literacy Center.  The center was filled with color and textiles from around the world.  I was right at home with al those fabrics. I met with the director of Casa Latinos Unidos de Benton County (CLU), Erlinda Gonzales-Berry, and Doris Cancel-Tirado, my host for the week.  Erlinda is the founder of CLU and has returned to be interim director. The purpose of CLU is to provide connection, education, support for Latinos in Benton County.  They nurture leadership in the community.  Erlinda said that two things were currently occupying her time - a Festival (Summer Fiesta) that will be held this Sunday, June 21st, and labor issues.  They have worked with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries to solve wage and other labor disputes.  The event will be a fundraiser.  CLU works on a very low budget and is looking at ways to create sustainable funding paths, perhaps charging for translation services.

This lovely display was in a storefront window in downtown Corvallis.  I went twice to photograph it and was unable to get a great shot but you get the idea from this and the poster.  I love the embroidered cloth on the table.

I met and interviewed the president of the Organization of Latinas Unidos (ULO), a women's group that are supported by CLU.  Felisa Torres was featured in the Corvallis Gazette Times yesterday for her work as a community volunteer.  Felisa was also recognized by Benton County Health Department with a "public health service award."  Felisa, Doris and I had a great conversation about the development of the ULO group.  It grew out of a group of women who came to Zumba and Cooking classes offered (through a grant Doris wrote) at their children's school.  Once the grant ran out the women who had grown close organized themselves to be able to pay for on-going classes and childcare.  Two of the women became part of the founding board for the ULO.  The original group focused on planning and organization.  The Women's Group meets weekly and they educate themselves and support each other.  Felisa shared with me that most of them had minimal schooling in Mexico and felt the need to grow with their children.  They also wanted to feel better about their lives so they worked on self-esteem and leadership.  The group has been very empowering for each other and have contributed to the community.  About 10 women belong at any given time.  They are cultural ambassadors for health, families and the school and community.  The women were recently asked by the school board to meet with candidates for the superintendent position and their feedback was taken seriously in making the decision.  This group also wanted to be able to talk with their youth about sexuality so they started by taking a class with a trusted community member who helped them create a workshop for the teens.  The idea that a trusted person is delivering information that they understand and feel comfortable with is the secret to their success.

Doris and I had an interesting conversation with Felisa and afterwards about a statement that I have heard from several sources, that Latinos do not volunteer.  Doris and Felisa and Adelante and many I had seen on my journey belied that notion.  Doris pointed out that the word "help" was more characteristic of what happens.  Latino culture has a more communitarian (as opposed to individualistic) orientation to life.  Helping the family, the school, the neighbor all happens because it helps the community in which the families live and work.  Both Felisa and Doris stated that the community needs us.  Doris also pointed out that a shift in frame of reference is important for understanding the phenomenon of helping.  She stated that volunteering is something that often comes from a place of privilege.  Having time and/or money to volunteer is often something that is a condition for doing worthy work.  It gave me much to think about as I prepare to return to my usual duties where so many of the volunteers who work with our programs have time and money.  

Doris and I traveled to Eugene the next day to visit an agency that has been serving Latinos in Lane County for 42 years!  Centro Latino Americano started as advocacy group and is now a multi-service center.

Service Directory for Centro

Trevor and Doris

Doris and I met with Trevor Whitbread, Program Manager, who gave us an overview of all the services the agency offers. He spoke passionately about the services they are providing for "minority" at risk to keep them out of the juvenile justice system and for those who are already involved with the system.  They have developed a successful mentoring program and work with a number of community partners.  They have developed a community impact model in which many sectors of the community (education, health, parks and recreations, workforce preparation, social services) team up to help steer the youth towards positive futures.  Both Doris and Trevor spoke to concerns about Eugene being a center for Human Trafficking which is a concern statewide.  I was surprised to hear that Eugene was a center in the state where issues of forced labor, sex trafficking and ongoing issues with coyotes and immigration paths arise.  I wonder what the landscape is in my state?  

Trevor also spoke about a successful women's support group that has grown out of the Alcohol and Other Drug treatment program but is not focused on addictions as much as support for life.  

I asked Trevor for what advice he might share with others and that I would add it to my blog.  He said that is very disappointed in the inequities in education that still exist and that any way we can tell the stories of of the "other side" (realities of life in the Latino immigrant community) we should.  We need to make the message about the life challenges that these generous people face accessible to both politicians and the general public.

I think I will stop for today.  I will write one more time about my visit to Oregon and some insights Doris shared with me that I think need to be recorded.

As always, thanks for reading.