Latino Enterprise Center (LEC)

Yesterday, I had an opportunity to meet a very nice group of people who are ready to take initiative and launch their businesses in our region.

Carlos Miguel Paredez Valiente, used to own a business in Mexico City, he started a company that consolidated sells of bus tickets to destinations all over the country. He now lives in Northfield and is exploring two possible business opportunities, one in regional tourism, and another in transportation. This exploratory process should clear the picture for him so that we can concentrate on a business planning process to launch him on the best option.

Clemente Lopez Arcos, is also from Mexico City, he lives in Northfield and has been interested in learning more about sustainable home building. He is looking to explore the possibility of starting a solar electrical systems company, to include solar panels, solar shingles, and passive-solar heating and other similar systems.

I ended the day meeting with three other people who have come together to start a residential remodeling company. They are Isidory Cornelio “Izzy” a graduate of Northfield High School, Gabriel R. Hitzil and Marie Langlie. A fourth member to this partnership was unavailable for today’s meeting.

Over the coming weeks, we will be holding exploratory and business planning meetings with these folks as we continue to chart a course of action for each of their initiatives.

On Sunday June 1st, I also traveled to Worthington where I met with food vendors and other business owners. My primary purpose for this trip was to meet with Adolfo Avila, an business consulting officer with the Southwest Initiative Foundation. Adolfo provides business consulting services to Latino/a business owners in the region and crosses over to Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation’s 20 county South-central region.

My specific purpose was to discuss Adolfo’s own farm operation out of Tracy, Minnesota and his interest in distributing our Northfield grown poultry in that part of the state. He is well connected and respected in the region and a good marketing partner to our organization.

Adolfo owns a 10 acre farm just west of Tracy and is interested in exploring using his farm as another training center for the region’s emerging Latino farmers. Having raised pigs in the past, he already knows the challenges and opportunities associated with livestock and will be a good asset to our rural farmers network.

We have now assembled a group large enough to organize our second formal general business training workshop. After visiting with over 25 business owners, we now have 15 who have asked for business management training. We will organize this training in cooperation with established partners such as the Southern MN Initiative Foundation, the Southwest Initiative Foundation, the Northfield Area Chamber of Commerce, the Northfield Enterprise Center, the Northfield Community Action Center and the Faribault Diversity Coalition.

All of us who have purchased a home, know that it is a lot of work, requires a lot of knowledge and more than anything it requires access to resources and good financial planning. Without these and other key considerations, many people end-up in foreclosures.

In recent months, as part of the Newcomer Project that we undertook in partnership with the Northfield CAC, I have been putting together a plan with projects that deliver key elements of this program. The “green homes” project that I blogged about recently is one of them.

Another key project to deliver on the path to integration of the local Latino community in Northfield is related to home ownership, minorities still lag behind in this aspect of economic integration though it is recognized as a key aspect of healthy communities.

So where would one start to address the many complex and important issues associatd with learning the process, understanding the challenges and finding homes that fit the economic profile of many of the local Latino families.?

One key step I know applies for all cases weather we are experts or new to an issue, is to ask for help. So, last Friday, I went to Saint Paul to meet with folks who know this work and have done it well for a long time.

The story is more complex, I was looking for help but help came to me through an e-mail from Susan Jackson, of American Dream Services, she lives in Northfield but works in St. Paul and was interested in offering this kind of training here in our area. I had information that Maritza Mariani was an Associate director of the Neighborhood Development Alliance in St. Paul and that their reputation in this area is among the best, but Susan was already talking with Maritza about this issue, so when her e-mail came, I was ready to move on the issue.

We met last Friday at American Dreams office in St. Paul and are now moving forward to put together a series of home ownership education trainings in Northfield. I will be posting new blogs on this project as there are many issues to cover, from predatory lending to what comes after the workshops, for now I feel that having these top notch team behind us is a solid start.

This Morning, I met with Jim Blaha, director of the Community Action Center (CAC), Bruce Anderson of Sustainable Community Solutions and Jenny Larson, Community Development Director of the Three Rivers Community Action, Inc. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the specific steps needed in order to bring the concept of “Modeling Green”, to Northfield. In other words, modeling green technologies in as many aspects of community development as possible.

