CLI email updates

May 24 2011: CLI update  DONATE GET INVOLVED "Where do 'green cards fit in the 'green' world?" Do "green cards" for undocumented immigrant construction workers have or deserve a place in the vision of sustainable development?   That's just one of the thought-provoking questions posed last Saturday at the first session of "CAPACES de Verde" held at PCUN headquarters in Woodburn.  The gathering was small but the ideas were big and the discussion was vigorous.  It was a promising start to what will be a series of dialogues and trainings that we'll organize about monthly as we build the CAPACES Leadership Institute's permanent home.  And we intend that the conversations continue and grow long after the ribbon-cutting.   A central theme in CAPACES de Verde is "How to we define 'green'?"  What does sustainability mean or look like in our respective lives and communities?  On May 14th, the dialogue across class and race surfaced these comments (among many others): ·      Who do we credit for "progress"?  The mainstream is embracing "green" practices but farmworkers have been re-cycling or carpooling for decades and, in Mexico, built structures designed to last a hundred years or more without significant remodeling or repair. ·      Many in the immigrant community assume or believe that, as poor people, they don't have the [financial] "green" to be [environmentally] "green."  ·      Building the CLI home as a "passive building" is only part of the dream.  Where can others find the resources for the increased up-front costs of building "green"? ·      Our movement is making a statement and busting assumptions are who can make "green" building history.   On the technical side, Greenhammer's Gene Wixson, chief construction consultant on the Institute project, described the "heat recovery ventilation" system that will heat the building's incoming air by extracting heat from exhaust air.  In other words, if we talk enough in the Institute's classes and gatherings, we can heat the building with our own hot air!  Gene reported that Greenhammer calculates that 'Passive building' features will slash energy use by 90%."   It's taking longer to build the Institute in this unconventional way in part because there are no supply chains for some key components, and because we're using materials in new ways (like eight inches of rigid foam under the concrete slab floor!).  However, some "Passive Building" conservation strategies are decidedly low-tech, such opening windows on summer evenings to accelerate cooling.   This project won't change the world, but it is changing and expanding ours.       Sincerely, PCUN         April 28 2011: CAPACES De Verde    "Green CAPACES" or "green-capable":  those are the two literal meanings of "CAPACES de Verde."   By building the first "Passive House" commercial/office structure in the U.S., we're aiming high on the "capable of green" scale.   By bringing together "green" builders and Latino immigrant construction workers, we're making manifest the "CAPACES" spirit of barrier-busting leadership.   At 10:00 AM on Saturday, May 14th, at PCUN's Risberg Hall at 300 Young Street inWoodburn, PCUN, Farmworker Housing Development Corporation and Greenhammer Design will convene a unique conversation.  It's another dimension of a movement-building Institute, built in movement-building ways.    On May 14th, we'll bring together "green" builders and Latino immigrant construction workers to ask each other "what does 'sustainable' mean and look like?"   Some have dubbed the convening "green" meets "brown," the intersections of communities in adjacent geographies but, for the most part, different worlds.   Though Latinos make up a sizeable portion of the residential and commercial construction workforces, they are already being left behind as the "green" wave sweeps in.  How do immigrant workers add special value to green construction?  Could green developers help enact immigration reform and its potential for increasing workers' security?   We intend that the May 14th forum will be the first of several such dialogues we'll organize during the course of Institute construction.    At Noon on that day, when we've got (some of) the talking done, we'll share a meal and, fortified with a new sense of community, we'll head next door to the job site for a few hours of work on the construction site.   For more information on CAPACES de Verde or to let us know that you're coming on May 14th, contact Jessy Olson, jessyolson@fhdc.org    Sincerely,    PCUN   April 4 2011: We're Just "Inches" away  We're just "inches" away from pouring the concrete slab foundation and floor for the Institute building.  The "inches" in question, though, are inches of rain.  We've had more than six of them, making March 2011 the wettest March in Woodburn's recorded history.    All we need to move forward is a predictably dry day...just one.  Even misting or a little drizzle wouldn't hurt (it's wet concrete, after all).  But, alas, no such day.   Meanwhile, we're putting this delay to good use.  We've recruited more key members to our teams of collaborators, teams we'll need after the floor is poured and cured-and the walls begin to go up.   Here are a few recent examples of individuals and business who have committed to provide their services and skills at no or very low cost.   The Institute building will have a "living" roof.  That calls for four inches of soil, irrigation capacity, and special plantings.  Landscape architect Jason King, principal of  Tierra Fluxus in Portland, will lead the living room team, joined by architect Corey Omey and by Caitlin Daum (a veteran of the radio studio project in 2006).  Dan Manning of Green Roofs Everywhere brings his experience installing dozens of living roofs in the Portland area.   Badger Electric in Northeast Portland has agreed to oversee the electrical work.  We connected with them through our allies at International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 48 in Portland.   Pedro Martínez has signed up to lead the masonry work.  He stepped forward after seeing our message, posted on the PCUN's readerboard, calling for skilled masonry workers.   We're still lining up paving and lighting.  