Adelante Mujeres Celebrating 10 Years: Part 5 of 10

Note: Apologies for the late posting of this story (part 5 of 10), which was published at the end of July.

A glimpse of one of GX Family Garden's plots in Corbett.

“Family Garden Brings Color to Forest Grove Farmers Market”

Written by Charles Drummond

Chue Cha has had a special connection with the earth since early childhood in her native Laos.

Today she is the guiding force behind a successful family-operated micro enterprise that grows and sells fresh flowers and vegetables at local farmers markets, including the one in Forest Grove.

As a child growing up in a small village in the mountainous regions of Laos, it was in the family garden where she learned important lessons about farming.

Like many families among the Hmong ethnic groups, the food the family raised and grew in their Southeast Asian homeland helped sustain them through the year.

A quarter of a century later it is still the bounty from the family garden that sustains Chue Cha, her husband, Ge Xiong, and their family. Today, however, their crop doesn’t go directly from the garden to the table — instead, money earned at local farmers markets provides needed income.

The family business, in turn, gives something back to the three markets it attends.

With its spectacular array of bright flowers, the GX Family Garden booth is the visual star at each location.

Chue Cha launched the business 11 years ago. She credits other family members in Seattle and California for giving her the opportunity to learn the flower business.

She’s now passing that knowledge on to her six children, who also participate working in the fields and helping at the booth on market days. (In addition to the Wednesday market in Forest Grove, the family sells flowers at the Tuesday Market in Hillsboro and on the weekends at the Vancouver Farmers Market.)

The oldest of the children is 21-year-old Billie Xiong. Smart, affable and with a smile as broad and bright as her mother's, Billie functions as the family spokesperson.

Billie at work at the Forest Grove Farmers Market.

Forest Grove favorite

She says her mom’s favorite market is the Forest Grove Farmers Market. “We were one of the first vendors when Adelante Mujeres launched the market in the parking lot behind the Dollar Tree in 2005,” she said. “Our business has sort of grown right along with this market.”

The GX Family Garden grows its flowers and vegetables on two different plots in Corbett and Damascus.

Speaking through her daughter, Chue Cha said she is proud of the fact that everything is grown from seed. The seeds germinate in greenhouses and transferred as seedlings to the garden plots.

Decisions about varieties are made by trial and error as well as networking with the other family members in the flower business.

“But,” says Billie, “the main thing is how well they all go together to create one of our bouquets. We grow different varieties at different times during the season. All together we probably grow and harvest more than three dozen varieties.”

Working together

Watching family members assembling elaborate bouquets during a busy market day clearly demonstrates how hard they work, but also how well they work together.

On a recent Wednesday, Billie and her two oldest brothers — Kevin, 19, and Jason, 15 — joined their mother in a blur of colorful choreography, somehow managing to not get in each other’s way in the tight confines of a 10-by-10-foot booth while putting together their floral creations.

Flowers await arranging at the GX Family Garden stand.

By 8 p.m., market closing time, all that remained in the booth were the empty plastic pots used to keep the flowers fresh. According to Billie, “this is the best time of year for us. The flowers are the prettiest and customers are in the mood to purchase.”

On the days that aren’t as successful, Billie says that they often donate the unsold flowers to senior centers or convalescent homes, giving back to the communities that are helping support their family.

Adelante Mujeres Celebrating 10 Years: Part 9 of 10

Dear friends,

This week's article leading up to Adelante Mujeres' 10th anniversary celebration is a special one for me because I had the opportunity to work at the Forest Grove Farmer's Market with Mayra Hernandez (the star of this piece!) this summer.  She's a great person to have on the Adelante team and I enjoyed working with and practicing my Spanish with her.

Mayra Hernandez (right, standing) speaks with customers at the Forest Grove Farmers Market.

If you're in the area, make sure to check out Adelante's 10th Anniversary Celebration at the Forest Grove Farmers Market on Wednesday Sepetember 12th from 4pm to 8pm.  For more information, please check out the Adelante website.

-ET

“Non-Profit Provides Self-Confidence and a New Vocation”

Written by Carrie Schmid

Thirteen years ago, Javier Urenda never imagined he would be working alongside his wife, Mayra Hernandez.

They were recently married, living in their native Mexico. He was a college graduate with a degree in civil engineering. She was pregnant with their first child and unable to finish her last year of high school.

Now they both work for Washington County non-profits, Urenda for Bienestar and Hernandez for Adelante Mujeres.

