Red Wing Latino Community Accomplishes Organizing Milestone

Posted by Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin on December 15, 2008

Red Wing community leaders achieved a major milestone in the process of organizing a leadership network in the larger task of putting together a community-wide infrastructure to support families in moving farther into, and participating in the life of the larger Red Wing area community.

The process was organized by the Goodhue County Hispanic Outreach Program and led by Adriana Thuerauf. The Rural Enterprise Center provided background for the process, materials, training, and other support needed to structure and develop an emergency preparedness plan and community-wide engagement strategies that have been utilized in Northfield to accomplish similar goals.

Last night’s meeting attracted over 75 Latino individuals, many of them whole families with children. Within this group were individuals with clear leadership potential that we will continue to engage as we move from the basic community organizing process into the engagement of these key network in economic development and other community building infrastructure projects.

The organizing process brought together outside forces as well, up to 40 individuals and organizations in the area have signed up to serve as a larger area support network for Latino-led initiatives, this coalition of organizations plus the presence of key regional leaders made the meeting more meaningful not only for the future efforts that were ignited though this building block, but as a motivational component and true show of support for the Latino community leadership development from the larger community leadership.

We had the presence from the board of the Goodhue County Hispanic Outreach, that provided the organizational support for the effort, as well as Darrel Glander, Assistent Chief of Police, Stan Slessor, Superintendent for the Red Wing Independent School District 256, and Jeff Larson, of J.P. Larson & Associates L.L.C. an immigration law firm in Minneapolis providing pro-bono services for Latino families in the area.

Here is a slideshow of some of the scenes from the meeting.