Today’s meeting was focused on housing development, especially the aspect of workforce housing, taking initiative and leadership to contribute to the housing needs of our teachers, police officers, and other sectors of the population that even with the housing slump at its lowest point in a long time, still does not provide housing that is affordable to those who sustain our community.

But our goal is not just to promote building more houses, we are thinking according to our times and the opportunities emerging for the future, this means thinking in terms of ecologically friendly systems, you can learn more about this through the Minnesota Green Communities and through Bruce’s link above.

As the director of the Latino Enterprise Center, the growing Latino population of Northfield and the region are enough of a reason for me to be part of this leadership team. Within the context of enterprise development and creating jobs, training people to be able to deliver and sustain this new “green” technologies is key for the long term success of our enterprise ideas in the pipeline.

As a city, it is important that we showcase these new technologies and improve the ability of citizens to make more informed and sustainable choices when deciding where their next home will come from and who will build it. This is just as important as thinking about where our food, electricity and other supplies for our daily needs come from. Others are already dealing with river clean-up and correcting other environmental damages already committed. Besides the corrective measures, we need to ensure that we avoid the continuation of such damages by adopting already available options. At least for now, home building with the ecology and affordability in mind is our focus, organic gardening, sustainable farming systems and alternative energy sources are other areas moving forward with leadership from other sectors of Northfield.

The kick-off event of the College Board of Business Consultants (CBBC), organized by the Northfield Enterprise Center (NEC) took place at the Archer House conference room yesterday.

Four Latino Enterprise Center projects were featured in the presentations, including family gardens and market gardening projects. I had the chance to introduce students to the Latino Enterprise Center and answer questions, both Saint Olaf and Carleton college were represented equally.
After the introductions we took a drive down highway 3 to visit the community gardens that we developed this year, we ended with dinner catered by Taco Hut, a local catering service operated by owners Rafael and Maria Estrada.

For more information on the CBBC, the businesses and students involved in the projects, for help getting assistance for your business to move to Northfield, or to grow your business in Northfield, write to Blake Abdela, Executive Director of theNorthfield Enterprise Center’s contact us page.

I spent half of the day yesterday working with Niel Ritchie, the Board Chair of Main Street Project, the parent organization of the Latino Enterprise Center. He is also the Executive Director of the League of Rural Voters and oversees the operations for Main Street Project. One of these operations is the Latino Enterprise Center which is based in Northfield.

Main Street Project (MSP) became the parent organization for the Latino Enterprise Center, under the Rural Latino Enterprise Initiative on February 1st, 2007, which is officially our first day of operations.

Since then, many things have happened, this blogg is a good record of projects and contributions to Northfield and the network of individual and organizational supporters that we have built. In other communities around Minnesota, our work has been focused in supporting Latino/a leaders so that they can create their own Latino/a enterprise support initiatives.  If anyone is interested in our work in depth, please call or e-mail us, I will be more than happy to help.

Yesterday was a great day. We started with a meeting with Jim Blaha, Executive Director of the Community Action Center, the subject was “the Newcomer Project”, designed to provide recent immigrants in our region with a welcoming environment, tools to get started, programs to support their leadership skills, and organizational support to get them on their feet to pursue their goals.

At 9:00 am, we met with Griff Wigley, our most outstanding local community blogger, the topic was related to harnessing the power of blogging to connect communities, their leaders and sharing resources and experiences accross rural Minnesota communities. Though there was no specific project to discuss, Griff has supported my own entry into this blogging world and both Niel and I believe that we can replicate this experience for other Latino leaders or community leaders in other small towns. The next step will be a discussion about structuring a program to do just this afterGriff is done with some major projects he is working on.

At 10:00 am, we met with Rick Estenson upstairs of First National Bank. Our topic was very specific. “How to structure a lending program based on experiences in other small and large cities and towns where Latino businesses have struggled in the past and are now successful contributors of leaders and economic activity to their communities”. Though a long title for our conversation, the issue is simple. We need to start a training program for Latino entrepreneurs in Northfield, Faribault and Owatonna (to cover a sizable population).

We know that business training programs alone are almost a waste of resources without the technical assistance, lending and mentoring components organized in a deliverable package. The idea then is to structure a “business development program” rather than a “business training program”, and assemble the complete package before launching it. RickEstenson is our best local allied in crafting this strategy, though our best allies in develping the program structure are in the Twin Cities and cities accross the Midwest, our local initiative and partners is what counts at the end. From here, we just need to follow the trail until we come back to the starting line with a full package under our arms.