Hernandez, mother of two and Outreach Assistant for the Forest Grove Farmers Market, does not have the kind of life her mother had, who stayed at home full-time and raised five children. But Urenda and Hernandez say that her pursuit in work and school has been positive for the family. It was Adelante Mujeres, they say, that helped to empower Hernandez to accomplish these goals.

In Mexico, Urenda said, Hernandez “was more insecure. I can see she’s more and more secure. When she wants something, she knows she can do it.” The Adelante Mujeres program teaches women to value themselves, he said.

As a new mother and recent immigrant to the U.S., Hernandez said she was looking for more. “I didn’t have any activities,” she said. “I took care of the kids. I waited for my husband to get home from work. I didn’t have any structure. I felt like it wasn’t enough just to be at home. I was interested in a career but I didn’t know how to make it a reality.”

In 2003, Urenda introduced Hernandez to the Adelante Mujeres program where she could learn English, work towards her GED, take classes in parenting, leadership, nutrition and personal development, and take advantage of early childhood education classes for her two young children.

Hernandez has been involved with Adelante Mujeres ever since, first as a student in the adult education program and now as a staff member. The result, she said, has been a change from the routine of her daily life.

“Leaving my routine meant doing something different that would be productive and benefit me,” she said. “And by doing that I could help my children.”

It was a boost in confidence, Hernandez said, to earn her GED after her first two years in Adelante's adult education program. The non-profit's students are required to spend 20 hours volunteering each trimester of the program, and Hernandez spent her time working with small children. As a result of this, she was able to gain certification and get a job as a teaching assistant with Head Start.

Adelante Mujeres’ personal development class, Escuelas de Perdón y Reconciliación, also taught Hernandez to nurture her self-image, and value and invest in herself, she said. The ESPERE program teaches students how to cope with past aggression and transcend conflict in their lives.

After working for Head Start, Hernandez came back to Adelante Mujeres in 2008 to continue improving her English. She recently started working for the organization, helping to build the Forest Grove Farmers Market. Hernandez shares information with recipients of benefits from the federal programs that provide assistance for food, like WIC and SNAP, to help them understand how they can benefit from the Forest Grove Farmers Market, like getting $10 worth of fresh produce for free.

“Now, I really like what I am doing, to get in touch with the people most in need and to see what is out there and how they can benefit from it,” she said.

Hernandez, who dreamed about becoming an accountant as a girl, said that she has discovered a new passion in her work. In the next 10 years, she sees herself continuing to help people in need.

Hernandez’s children, Fatima, 13, and Carlos, 12, still see her biggest accomplishment in her role as their mother.

“She’s a good mom,” Fatima said. “She’s always there for us.”

Adelante Mujeres Celebrating 10 Years: Part 8 of 10

“Early Childhood Classes Help Mom, Too"
Written by Carrie Schmid

Elide Martinez Román is 6 years old, but she already has a lot of friends. Sometimes she plays babies or Barbies with the “two Kaelys” in her neighborhood. Sometimes she sees her old friends, Genesis and Jazmán, from Adelante Mujeres Early Childhood Education program.

But five years ago, when Elide’s family had recently moved to Hillsboro from Mexico, life was very different, remembers her mother, Araceli Román. “The kids were sad. They didn’t know other kids,” said Román, who has four other children in addition to Elide. “I felt enclosed. I didn’t know people.”
Elide’s blossom to social butterfly began in the ECE program at Adelante Mujeres, said Román, where “she learned to feel bonded and to be a friend.”

This fall, Adelante Mujeres will celebrate the accomplishments of participants like Elide and Román with a special event at the Forest Grove Farmers Market on Sept. 12.

During her five years with the Adelante Mujeres Early Childhood Education program, Elide spent five days a week learning literacy skills from her teachers in her bilingual classroom. She also met weekly with English-speaking volunteers who work with the preschool-aged children at Adelante Mujeres.

“She learned English at the school. It happened really quickly. Now, she can communicate with everyone,” Román said.

In addition to helping her develop the social skills necessary for school, Elide, who will be in the first grade at McKinney Elementary School in Hillsboro next year, also gained important academic skills. They practiced letters, shapes, colors and telling stories through pictures, her mother said.

Getting students ready for kindergarten is a top priority of the Adelante Mujeres ECE program and nearly 100 percent of preschoolers who participate achieve scores above the benchmark on standardized tests, said Francisca Perez, Early Childhood Education Coordinator at Adelante Mujeres.

In the program, Elide “really learned to love class,” Román said. “Right now she’s starting to read. We go to the library and she comes home with her little bag full of books.”

