As news trickled through the community about the closing (today!) of the Catholic Multicultural Center, I was impressed by the quick responses of so many and the concern about what would happen to the people served by the Center. I’m blown away by the short notice and can’t help but wonder what made Morlino make such a drastic decision with so little notice – is it just mean-spirited? Or unthoughtful? Or a fundraising ploy? What ever the case, I’m proud of the quick response by the community. There are already two events planned that you may want to attend if you are concerned:
The first one is a vigil scheduled for Saturday at noon.
Community Alert! To all members of Madison Community!
Community members organize a Vigil to ask Catholic Dioceses to keep Centro Guadalupe’s doors open.
THE VIGIL WILL BE THIS SATURDAY AT NOON AT CENTRO GUADALUPE
Community members and organizations concerned with the dramatic loss for the community will organize a vigil this coming Saturday at the entrance of the Centro Guadalupe (1862 Beld St) starting at noon. The purpose of the event is to stress the long and successful history that the center and the community share together and the need to keep Centro Guadalupe open.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Madison announced yesterday the need to make a number of serious cutbacks. The changes will include the closing of the Diocese’s Catholic Multicultural Center. The center is one of the biggest support venues for immigrant families; literally thousands of families rely in one way or another on the legal, pantry, financial, education or advocacy services that the center provides. All thanks to the restless effort of the limited staff and the great and enthusiastic team of volunteers.
However, tomorrow at 4pm, the center will close forever. The history of Centro Guadalupe (CG) is the history of the Latino community as a whole. Many relate the current center to the legacy of OHAS, an organization in the 70s that started addressing the needs of the Latino community. Today, the center is a symbol of integration, support, and partnership for and from the Latino community.
The community is still absorbing the terrible news. Most social services providers agree that there is not one agency or a group of agencies that can pick up the number of services that will stop tomorrow. Especially in these economical times, the low income families that compose the vast majority of their clients are left in a vulnerable situation.
Organizations, activists, social workers, providers in the Latino community wonder the reason that made the Catholic Dioceses to act in such precipitated way “the decision come without give us an opportunity as a community to figure out how to keep this services running,” a long term social worker complains. Literally, closing the center in two days has left the community without time to work on a transition plan to address and protect hundreds of families that rely on the type of help that CG provides every day.
Many in the Latino community are asking for the opportunity of an open and sincere dialogue between the community and the Diocese to address the different options; “This should happen before closing the doors of the community center,” Alejandro R. explains, one of the thousands of clients that was helped by CG when he was homeless and “thanks to them I have medication to my medical disorder and a job, I am afraid that many people in my situation will not be so lucky if they close the center.”
LASUP, Latino Support Network has scheduled a special meeting open to the community for next Wednesday, June 3, from 9am to 11am at United Way to discuss the Catholic Diocese’s decision to close the Multicultural Center.
One of the ideas to save the Centro Guadalupe is to ask the Catholic Diocese to lend the building to a group of volunteers and organizations that would run the operation, initially on volunteer time until finding alternative funding. Another alternative is that the Dane County or Madison City administration would be willing to buy or rent the building to allow the programs to keep running.
The second is a meeting Wednesday morning:
We have scheduled a special meeting of La Sup for next Wednesday June 3 from 9am to 11am at United Way (Atwood Ave.) We will discuss the Catholic Dioceses decision to close the Multicultural Center. Members of the La Sup Exec Committee will facilitate the meeting. Please feel free to invite anybody who may be interested in this issue.
Along with these two formal meetings people are suggesting many solutions on-line and trying to figure out how to keep the services available to the community and asking how to volunteer to help. Its refreshing to see such a wonderful caring response from the community, too bad the Catholic Diocese wasn’t as thoughtful and caring.
