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A Sprint to the Finish Line

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On Saturday, August 25th—just under two months from today—we’ll welcome folks from near and far as we formally open the CAPACES Leadership Institute’s permanent home.  We hope you plan to join us, so please mark your calendar (“5:00 PM”) and RSVP to Dalila Ortiz, dalilao@capacesleadership.org.

The building’s exterior is pretty much finished.  Plants are growing on the living roof.

The “sprint” is the final stage of the construction marathon.  For a few weeks in May, we were stuck in “leak sealing”, pressurizing the interior space to find those elusive spots where air seeped out (and therefore, could seep in when the pressure in normal).  We’re happy to report that, thanks to extraordinary efforts of Greenhammer Construction and our construction crew, we’re on track to meet the “Passivhaus” standard called for in the building design.

With sealing finally done, the interior is rapidly taking final form and finish.  By July 13th—the first anniversary of the Institute’s birth as an independent non-profit—the inside walls will be painted, the concrete floor scrubbed and sealed, bathroom tile done, and the doors and transoms installed.  The door casing and baseboard will be in place ready for painting.  That will leave only light and plumbing fixtures and HVAC system.  Grounds work, including parking lot and side-walks, will be done before the end of July.

It’s taken villages—1,300 volunteers so far, with more still stepping forward as we press to the finish. Meanwhile, we’re planning the Grand Opening festivities.  We’ll have exciting announcements about that in the weeks ahead.

 

CAPACES Leadership Institute in One Page

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A union of Mexican immigrant farmworkers called “PCUN”

…in Woodburn, Oregon,
…constructing a unique building…
… the first “Passive House” commercial or office structure in the United States,
…with no debt, thanks to volunteer labor, donated or discounted supplies and services,
…sourcing innovative, unconventional and salvaged materials,
…to house a grassroots leadership institution,
…dedicated to engaging community leaders—current and future,
…about the values and big ideas that guide the farmworker movement and
…equipping those leaders with the skills to put the big ideas to use,
…leading and growing the CAPACES network of nine sister organizations with 60 staff,
…organizing for workplace justice, building housing, operating an FM radio station,
…providing services, pressing for immigrants’ rights and public education reform:

That’s the CAPACES Leadership Institute.

 The CAPACES Leadership Institute builds on three decades of community organizing led by Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), Oregon’s farmworker union.  PCUN has created and united a network of nine community-based organizations that we call the “CAPACES” network.  Among the CAPACES organizations’ accomplishments are:

  • Building and managing 188 units of farmworker housing,
  • Building and operating Radio Movimiento (a low-power FM radio station),
  • Assisting 6,000 immigrants to gain legal immigration status,
  • Defeating dozens of anti-immigrant legislative proposals,
  • Training 1,000 immigrant parents for school involvement, and
  • Registering 3,000 Latino voters.

80% of our 100 key leaders are Latino immigrants or from immigrant families, 60% are women, and 50% are under 35 years of age.  Most had no prior leadership experience and no formal leadership training.

Now open, the Institute will prepare leaders to add to these accomplishments:

  • Building or acquiring 88 more units of low-income housing in three communities, a nearly 50% increase by 2013, and Expanding resident leadership training;
  • Collaborating with the new Center for Popular Democracy, based in New York, taking out leadership methods to a national level;
  • Deepening the “CAPACES de Verde” dialogues:  “green” developers and immigrant workers, answering questions like “where do ‘green cards’ fit in the ‘green’ world?”

 

You’re Invited…

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The Grand Opening Celebration for the CAPACES Leadership Institute’s new building is on Saturday, August 25th.  We hope you’ll put it on your calendar right now (if it’s not already there) and make plans to join us.

Planning for the Celebration is well underway.  We expect to have exhibits about the construction process, tours, information about the Institute’s programs (a number are already underway), plus an exciting and unique mix of hundreds of folks from around the country and around the corner.

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber and Oregon First Lady Cylvia Hayes expect to join in headlining the program.  We’ve invited U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and she’s hoping that her schedule permits a trip across the country to be with us.  This list of luminaries who’ve expressed interest is growing.

We expect activities of the day will begin mid-afternoon and that the program and ceremony will commence around 5:00 PM.  A formal invitation will go out soon and we’ll ask that folks notify us if they plan to attend.