Adelante Mujeres' ECE program provides a variety of educational opportunities for young Latino children and their families.

While Elide attended the ECE program, Román was a participant in the Adult Education program. Adelante Mujeres offers a dual education program for Latina mothers and their children between the ages of one and five. The adults take classes in English, Spanish literature, grammar, math, nutrition, personal development and leadership.

At first, Román was mainly focused on learning English and obtaining her GED, which she did after the first year of the program. It wasn’t until she came back to the program in the fall of 2010 that she became interested in other topics, like parenting.

“At first, I didn’t like it,” said Román of the parenting class. “I said, ‘They’re not going to teach me how to be a mom.’” But then she started to pay attention and pick up tips. “The older ones, they need their time with me. With the little ones, you really have to pay attention when they talk. You have to give them your time.”

She shared these tips with her husband. “We all eat together and we ask (the children), ‘How’s it going for you?’”

Because she had obtained her GED, Román was also able to take classes at Pacific University’s English Language Institute. Adelante Mujeres students who have obtained their GED are invited to attend the Institute’s classes for free. The course is designed to prepare English as a Second Language students to enter Pacific.

Monique Grindell, Academic Coordinator of the English Language Institute, said having Adelante Mujeres students also benefits her program because the students add diversity. “We rarely have Hispanics,” she said. Adelante Mujeres students also live locally, unlike most of Grindell’s students, and “can tell them about things around town,” she said.

“It was lots of homework, lots of writing,” Román remembered of the ELI program. “But it was a good challenge.” And, she added, her children noticed how hard she worked at her studies and it set an example for them.

Adelante Mujeres Celebrating 10 Years: Part 7 of 10

"Young Latinas Get Helping Hand"

Written by Kati Mayfield

Maria Sandoval, 12, and Briana Larios, 11, prove that great ambition comes in small and soft-spoken packages.

With great poise the girls, or chicas in Spanish, describe their stories of finding self confidence and social grace through a local youth development program called Adelante Chicas.

Through the Adelante Chicas program, part of local non-profit Adelante Mujeres, Maria and Briana participate in after-school groups with other girls their age and learn about topics ranging from self-esteem to financial literacy to college prep.

With a staff of three and a legion of committed volunteers, Adelante Chicas runs in six sites in the Forest Grove school district and one in Hillsboro, serving over 250 girls, ages 8 to 18, each year.

During the school year, Adelante Chicas holds one after school group at every school site per week and takes the girls on educational excursions on the weekends. During the summer Adelante Chicas runs a six-week soccer academy and three week-long summer camps where the girls learn about science, technology, engineering and math (STEM); healthy lifestyles; and cultural arts.

Maria, who is going into seventh grade at Neil Armstrong Middle School, and Briana, who is going into sixth grade at Tom McCall Upper Elementary School, both joined Adelante Chicas as quiet third graders.

Maria was the pioneering third-grader who joined Adelante Chicas when it was only offered to girls in fourth grade and up. The summer before her third grade year Maria tagged along to Chicas summer camps with her older sister, Monica. Fascinated by a unit on community health and wellness, Maria didn’t want the experience to end with the summer, so she persuaded the Adelante Chicas staff to let her join the program. Staff members conceded because they were impressed by Maria’s dedication to the activities and to her peers.

Briana, one year younger, benefitted from Maria’s legacy the next year when Adelante Chicas staff decided to open the program to all third graders. Briana says that, though she was very studious, she was too shy to raise her hand in class or participate in extra-curricular activities. But when she heard that Adelante Chicas was just “for Latina girls like me,” she joined the group at Echo Shaw Elementary School. What she found was an all-Latina group of girls her age and program facilitators who created a safe and supportive environment for her to explore her ideas and identity.

The foundation of the group is the “girls circle,” where the girls discuss their ups and downs and address a different theme each week. Each girl gets a chance to speak in the circle, which helps them gain confidence about expressing themselves and addressing an audience.

Briana says, and her mother confirms, that whereas before she was reluctant to say anything in a group or at home, she now can articulate her opinions on everything from her favorite pop star to her greatest ambitions.

Maria has taken from Adelante Chicas the desire to help others and take care of the environment. Participating in annual camping trips and volunteer excursions to local wetlands, she has gotten exposure to the region’s incredible natural resources and become determined to protect them.

Maria and Briana have made the most out of every Adelante Chicas activity. Through the Adelante Chicas Journey to College initiative, Maria and Briana have toured local colleges and universities and learned about career tracks and how to get scholarships. And, they have committed to giving back to the community, thanks to the great role models they have in Adelante Chicas staff and volunteers.

