December 2006 Newsletter

Please visit our website: www.hispaniclatinocoalition.org

After months of planning, we are happy to say that the Hispanic Latino Festival, held on the 30^th of September, was a success! With live music and foods from many Latin American countries, the event attracted many of Sarasota County’s residents and was a night filled with great music, delicious food, and, of course, plenty of fun.

Thank you to all who volunteered their time and energy to help plan the Festival, and to our sponsors, whose generosity made the event possible!

The 9th Annual Sarasota Reading Festival was held on Saturday, November 4^th at Five Points Park. This free festival serves to bring the community together to promote the importance of literacy, and this year it was bigger and better than ever before. Since its inception, the Sarasota Reading Festival has brought hundreds of the nation’s brightest authors to educate and entertain children and adults alike. Over 45,000 free books have been donated to children and $450,000 has been raised for enhancements in our public libraries.

The Hispanic Latino Coalition was present at this grand event to spread the word about our organization and to sell Spanish books for adults and children. We handed out brochures to interested event attendees and gave the Hispanic/Latino and Spanish speaking community the opportunity to access literature not readily available in the area.

We want to thank all of the volunteers that donated their time and energy at the Sarasota Reading Festival on behalf of HLC. To Elsie Morales, Sarah Hoeffel, Beatriz Osorio, Estela Curiel, Adriana Robledo, Alexis Cartland, Timothy “Timoteo” Murray, Frank Lopez, and Vincent Bejar: this event would not have been a success without you! We want to thank Sarah and Vince especially, who took on the task of setting up and taking down our table with Elsie, and to Beatriz who took on the responsibility of finding us books and donating an excellent collection of her own to the Coalition.

Overall, the participation in the Sarasota Reading Festival was a success, and we look forward to participating for years to come. For more information on the Sarasota Reading Festival, visit www.sarasotareadingfestival.com.

Tutors—The Literacy Council of Sarasota is seeking tutors to teach English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and Basic Literacy (reading and writing) to adults. No prior teaching experience is required, and volunteers need not speak another language. Hours are flexible. Interested? Please call (941) 955-0421 or e-mail info@sarasotaliteracy.org.

Tutors--The Sarasota Family YMCA, along with the Governor’s Mentoring Initiative and community volunteers like yourself, have joined together to create an after-school mentoring and literacy program for first and second graders. This mentoring program matches volunteers with students who are struggling to learn to read in school. You can work at either of two locations. Do you have 2+ hours a week to teach children to read? Volunteer opportunities are Monday through Thursday; if you are interested, please call Karen Grybek at (941) 351-8093 x 3 or e-mail kgrybek@sarasota-ymca.org.

Directories—We are pleased to announce that the 2006/07 Bilingual Directories are being printed as we speak! Our staff has been working diligently to bring you the best and most up-to-date directory possible. Anita and Elsie made the final revisions in October, and our Executive Director has taken care of all printing matters. We hope to have the directories in the first two weeks of December, and will keep the community informed on how to get their copies once they are released. Thank you for your patience!

Outreach Educator. Sarasota and Manatee County - Planned Parenthood of Southwest and Central Florida, Inc., seeks entry level community outreach educator to implement quality learning programs related to sexual health/sexuality to community-based organizations. We need an independent, self-starter with skills in teaching, program management, evaluation and curriculum development. Requirements: Strong verbal and written communication skills; commitment to the Mission of Planned Parenthood and belief in reproductive choice. College education and experience working with diverse populations is desired. Bilingual language skills are a plus. We offer excellent benefits. Fax cover letter explaining interest and resume to (941) 366-1330, Attn: Director of education (or email to marilyn.anderson@ppswcf.org.

The Glasser-Shoenbaum

Human Services Center

1750 17^th Street, Suite K-3

Sarasota, FL 34234

April 7. Artist’s Reception of Embracing Our Differences was attended by Adriana Robledo and Estela Curiel.

April 8. Special Session of Diversity Training. Embracing Our Differences and SCOPE’S Coalition for Inclusion and Diversity (CID) have formed a community-based volunteer corps to offer the “changing the World: One Friendship at a Time” diversity training program in Sarasota and Manateee counties.

April 11, Adriana Robledo participated in the second session of the Literacy Summit. A Literacy Summit group continues to meet in order to work together.

May 4. Adriana Robledo represented the Hispanic Latino Coalition on the panel of the Sarasota Openly Against Racism (SOAR) Symposium that took place at the Van Wezel on May 4. Her presentation included a brief explanation about our Coalition and addressed our support of having much needed immigration reform.

May 25. The Hispanic Latino Coalition participated in the first Latino Power Lunch offered by the Gulf Coast Latin Chamber of Commerce. The keynote speaker was Luis Eduardo Baron who made an excellent presentation entitled– Hispanics: Facts, Myths, and Realities.

May 26- The Cultural Competency Training session, hosted by the Hispanic Latino Coalition, was held at the Community Foundation of Sarasota County in the Hamme Conference Center. The training was conducted by Edna Apostol, MPH, of the Gulfcoast South Area Health Education Center, Inc. Ms. Apostol used a slide presentation, which she printed for each participant to be used as a take-home guide.

Fifteen members of the Sarasota-Bradenton-Venice Community attended.The information offered in the presentation will be helpful in dealing with Hispanic families as well as bringing advocacy to the workplace. It will help others bring better health care for their students and clients and bring greater understanding to those providing ESOL services to a broad client base. In addition it helps in “business to business” transactions.

The Coalition hopes to parlay this success into a new project: Teen Cultural Competency Training.

June 9. The Hispanic Latino Coalition was represented at SCOPE’s 2006 Annual Event at the Flanzer Jewish Community Center. The event highlighted the accomplishments and future projects of SCOPE.

June 15, 16, & 17- The “Our Cultural Connections” Festival was a gathering of diverse cultural groups from around world with a shared goal of educating, understanding, and celebrating our common humanity. The festival was designed to serve as a showcase in order to educate the community of the customs, foods, garments, cultural wares, arts and crafts, currency, sports, and governments of a variety of cultures- all signifying their connection to and their place in U.S. history and modern society.

The festival began with a preview gala on June 16th, from 6pm to 8pm. During the two days of the festival (the 17th and 18th of June), various local and international cultural groups performed.

The HLC used the festival as an opportunity to increase community awareness of the organization. Over the course of two days, the festival was attended by over 4,000 members of the Sarasota community. The HLC handed out brochures to interested event attendees and recruited volunteers for future projects. Overall, the participation in the festival was a success.

June 21. Javier and Estela Curiel, staff member Anita Tambay, and volunteer Monica Tambay, attended “Conexiones”, an event hosted by the Latin Chamber of Commerce to present hurricane preparedness for small businesses.