We've got leads but it you've got ideas, please contact Erubiel Valladares, eruradio@pcun.org    Constructing the Institute's home is taking longer than we planned.  We're fortunate, though, that we've found the silver lining in Oregon's spring rainclouds:  even more friends, allies, friends of friends, and folks in the community who are joining the effort.   Institute development team will be putting in place a special web page soon where we'll tell and illustrate the stories of this unlikely construction, explain the building's unique features, and draw in more volunteers, contributors and collaborators.   Also coming soon:  "CAPACES de Verde," a project within a project, bringing "green" and "brown" together.      March 09 2011"Laura Isiordia: Leading the institute start-up"  Dear comrades, supporters and friends    In 1984, when Laura Isiordia headed to the U.S. from her home in Nayarit, Mexico at the age of eighteen, the last thing she imagined that she'd do some day was lead the start up of a leadership institute in Woodburn, Oregon...or anywhere else for that matter.      Part of her power as a leader is rooted in her humility.  Even a few weeks ago, picturing herself in that role seemed a stretch.  "There must be someone else among us who could do it better," she demurred.  Not in the minds of the CAPCES Coordinating Committee members, who unanimously and enthusiastically appointed her on February 9th.  She accepted and took up her new duties six days later.   Laura is well-known and widely respected as a leader in our movement, in our community, and beyond.  After years as a health outreach worker at Salud Medical Center in Woodburn, Laura joined the staff of Farmworker Housing Development Corporation (FHDC) in late 1998, co-leading community organizing and resident services.  (FHDC was co-founded by PCUN, Salud, and Oregon Legal Services in 1990; today FHDC has largest staff among the nine CAPACES network organizations.)   By 2007, she had risen to Director of Community Leadership, in charge of all of FHDC's expanded community organizing, resident services and education programs, carried out by a staff of up to twenty, at FHDC housing projects in three cities.  In 2003-04, Laura played key roles in the start up of FHDC's Cipriano Ferrel Education Center at the Nuevo Amanecer project in Woodburn.    To this wealth of very relevant experience, add Laura's irrepressible passion for cultivating community leaders.  "I see in so many of those we serve my own struggle to overcome self-doubt and step forward," Laura explained.  And they see themselves in her.  She has inspired countless immigrants, especially women and youth-as well as those who support our cause-to do the extraordinary to lead their peers.   "I've loved my work at FHDC and I'm thrilled to be taking it to a whole new level guiding development of the Institute's inaugural programs and activities," Laura declared.  You can feel that excitement throughout the CAPACES network...and beyond.         Feb 03 2011: When the Doors Open...   Sometime this summer, we'll install the doors to the CAPACES Leadership Institute's permanent home.  This fall, we intend to open those doors and welcome folks to the Institute's first set of activities.   Well before those doors are ordered, installed and opened, a dozen leaders of CAPACES organizations are honing in on the priority topics for the Institute's inaugural classes and conversations.  This team is also developing the content and methods, starting-in the CAPACES tradition-with our own experiences and knowledge.   The thinking and planning about courses started nearly three years ago and builds on the dozens of class outlines which we've produced to guide CAPACES gatherings starting in fall 2003.  The Institute's priority list includes longstanding topics such as understanding how sexism and homophobia manifest in our movement and how we can break those chains.  Youth figure centrally in our vision of movement leadership and so we're fashioning a special initiative we call the "TURNO"-a cohort of Woodburn high school students we'll draw together each year for grounding in movement history, service, and leadership. Other topics on our list sound pretty typical for leadership development:  "critical analysis", "strategic thinking", "self-confidence", and "constructive criticism."  We'll find expressions for them that resonate in our culture, such as "When and how to say 'No' in a 'Si Se Puede' Movement."   Because PCUN's core mission to is improving working conditions, farmworker collective bargaining will be an standing course at the Institute.  Demographic trends propel "political participation" onto the list.   We've already completed the design of what we nicknamed the "101" series:  the basics on CAPACES, our Movement, and on our values and big strategic ideas, organized into ten two-hours sessions and aimed primarily at new staff and emerging leaders.   This spring, as we construct the Institute's three principle meeting rooms, we'll continue to assemble the nuts and bolts for the courses that we'll bring to life within those walls. Sincerely, PCUN.   January 7 2011: A Year of Momentum Building    We've worked very hard to make 2010 the year we moved the CAPACES Leadership Institute from the realm of vision and aspiration into the stage of perspiration and persuasion.   By January 2010, we were off to a solid start toward our capital campaign goal of $750,000.  By year end, we reached $602,045, including $204,545 from individuals and community organizations .  Along the way, we attracted 79 new donors in a half dozen states who contributed a total of $46,861.    Our site plan progressed from conceptual sketch to construction permit, incorporating along the way features of Passive House super-energy efficiency.  The Institute building is the first commercial structure in the country to do that.   To catalyze and guide the Institute's programs, we formed the CLICA-the Council of Advisors-drawing together dozens of movement thinkers:  organization leaders, academics, training consultants, funders.  CLICA members will number a hundred or more by fall.  On December 8th, a dozen leaders of CAPACES network organizations forged a list of courses we commit to developing when the Institute opens its doors.   In all, we identify two dozen major advances we've achieved this year.  