In 10 years, both girls say they envision themselves attending college and volunteering with a program like Adelante Chicas, helping other Latina girls become more social and break out of their shells.

Leticia Aguilar, the Adelante Chicas elementary school facilitator, beams with pride over all her chicas, particularly when they express their dreams about what they want to be when they grow up.

Maria aspires to be an immigration lawyer, and Briana says with determination that she plans to be a doctor — a pediatrician, to be exact.

Meet Maria Sandoval, J.D., and Briana Larios, M.D. They may not have earned those credentials quite yet, but they are certainly on their way.

Adelante Mujeres Celebrating 10 Years: Part 6 of 10

"A Second Chance at Learning"

Written by Carrie Schmid

When Hortensia Mandujano was an elementary school student in Mexico, she remembers a warning a teacher gave the class after his students did poorly on a math exam.

“He told us, ‘You’re going to want to get this time back, to pay attention and to learn,’” she recalled him saying. “’But you won’t get it back.’”

Mandujano completed school through the ninth grade. As a young adult, she moved to the United States to be with her family. She had four children. She worked seasonally in agriculture. Sometimes, she would think about going back to school.

“I was wasting a lot of time,” she said. “I felt like there was a lot I could do, but I couldn’t do it (at home),” she said. “I wanted to study but I thought it was too late. I didn’t think there was a place I could study.”

Then, in the spring of 2010, Mandujano heard about Adelante Mujeres’ Adult Education program, which offers classes for Latina women in English and GED preparation, plus classes for toddlers and pre-schoolers. As a non-profit, Adelante Mujeres is primarily supported by foundations and donors, so students are asked to make only a small contribution each trimester and give back to society through weekly community service hours.

“It made me really happy,” said Mandujano, who had remembered what her math teacher had said about getting back to school. “I said to myself, ‘This time you have to take advantage of it. You’re going to pay attention.’”

Mandujano set a goal to obtain her General Educational Development Diploma within one year. In the spring of 2011, she managed to raise her math score by 500 points, said Arturo Villaseñor, a math instructor at Adelante Mujeres. Mandujano passed the math exam, the last test she needed to obtain her GED.

“I think Hortensia is a successful student for two reasons,” Villaseñor said. “First, she has a good level of confidence in herself. Second, she works hard in practicing her exercises over and over until she knows them. With this combination, she could achieve her goal.”

At Adelante Mujeres, Mandujano says she received more than just a diploma; she also gained confidence. “I feel more comfortable with myself. I feel like I can do a lot of things,” she said.

Since graduating from the program, Mandujano landed a job as a caretaker. This fall, she plans on going to Portland Community College to take prerequisite courses in the hopes of eventually getting a degree in psychology.

“I want to be a social worker or a counselor,” she said. “(Adelante Mujeres) has opened my appetite to learn. What I did when I was at Adelante Mujeres was just one step.”

Building self-esteem and love of learning is at the core of the mission of Adelante Mujeres Adult Education program. For four hours a day, five days a week during the school year, women study academic topics like math, English and Spanish.

Since 2002, the adult education program has graduated about 200 women.

Students also take a weekly course called ESPERE to learn to improve communication and transcend conflict. ESPERE (Escuelas de Perdón y Reconciliación) is a program originally developed in Bogota, Colombia by the Fundación para la Reconciliación for the construction of peace in Columbia and around the world.

Two classes a week at Adelante Mujeres focus on the development of life skills — nutrition and parenting. Mandujano was surprised at how much she gained from these courses. “Before I entered, I didn’t even know I needed a parenting class,” she said. “I started to learn things I hadn’t talked about but had been thinking about.’”

Additionally, women spend one class a week with Spanish literature professors Nancy Christoph and Mariana Valenzuela on the campus of Pacific University. Since the initiation of Adelante Mujeres 10 years ago, Pacific professors have volunteered their time to teach literature and give the women the experience in a college setting.

Mandujano has a hard time choosing which class she liked the best. “They are all really important. They are all integrated,” she said. At Adelante Mujeres, “you’re learning how to get ahead, but also how to get outside of yourself.”

The experience in Adelante Mujeres, Mandujano said, has also taught her the importance of giving back. “I want to do something for the community, and to have my children do something for the community,” she said.

Oregon Live Article about Forest Grove Farmers Market's Waste Center

A snapshot of the FGFM's Waste Center.

Hi friends,

Go to this link to read an article and see some photographs on the waste management system at the Forest Grove Farmers Market.  Enjoy!

-ET