At 11:00 am, we met with Jaci Smith, the new Managing Editor at the Northfield News, which has been covering our work at the Latino Enterprise Center since we started. The purpose of the meeting was to inform our local media on what the Latino Enterprise Center is in relationship to Main Street Project, my own history working with Niel since 1994 and the broader context under which the work with Latino immigrants takes place, such as what defines our keys to success and strategies, and a broad exploration of the issues related to the large influx of undocumented immigrants in this country.

We finished our morning with lunch for Jaci and Niel as my guests at our Rotary Club.

On Saturday August 31st, a group of 11 of us Latinos and Latinas working in Northfield and Faribault met at Just Foods Cooperative community room for the first time. Our purpose was to start a process of organizing a network of Latino/a leaders in the Southern half of Minnesota. One representative from Mankato was not present but came to Northfield on Saturday morning to get a personal update and meet with me regarding the results of the meeting.

Though not a surprising revelation, we learned that we all share common experiences, but we were able to narrow our issues and mission enough to start a serious and focused conversation. We agreed that there is a need to establish a training schedule for all of us over the coming months as a way to improve the network participant’s knowledge, and ability to deliver results to our communities and the institutions that we depend on for services (schools, community edudation, police, city services, etc.)

We will be meeting the last Friday of every month alternating meeting places on a rotational basis among the cities that will be represented in the network. At this point, the following issues are being discussed as part of our focus:

- Enterprise/Economic development
- Access to Health Servicies
- Community Safety
- School connectedness

These are not random issues, we all understand that integration of our communities will not happen until we address issues of poverty and the social and psychological conditions derived from the barriers and the self perpetuating cycles associated with poverty. Though poverty is one of the main sources of the economic and educational limitations of our communities, we understand poverty first hand ourselves and believe that we can lead others out of it trough connectedness, access to services, better education and above all through civic engagement. Though social programs and other support services are key to sustain people on a day-to-day basis, by themselves they are not meant to deal with the root causes of poverty. These are reasons why we must do whatever it takes to think outside the box, avoid duplicating programs, work within our communities to maximize the success of what is already available and only create new programs when they are not available or when what is available does not address our community needs.

We will pursue the development of our network by coordinating efforts and supporting each other’s work and the work of many other organizations in our communities, by developing and supporting new leaders, so that we can increase our overall capacity, and by working with the wider community on the issues outlined above.

Through these and other strategies we hope to carve a path for people to “walk” out of isolation and into more engaged lifestyles.  This is a strategy that will allow us to walk with folks as they get themselves out of poverty, rather than pretend that we can “pull” people our of poverty.  Defining poverty is probably another issue that we need to address.  The governmental and widely accepted definition of who is poor is narrowly governed by issues of money, as we look at our own countries of origin, some of us know that sometimes the richest people don’t have much in the area of material posessions and material wealth.  Though we are not in the business of deciding what means to live better for anyone, or about re-defining concepts and terminology, we will discuss the issues of poverty with a wider approach.  Issues of networking to establish support systems for adults and children go a long way into enriching a person’s life, growing food does not increase income but decreases expenses, consequently is another issue to consider, sharing resources among neighbors and reducing waste has a similar effect, etc. The idea is to think outside the establishment and see if we can contribute new ideas and strategies to this issue of integration and community development.

Our work still needs to be defined and weather we can build the network successfully is still up in the air, but we are doing our best and will keep doing so until we succeed.  The nice thing about our approach is that we are all voluntarilly coming together, are all natural leaders, are well connected in our own circles, and some of us have regional, national and international networks.  We will also look into what it means to be successful, the concept not giving up weather or not we get things right the first time.  With these resources and attitute one can try and fail many times without giving up, this element is crucial as none of us can wave a magic wand and solve our issues.

