{"id":13495,"date":"2010-09-30T11:52:12","date_gmt":"2010-09-30T18:52:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spiken.wpengine.com\/news\/lucy-lopez-center-helping-kents-hispanic-community-needing-help-itself\/"},"modified":"2016-10-22T22:20:40","modified_gmt":"2016-10-23T05:20:40","slug":"lucy-lopez-center-helping-kents-hispanic-community-needing-help-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/news\/lucy-lopez-center-helping-kents-hispanic-community-needing-help-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucy Lopez Center: Helping Kent’s Hispanic community; needing help itself"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Cristina Cianca needed help, the Lucy Lopez Center<\/a> was there for her.<\/p>\n

The Panama-born mother, who immigrated here seven years ago, was in serious need of legal assistance last year regarding her immigration status.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d spotted the center as she was driving along Washington Avenue. Curious to see if they could help her, she stopped in.<\/p>\n

Cianca, who has two grown children living in Washington, wanted to ensure her ability to stay in this country. To do that, she needed to embark on a complex immigration pathway that started with a paper trail.<\/p>\n

Within minutes of walking through the door, Cianca was getting assistance from Lucy Lopez Center staff, ensuring her access to an immigration attorney willing to talk with her for free.<\/p>\n

Sitting at the center Tuesday, with the center\u2019s executive director Rodrigo Barron interpreting for her, Cianca explained the center quickly became more than just a stopping point for legal assistance.<\/p>\n

It became something of an extended family.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen she first came here, she sensed a very friendly, welcoming place,\u201d Barron said, interpreting Cianca\u2019s rapid-fire Spanish. \u201cShe wanted to come back here and help. She has been here ever since.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Cianca pitches in wherever she can – answering the phones at the non-profit center, or helping sort items for the monthly clothing bazaar. She\u2019s happy to be helping her neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a total community here,\u201d Barron said, carefully selecting English for the Spanish Cianca expresses with such vivacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are different problems, but everybody has a need.\u201d<\/p>\n

How it started<\/p>\n

The Lucy Lopez Center got its start in large part to local restaurant owner Roberto Gonzalez. Coming to the U.S. from Mexico at age 17, Gonzalez was first employed in the farm fields, then began working his way through the restaurant business. One of his employers happened to be Seattle restauranteur Lucy Lopez, a pioneer of the Puget Sound Mexican restaurant industry in the 19060s. Gonzalez was one of many young Mexicans whom Lopez took under her wing, helping them to achieve their own dreams as business owners and restauranteurs.<\/p>\n

While making a living as a business owner in Kent, Gonzalez never forgot his desire to return something to the community which had nurtured him. Lopez had helped him greatly, and by the same token he wanted to continue that sense of giving.<\/p>\n

\u201cI started the Lucy Lopez Center because being in the restaurant here, I saw so many needs in the community,\u201d Gonzalez said, reiterating the questions he was always hearing from immigrants in the community: \u201c\u2019Where can I get a license? Where can I get help?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI always had the vision to have a community center. We are giving back because we are very blessed. We have my family here, my wife and I – we are very fortunate. We\u2019re not rich, but we\u2019re happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cI\u2019m very happy to be doing something.\u201d<\/p>\n

And so, working with his longtime friend Paul Ramos – a former planner for the City of Kent and a private real estate developer – Gonzalez co-founded the nonprofit center in 2006, and proudly attached Lopez\u2019s name to it.<\/p>\n

Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, Ramos came from a migrant family. Education was his way to success – he earned a masters degree in planning from the University of Washington, enabling his planning career.<\/p>\n

What it offers<\/p>\n

The Lucy Lopez Center has been earning plaudits for its work with the local Hispanic community. Some people – like Cianca – are willing to come from as far away as Olympia to seek assistance, as well as to volunteer here.<\/p>\n

Regardless of their immigration status, visitors to the center can tap into a wealth of assistance. In addition to the pro bono immigration advice, the center also offers courses in English, distance-learning programs for getting high-school diplomas, immigration workshops, computer access, interpretation services, public-health assistance and homeowner-education forums, to name a few services.<\/p>\n

The center has been seeing a steady increase in people coming through the door, needing help.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom April to mid-July we had over 1,000 people come in,\u201d Barron said, saying prior to that \u201cthe volume was nowhere near what we have now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added,\u201dthere\u2019s a needy segment of the population that we serve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who supports it<\/p>\n

The Lucy Lopez Center\u2019s work has not gone unnoticed. The center was in the spotlight earlier this month, at the Consulado de Mexico celebration at the Washington State Convention Center, where the center was named as the recipient of proceeds from the event.<\/p>\n

And on Monday, Mexico\u2019s newest consulate to Washington, Alejandro Garcia Moreno, dined as a guest at Gonzales\u2019 restaurant, where he was welcomed by city and state officials, as well as Lucy Lopez Center board members.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is my first visit to Kent,\u201d Moreno explained, noting the Lopez Center\u2019s importance to his office.<\/p>\n

\u201cLucy Lopez Center is important because we\u2019re living in a city which has a large Latino community,\u201d he said. \u201cNow that I\u2019m arrived in Kent, what I want to refine is where we can help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Help is needed<\/p>\n

The Lucy Lopez Center continues to need help. The nonprofit entity, which has support from a number of public entities, continues to see more clients. And according to Barron, they would like to develop a 19,000-square-foot building from which to offer more services, including culinary classes for future business leaders in the restaurant industry.<\/p>\n

But that will take money, as will continuing to offer the programs it already has in place.<\/p>\n

Barron doesn\u2019t see an end to the need the Lopez Center has only just started to tap into.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe growth is very real and it is continuing to grow,\u201d he said of hispanic community, both in Washington and across the nation.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Learn more<\/p>\n

To learn more about the Lucy Lopez Center, and how to assist with the center\u2019s needs, visit the center\u2019s Web site at www.lucylopez.org.<\/a> Or call the center at 253-854-0042.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Cristina Cianca needed help, the Lucy Lopez Center was there for her.
\nThe Panama-born mother, who immigrated here seven years ago, was in serious need of legal assistance last year regarding her immigration status.
\nShe\u2019d spotted the center as she was driving along Washington Avenue. Curious to see if they could help her, she stopped in.
\nCianca, who has two grown children living in Washington, wanted to ensure her ability to stay in this country. To do that, she needed to embark on a complex immigration pathway that started with a paper trail.
\nWithin minutes of walking through the door, Cianca was getting assistance from Lucy Lopez Center staff, ensuring her access to an immigration attorney willing to talk with her for free.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":217,"featured_media":13496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/217"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13495"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}