If you have questions, please contact the Institute’s Executive Director, Laura Isiordia, at lauraisiordia@capacesleadership.org

We’re counting on seeing you in August!

 

The Spirit Was With Us

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Last Sunday April 22nd, incense glowed inside the CLI building.  More precisely, “Earth Scent” and “Full Moon”, and candles were burning as well.

Was it a spiritual ceremony?  Actually, that occurred the previous day before when the Huitzilopochtli dance group performed an indigenous ritual blessing for the sedums.  An hour later, volunteers nestled them into the soil up on the living roof.  Beginning last fall, volunteers had painstakingly propagated the plant-starts in the back yard of the radio house, next door.  Plant types include “Sedum Oreganum”, “Sedum Album Murale”, “Sedum Hispanicum” (we’re not making this up!).

The incense, however, had nothing to do with religion, cultural or ceremony.  Its smoke curls wafted entirely in service to the science of “Passivhaus” design.  Volunteers held smoldering sticks near the frames of the triple-pane windows and exterior doors.  They’d just been installed and we were testing for air leaks around the frames and thesholds.

At the heart of “Passivhaus” design and building is achieving air tightness.  Our lead construction consultant, Gene Wixson, set up a “blower-door” test, moderately pressurizing the building’s interior air (though not enough to make your ears pop).  The lower pressure outside pulls interior air (and incense smoke) toward even the smallest holes; we promptly re-taped those spots or filled them with sealant.

Sunday’s test took us about half way to a passing grade for building envelope tightness.  Right after pressurizing, Gene took a reading of 600 cubic feet of air exchange per minute.  After the incense-wanding around the doors and a third of the windows, he got it down to about 450.  We need to reach 300 to receive Passivhaus certification.  At that level, the CLI building will maintain an air leakage level of less than 10% of the average commercial buildings.

This past weekend’s volunteers, including a group from Staples corporate headquarters and a group of Jewish high school students from Havurah Shalom and Tivnu in Portland, made a valuable contribution to the construction and took away some lasting memories.  They join the CLI’s volunteer corps that’s surpassed 1,000 (and counting!), part of what we call the “10,000 fingerprints” campaign.

The building is now about 80% complete and the pace is quickening.  The next few weeks will see completion of interior insulation, drywall, plus install of interior doors, trim and cabinets.

And we’re gearing up for the Grand Opening on August 25th, exactly four months from today!  The smell of incense will, by then, be long gone, but our spirits will be higher than ever.

Cesar Chavez Day: Women Leaders Volunteer And Commemorate

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On Saturday, March 31st a brigade of women in our movement plodded through puddles of rain, cleaned up debris, pulled out nails from salvaged wood, installed soffit boards, and tended plants in the community garden at the PCUN-CLI compound. This was not your ordinary Saturday morning on the property of PCUN, as 30-40 women volunteers came out for a day of service to commemorate Cesar Chavez’s 85th Birthday. Their purpose:  to help with the construction of the CAPACES Leadership Institute, the future training ground for current and future leaders for el movimiento.

The spirit of Cesar Chavez could be felt as women leaders carried on the tradition of community service of Cesar Chavez Day. ““I’m here to help,” remarked volunteer Melinda Veliz, Multicultural Director of Silverton Health, “This is an amazing service project.  The Institute will empower others in the community to become leaders. Leaders can come here and gain new skill sets, and lead our community where leadership is lacking.”

Starting at Noon, volunteers gathered in PCUN’s Risberg Hall for a special ceremony that included a presentation of Cesar Chavez’s life story (presented by the PCUNcitos), a mini-commemoration of the Willamette Valley Law Project’s 35th anniversary, the musical styling of duo Piel Canela, and a keynote speech by First Lady of Oregon, Cylvia Hayes.

Hayes, who is also founder and CEO of 3EStrategies, a clean economy consulting firm, hailed that Cesar Chavez for seeing the unlimited potential of individuals to take action for a powerful cause.  She offered strong support for the Institute as following in that tradition.

As volunteers filed out of Risberg Hall to return home, the building site next door looked better than when the morning started.  It was one more step and brought us a day closer to the Institute’s Grand Opening on Saturday, August 25th.  César Chávez Day 2012 moved us closer to the community reaping a richer harvest of the movement’s collective labor.