We all agreed on a collective vision which I provide here:

“Rooted in a desire to serve our communities, we personally committ to the creation of a network of Latino/a leaders so that we may explore, design, sustain, develop and implement ideas with the purpose of responding to the basic needs among Latino/a communities to organize, access basic services and resources, be represented in governmental and non-governmental organizations, and the business sectors within the regions or cities where Latino/a communities are settled”

We also started a conversation on an organizational structure, necessary for effective coordination within the context of the tools available and the constrains and barriers that affect our communities’ ability to communicate among each other and with our leaders. This organizational structure must be simple, broad based, representative of a critical percentage of the population, and effective at communicating with the grassroots as much as with the community at-large. A design will be discussed at the September meeting.

A month or so ago, the Northfield Enterprise Center and the Latino Enterprise Center (both based in a small office on the second floor above the Northfield Chamber of Commerce) came together to craft a plan to support Maria’s Restaurant and Cantina on hwy 3, by the Crossings intersection in Northfield.
The owners, Maria and Rafael Estrada work long hours an have devoted all of their personal savings to their enterprise.  Both Maria and Rafael have the leadership and entrepreneurship spirit needed to keep the business going, but as all start-ups, they are struggling with cash-flows in a time of growth and great potential. Their business has become an icon of the Latino community in Northfield, a friendly and great place to grab lunch or a light dinner.

Matt Miller, an intern at NEC provided by St. Olaf through the Center for Experiential Learning, helped write-up a plan that involves re-structuring purchasing and negotiating strategies for raw materials and launching a marketing plan for the store. Other aspects such as the restaurant atmosphere, new products and pricing and profitability analysis and corrections are also part of the plan.

Yesterday morning (July 9th), I met at Maria’s Restaurant with Matt Miller (NEC Intern), Maria Estrada (Restauran owner), Yolanda Coterreal (Rural Programs Director for the Latino Economic Development Center in Minneapolis), Jeffrey Alexander a private business consultant with HRI Consulting in Falcon Heights, to polish a “Maria’s re-launch” plan.  The plan is crafted to bridge Maria and Rafael’s investment of time and resources with a market that they still have not fully tapped into, plus the city’s economic and business development assistance available which they have not yet accessed in this time of opportunity.  Stay tuned to new developments and a marketing campaign coming up in the next couple of months.

Looking forward, I see Maria and Rafael’s success as an important element in establishing a positive presence of our Latino business leaders in this beatiful and increasingly ethnically diverse city and a cornerstone in the process of integration of our community.

The Cannon River and Hiawatha Valley Chapters of the Sustainable Farming Association of Minnesota had their quarterly board meeting and farm tour this afternoon before the nice rolling rain showers came through Northfield. The board meeting was held at Mary Ellen Frame’s farm off highway 3 on the north side of town.

I had the chance to participate at both, the board meeting and the farm tour. With me was Marco Flores, one of our emerging community leaders in Northfield. Marco has participated in leadership trainings organized through the Hispanic Committee at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church and was the first to confirm his interest in participating in this experience.

During the board meeting, Marco was able to observe the dynamics and the way Anglo’s conduct their meetings, we then talked about the differences and formalities observed, including the approval of the minutes from the previous meeting and the way decisions were proposed, motions articulated, seconded, voted on, and recorded for the permanent files of the SFA chapter.

We had a chance to see the board at work, then Ben and Erin offered a tour of their Open Hands vegetable farm and the simple but effective machinery that they use to prepare the ground, plant, weed, and harvest their crops which are sold locally inNorthfield to 40 members of their Community Supported Agriculture operation.

Over the next 12 to 14 months, the Latino community in Northfield will be working on leadership development through the formation of a Community Development Council. This council will be representative of the different sectors where Latinos live in Northfield.  Its purpose will be to deal with those issues that are specific to our community (civic engagement, social environment, language, community participation, access to services, interaction with the Anglo leadeship, etc.)

Through the council, we hope to establish a strong Latino-to-Latino families network, as well as a permanent structure for Latino leadership development and training.  The council will also serve the purpose of relationship and community building goals with the Anglo community by providing a structure for formal interaction and communications and an opportunity for Anglo’s to learn the Latino way of conducting business.  Mutual understanding and integration of our communities will be the result of deliverate efforts and leadership on both ends to come closer together as we all grow in numbers and our issues get more complex.

Ensuring that each one of these leaders starts to feel comfortable among leaders in the Anglo community and that everyone understands how the Anglo community leadership is structure and managed is of the highest priority if we are to move forward a lasting process of integration and effective management of our Latino community affairs.