Creciendo Juntos – Growing Together

Health/Housing/Human Services Working Group

Meeting Notes: August 24, 2006

Present: Jon Nafziger, Peter Loach, Nila Saliba, Rebecca Schmidt, Janet Muse, Meg Camp, Rhonda Miska

Jon opened the meeting by asking what are our areas of greatest need within our respective agencies? Rebecca responded that for Planned Parenthood it would be an interpreter service, Meg said for Social Services it is issues of screening, and Rhonda said that for Incarnation it is a need for bilingual people.

Looking forward to the October 29 Help Fair: The UVa Cancer Center will be able to provide some funding for food and beverages. Rhonda has contacted VHDA and asked them to underwrite the event, so it looks like we will have a budget for the event this year. Janet recommended Blue Ridge Care Connections be invited, as well as the WIC program. Peter brought up the idea of a survey that could be done w/ participants at the Help Fair as a way to get a better idea what the needs of our Hispanic population are. It was said that Miriam Rushfinn with the Parent Center did a Help Fair in Fluvanna County. Peter will work with Nila to draft a survey – they can be contacted if people have ideas of what the survey should include. Peter also shared that Prof William Harvey is planning a Help Fair in Nelson and that he encouraged Prof Harvey to be in touch with me about our event.

On the topic of immigration, Rhonda announced that there will be a march in Washington, DC on Thursday, September 7 from 4-7 pm where more than a million people are expected to gather and call for just comprehensive immigration reform as the Congress returns from August recess.

We spent quite a bit of time looking at ideas for a local immigration rally on Labor Day, Monday September 4 and sketched a route that would start in the First Presbyterian Church parking lot, go down the downtown mall, up East Market and end at Lee Park. However, upon calling Parks and Rec, Rhonda discovered we would need at least 12 working days to get a permit from the city for such an event. So the rally will be in front of the County Office Building from 4-6 pm on Monday, September 4. Peter recommended inviting someone from the Cville Dems, as well as people from Goode’s and Weed’s offices. Mayor Brown and the City Councilors have also been invited. It was recommended Hispanic business owners (eg Guadalajara restaurants) be invited and that posters be put up at Laundromats, Hispanic grocery stores and restaurants, etc.

Peter brought up the idea that each working group will be asked to plan a plenary session and we tentatively agreed to do the plenary session in November. We discussed the idea of a health panel, with possible representatives from Blue Ridge AHEC in the Shenandoah Valley, Ivonne Lopez from RHOP. Also there is a Latino Health Summit on November 16-17 at VCU and perhaps some of the presenters from this event would be interested in being a part of the panel. (For more info on the event go to https://www.apps.som.vcu.edu/cme/calendar/details.aspx?ActCode=MCA001110106 ) It was agreed that we would not get into issues of domestic violence and leave that for a separate plenary all its own. Also at our November plenary we would want to include the info gleaned from the Help Fair surveys and a report on the Help Fair.

Our next meeting will be Thursday, October 19th from 2-3:30 pm at United Way.