Altogether, they position us well to meet our principle goal:  open the Institute next fall ready to conduct a dozen programs in a new building, constructed debt-free with the help of a thousand volunteers. As we prepare for the countless challenges on the path to completion, we start 2011-the CAPACES Leadership Institute's birth year-with something we didn't yet have at the dawn of 2010:   momentum.     December 16 2010: "What's Brooklyn [ or Cambridge ] got to do with it?"  That's the question PCUN leaders Abel Valladares and Larry Kleinman asked as they concluded  their presentations at the sixth and seventh fundraising gatherings organized this year outside Oregon to seek support for establishing the CAPACES Leadership Institute.    "We call it the 'Tina Turner' question," Larry quipped.  That got a few laughs, but the question elicited some illuminating responses, too.    "We can all learn from PCUN's experiences building alliances with other communities," said Monona Yin who, with her husband, Steve Fahrer, hosted the gathering at their Brooklyn apartment.  Event co-organizer Frances Kunreuther added this:  "PCUN is always looking ahead and that's a key quality for movement-building." Co-organizer Ellen Gurzinsky recalled her first visit to PCUN twelve years ago.  "PCUN is willing to engage the difficult conversations like barriers to women's leadership."  Others at the gathering cited the PCUN radio station where younger leaders were given real responsibility and the support to fulfill it.    At Cambridge gathering, which Tim Plenk and Janet Axelrod co-hosted at their home, we heard comments such as these:  ·       PCUN and the CAPACES network offer inspriring stories and a model which organization in Boston can emulate; ·      The CAPACES network's commitment to building infrastructure, such as housing, illustrates how a movement evolves over decades.   The invite to the Brooklyn and Cambridge gatherings carried the banner "building the movement even in hard times."  Thanks to the generous contributions received from supporters in New York and Massachusetts, we took another step forward on that path.  Their contributions moved our donor campaign past the $200,000 mark-80% of way to our goal of $250,000 from individual contributors.    November 23 2010 CLI update  "We're making history and we need to act like it.  That means documenting what we're doing."   Cipriano Ferrel said that often in the very earliest days of our movement, years before he co-founded PCUN in 1985.    At the time, our impacts and our prospects seemed meager, at best.  But we heeded Cipriano's call.  We took photos of our events, we filed away copies of press clippings, of flyers (composed with "press type" headlining), newsletters, meeting notes, even our home-made silk screen posters.  We made cassette (and later video) recordings of PCUN's conventions and press conferences.    Today, banks of file cabinets line PCUN's meeting room.  Storage boxes are stacked in the attic.  Some of the material is well organized.  Much of it, not so much.   It might seem like useless clutter to some.  Not to James Fox.  He came to PCUN on October 22nd for the inaugural gathering of the CAPACES Leadership Institute Council of Advisors-the "CLICA."  After the program, University of Oregon Professor Lynn Stephen took him to the meeting room.  There, he found what he called "a treasure."   James is Director of Special Collections at the University of Oregon's Knight Library.  Days later, James proposed that the Knight Library collect, organize, preserve and archive PCUN's materials, making them much more accessible to researchers...and to us!    On November 5th, PCUN's Executive Committee accepted the offer and the planning is underway.  A more formal announcement will come in early 2011 and the process will surely take some months.    Archiving PCUN's accumulated material-and the historic documents which our future work will generate-offers yet another synergy with the Institute.  We believe that a critical aspect of leadership development involves analyzing and understanding our past.    Did we actual make history?  We think so, but, thanks to the commitment and efforts of the Special Collections team, many more folks will be in a better position to decide for themselves.   Next month, the CLI update will sum up an incredible year and look forward to the next one.   Oct 28 2010: $100,315 in 45 days! That's how much we've raised recently to establish the CAPACES Leadership Institute   On October 19th-the day we held our fundraising gathering in Washington DC, we received word from the Northwest Area Foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota that their board had approved a $50,000 grant!  Five days later, the Penney Family Foundation, based in Oakland, added $10,000.  Last month, the Social Justice Fund granted $7,500 through their Next Generation Giving Circle.    Since mid-September, 42 individuals have contributed or pledged almost $33,000, bringing total support from individuals to nearly $170,000!   We've now raised $555,000.  We hope to reach $600,000 by December 31st and fulfill our goal of $750,000 by October 2011 when the Institute begins operations.   Such extraordinary generosity manifests the enthusiasm for our vision of the Institute which was also very much in evidence at last Friday's back-to-back gatherings PCUN headquarters.  The inaugural meeting of the Institute's "Council of Advisors" (the "CLICA") attracted about 20 of the 35 academics, funders and organization leaders who've answered our initial call to join.  Western State Center Executive Director Kelley Weigel moderated a panel including PCUN co-founders Ramón Ramírez and Larry Kleinman, plus U. of O. Professor Lynn Stephen and U.C.-Merced Assistant Professor Mario Sifuentez.  They compared their perspectives about the most important impacts PCUN has had-and not had-in it first quarter century of struggle.  The evening celebration-"Setting the Foundation"-was equally inspiring.  We recognized volunteers, the development team, and contributors.  Six movement leaders conducted a "virtual" tour, each describing what s/he imagines will be occurring in a room of the Institute in October 2012-one year after it opens.

