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Alive.

Where to start is.

Hello.

Good afternoon.

Welcome to the City Club of Cleveland.

I'm Dan Moulthrop.

I'm chief executive here at the City Club, where we're devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

Today is Friday, August 1st.

And it is so great to have all of you here.

I myself am really excited to hear from our speaker today, Denise Contreras.

She's president and CEO of the Northeast Ohio Hispanic Center for Economic Development.

She told me the name is too long, so I'm just going to call it the Hispanic Center for Economic Development right now.

Some of you may already have had the opportunity to drop into the newly opened center of 25.

Cleveland's newest hub for Latin culture entrepreneurship.

And I'm told just this morning, in fact, very incredible food.

If you haven't yet had time to check it out, central via 25 is a $12 million adaptive reuse project of some 32,500ft of warehouse space.

Well, I'm sorry, 14 million, Jose corrected me, is 14 million.

Congratulations on overshooting the goal and and managing to raise the funds.

I think was a really thank you for that extra 2 million.

It is it is the space that our community has been needing and waiting for for some time.

And you can find it at West 25th and Clark Avenue.

The last time Ginny's contract joined us, it was part of our outdoor series that we present just across the street in the plaza here at Playhouse Square.

She was providing an update on the progress of Centro Villa and reminded us all that, quote, leading with the culture is the key to our success and our authenticity.

And that's exactly what she did.

Central Villa is just one example of the innovation and leadership Ginny's contract brings to her work as the CEO of the Northeast Ohio Hispanic Center for Economic Development.

She has led the way for Cleveland Latino community, and the work includes multiple anchors that build success and equitable asset building.

The Hispanic Center, the Northeast Ohio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, has for close to 40 years represented Latino and non-Latino business community in Northeast Ohio, and they're also home to Northeast Ohio's only Latino small business development center.

They have remained committed to community development in our Latino community here in Cleveland, and also to other underserved communities.

Our forum today is part of our Building Success series, which we present in partnership with Huntington Bank.

And we're really excited to hear from Janice on her take on what a truly inclusive economy might look like and how we might get there.

A quick reminder for all of us.

If you have a question during the Q&A portion, you can text it to (330)541-5794, and we will work it into the program now.

Members and friends of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Jenice Contreras.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you for.

Wow.

It's so amazing to look out and see so many friends and family.

An extended family here today.

So thank you.

Thank you for your support.

And thank you for coming over.

I am deeply grateful to stand here before you today and be invited to speak at this esteemed podium at the City Club of Cleveland.

Super humbling.

Dan.

Cynthia.

Thank you, my friends and Familia Huntington.

Thank you for this opportunity.

I want to take today, a little bit of time to tell you a little bit about my story, and I promise I won't be drawn out.

I know that it's Friday, but it's intimately entwined with places that have shaped me and my leadership.

Starting in Puerto Rico, West 30th and Clark, La Vista, I stand here not just, representing an organization or having a title.

But as part of a voice for our community.

I'm going to take lots of pauses.

So born in Puerto Rico.

I am very grateful to call myself an island girl.

My family roots deep in Puerto Rico.

Place whose?

Beauty and history.

I move as the weather today.

It's filled with complex politics and resilient people.

Yet my story is also mixed with Cleveland.

Right.

And it doesn't seem like anywhere like Cleveland, Puerto Rico.

How does that happen?

So my mother and her sisters were born here.

As my grandfather, me abuelo, was drawn north to work.

I was told I don't usually tell people my story, and now you know why.

But I know that it's so important to tell our story.

Because my story is your story, right?

And it's so intertwined.

So you're just going to be patient with me?

So let's go back to the Abuelo.

So my Ella was drawn north during the post war.

War to industrial when Cleveland, like many American cities, actively recruited Puerto Rican men to work in the steel mills in the midst of the late 40s and 50s, the quest for economic opportunity brought waves of Puerto Rican families to cities like Cleveland, connecting our island's destiny with the promise of America's industrial heartland.

This migration, part of the greater movement of Puerto Ricans to U.S. urban centers after the war, laid the foundation for a bright, vibrant community that now spans here in our city throughout eight decades and for generations to further anchor, this rich legacy.

I am honored to share that as we are here today in this room, the Puerto Rican flag is being raised at City Hall.

Dan told me he didn't plan it, but it happened beautifully, right?

And this is part of a proud tradition.

Tradition?

As we celebrate our Puerto Rican festival and parade this weekend.

A proud tradition that began as the Puerto Rican friendly day in 1969.

The parade celebration has, has been observed by Clevelanders for over 50 years, establishing a strong legacy.

Legacy of culture, awareness, pride, and education.

So if you are in Cleveland, you will see lots of Puerto Rican flags this weekend.

I promise you.

So there's my story.

This is part of my story, right?

And a story of so many Cleveland Puerto Ricans.

A story that is often not told, not known or not recognized.

A story that I'm happy to share with you today.

So thank you for your patience.

I spent most of my elementary years in Puerto Rico.

Until my mother, you know, a courageous single, single mom made the difficult decisions to leave behind our family and our beloved island.

She chose to move us to Cleveland, her birthplace and the city where our roots quietly awaited.

I wasn't a stranger to Cleveland, as most kids and their summer vacations would go to Disney World.

I always came to Cleveland to visit family.

My cousin Meg does here.

She could attest to that.

And eventually we finally settled in in the city.

I found myself naturally falling in love with Cleveland as a kid.

I love the long summer days.

I loved the glow of the lighting bugs that I didn't have in Puerto Rico.

The taste of ice tea.

I learned in Cleveland.

The comforting scent of wooden houses.

Right?

There's no wooden houses in Puerto Rico are very different.

