I met with Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin at the Rueb yesterday afternoon (click photo to enlarge), getting up to speed on his plan to create a Latino enterprise/economic development center for the area — and trying to convince him to join the blogosphere, natch.
I first came across his name when he posted insightful comments (#21 and #27) to our weblog discussion thread on the Las Delicias closing.
Reginaldo works as the Community Services Site Specialist for Greenvale Park Elementary School. See his bio (pdf) for a pretty interesting background. Example: Anyone heard of Peace Coffee?
Also, see Anne Bretts’ blog post on Northfield.org earlier this week reporting on the meeting he organized last week to incorporate planning for immigration raids into the city’s emergency preparedness plan. (Another meeting planned for this Friday, 6 p.m. at St. Dominic’s Church.)
If you’re interested in contacting Reginaldo, contact me and I’ll forward your email to him.
Griff asks – “Anyone heard of Peace Coffee?” The answer is “yes” – there is a large selection at Just Food.
Outside of the group I already met with (you know who you are), are there other people who have interest in supporting a Latino Enterprise Center in Northfield. I am putting together a report on the recent activities and accomplishments to launch two levels of organizing with the local Latino community. One, at the Civic Engagement level, a long term plan and strategy to involve local Latinos in any leadership position (business, church, etc.) to contribute ideas, opinions, and some influence to the life and management of the city. Another, specifically at the economic development level. The Latino Enterprise Center would be the core of this second strategy. It is in this area that I would like to collect more information/feedback on. I have met with more than 25 local leaders and citizens. I am interested in feedback from those I have not spoken to yet. Since it is hard to meet everyone face to face and I am still doing this work as a volunteer, I thought it may save time if people would be whilling to post any opinion, positive, negative, critical, supportive, etc. on this blog.
Thansk Griff for posting about our meeting. I am all ears.
Reginaldo.
You’re welcome, Reginaldo.
Do you have a Word doc or PDF on the Latino Enterprise Center? If so, email it to me and I’ll blog it.
If not, do you have a microphone attached to your PC? If so, use our digital voicemailbox and explain it there:
http://odeo.com/sendmeamessage/locallygrown
If not, leave me a voice mail at 645-8319 and I’ll convert it to digital for posting here.
Last week, Anne Bretts posted an update on Reginaldo’s activities. It includes his “Work Report for the Northfield Area Latino Community”
http://northfield.org/node/2511