We're planning fundraising gatherings in Brooklyn, NYon December 2nd and in Cambridge, MA on December 5th.  If you have friends or colleagues in those vicinities, contact Larry Kleinman (larrykleinman@pcun.org) so we can get an invite to them.

 Oct 14 2010 CLI Update 

The pouring of the CAPACES Leadership Institute's concrete floor is only days away!     It's one of a seven ways we're "setting the foundation" and we'll be celebrating all those ways at the "Setting the Foundation" Celebration at PCUN's Risberg Hall on Friday, October 22nd, 6:00 to 8:00 PM.  If you live close enough, we hope that you will join us.  If not, we'll be sending a brief report and link to photos in our next Institute campaigns update in late October.

The construction and the celebration alone will make mext week is an especially busy one for our campaigns.  But that's not all.  We'll be holding fundraising gatherings with supporters in Washington DC on Tuesday, October 19th, 5:30 to 7:30 at the national headquarters of National Council of La Raza (1126 16th NW).  We'll hold another fundraising gathering in Seattle, Washington on Sunday, October 24th, 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the home of a supporter.  For details on these events, contact Larry Kleinman (larrykleinman@pcun.org).    So, in DC on Tuesday, Woodburn of Friday the 22nd or Seattle on the 24th, we hope you'll take part in the busiest week yet for the our drive to establish the Institute!

September 30 2010: Setting The Foundation 

August 25 2010

  With every step forward, bringing the CAPACES Leadership Institute closer to reality, we feel a growing sense of making history.  It's a history we want to share with others, both as events occur, and many years in the future.
 
Still photography remains the go-to medium for that capturing the images that endure. It's crucial, therefore, that a variety of photographers have stepped forward to keep a photographic eye on the Institute site as it evolves. 
 
The photo-journey "began" on June 20, 2008 when sixty volunteers gathered to start the tear-down and de-construction of the "little house", our movement's first home, which we acquired in 1980. 
 
Fast forward to the Institute groundbreaking celebration on May 2, 2010.   We were especially fortunate to have two committed, creative and accomplished photographers step into central roles. Both live in Portlland and are PCUN supporters of longstanding.  Jerry Atkin is drawn to photographing the people at the site-celebrants, presenters, volunteers, staff.  We think of Jerry as our photo-journalist with a keen eye for faces.  (to see Jerry's photos of the groundbreaking.)  Myron Filene's photographs, depicting many of the same subjects, are arresting both in their quality and in the ways he arranges prints-in a series, suggesting a flow of motion.
 
You can see Myron in Jerry's photo, above.  On the day it was taken, Myron brought his first two compositions to show us. They're each about 36 inches square and composed of 20 images.  His plan is to continue photographing at key points in the construction and put together 12 to 15 compositions for permanent display.
 
Our history is enriched thanks to the skill, time, talent and material which Myron and Jerry contribute.  Their work will continue to inspire us-and inspire those who come after us-in the CAPACES spirit.
 
P.S.  We're looking for skilled framers who can contribute their time and materials to prepare the exhibition pieces.  If you-or someone you know-can provide that, please contact Larry Kleinman, larrykleinman@pcun.org

August 12 2010: A Passive House Office For Oregon's Farmworker Union (la Casa Pasiva)

July 29 2010: Like The Construction, The Donor Fundraising is Swinging into Higher Gear

July 9 2010: Los Embajadores