Old attics and cool, creepy basements.

I marveled at the change of seasons.

That was a big deal.

And now, even though I hate to admit it, I even enjoyed Cleveland winters.

Cleveland quickly became my home away from my island, a place that would ultimately shape the trajectory of my life.

But it wasn't always easy.

I had to learn the language.

I think I've gotten a little better.

Although when I get nervous or angry, you get a little bit of an accent.

So you'll get some of that today?

I quickly became aware of the complexities and Cleveland around racial dynamics.

I began to understand the impact and the significance of black history.

And I found myself navigating in a world that was often divided, sometimes and most clearly, in the segregated lunch tables of Walton Elementary.

I remember wondering, where do I sit?

Where do I belong in this black and white place?

Despite uncertainties, my mom and I adapted to this environment.

We found comfort and community in a small storefront Catholic chapel on Clark Avenue known as Cristo Rey, where a Spanish mass brought together a strong and supportive Latino community.

This church became our haven.

Our chosen family, far from home.

Aretha.

The Krista Rey youth group became my lifeline.

A source of faith, leadership development and lifelong friendships.

It grounded me and helped me face the very challenges of growing up as a Puerto Rican teenager attending Lincoln West High School, living on West 30th and Clark.

Those were formative years.

And it was this community that helped me find both strength and belonging.

The Christopher Chapel building, like many homes and landmarks that once lined Clark Avenue, exist only in our memories back in the early 1990s.

I'm going to age myself.

I actua I didn't have the language.

And those days, I didn't have the language of community development to describe what was happening.

But I witnessed firsthand how neighborhoods were transformed and slowly bought up by big box pharmacies and fast food chains.

At the time, I thought this progress was a good thing, but it came at a cost.

Our church disappeared, and with it we lost our safe haven on Clark Avenue.

As a teenager, I spent countless summer days sitting on the porch of our upstairs apartment on West 30th, daydreaming about traveling the world, building an incredible career.

All the places I would go kind of story.

And maybe even changing parts of the world.

Looking back.

Those dreams were rooted in the innocence and hope of a young girl.

From that second floor porch.

I could see the roof of a building across the street facing West 25th.

I stared at that roof many days.

Months and years.

A building that has come full circle in my story, and that of the story of Cleveland's Latino community.

Today, that building is central.

Yet 25.

So realizing is Friday.

I'm going to spare you the long details.

That happened in between.

Those can be found.

Those I'm going to spare you.

Those things that could be found in a professional bio.

The degrees earned, the career milestones, the awards and recognitions.

But today, I want to share with you the things that lie between the lines.

The substance that truly shapes a leader.

I believe that many leadership qualities are innate, woven in our own, on our very own DNA, but they are also forged by our lived experiences.

It's these experiences that ignite the courage to spark up for those to speak up, for those without a voice to volunteer, to step in when others step back, to ask the tough questions and to lead fearlessly.

Early in my career as a young mother raising two bicultural sons, Carl and Kyle, I was fortunate to have a lot of good experiences, both paid positions and volunteer, that shaped who I am today.

The most impactful was serving on the board of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

While Cleveland is based to have lots of long standing Latino nonprofits, many of them here today, Esperanza Sandoval's Spanish American, Julia Ellis I know I'm going to miss somebody, so forgive me.

But I had that deep conviction.

And I still do today, that economic justice is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty and improving outcomes for disadvantaged communities.

For my comunidad, in specific.

In 2006, I joined the chamber's board, and in 2013, April Fool's Day, to be exact.

I began, I was given the opportunity, to lead what now, you know, is the Hispanic Center for Economic Development.

This is never part of my original career plan or where I had necessarily envisioned myself, but I took the leap.

At the time, our office sat on the corner of West 25th and Clark, staffed by 1.5 FTE.

So you guys know what that means and less than $150,000 budget.

During that time, there was a great deal of anxiety, in our community.

A lot of the work led by the Hispanic Alliance, around neighborhood development, and plans that overlooked the high density and vibrant presence of Latinos in the Clark Fullerton neighborhood.

Fear of gentrification and displacement were very real.

I knew I had to learn quickly.

The stakeholders, the politics, the unwritten agendas.

I asked countless of questions of any leaders that were willing to meet with me to give me insight.

I carefully started studied the groundwork laid by my predecessors and previous generations of Latino leaders.

While their efforts may have seemed fruitless at times.

Their hard work, dreams and aspirations became my motivation to seek out solutions that truly reflected our community.

Solutions that embraced our art, our culture, our dance, our music, our faith, and above all, the unforgettable aroma of sofrito and the richness of Latino cuisine.

The food always gets us right.

I often wrestled with the disconnect between the lack of investment in commercial corridors and the undeniable vibrancy of a community determined to exist and thrive.

Clark Fulton was lined by fast food.

Fast food venues, auto parts shops and dollar stores.

It felt neglected, while West 25th was dotted with underutilized or vacant manufacturing buildings.

Remnants of a more prosperous time.

In my quest for solutions.

I ended up visiting a place called Mercado Central in Minneapolis, which became one of my greatest moments seeing a Latino market, seeing how a Latino market could serve as both an affordable launchpad for entrepreneurs and a vibrant hub meeting community needs.

It created a central space for everything Latino a heartbeat for culture, commerce and connection.

At first, the idea of creating a market seemed easy, like how hard can it be?

And.

The reality, of course, was much more complicated.

We had a small, under-resourced nonprofit.

A naive young Latina leader with no development experience, just the bold vision and relentless determination to uplift a neighborhood.

And that was it.

But sometimes vision and persistence are exactly what's needed to spark up something extra ordinary.

So we went to work.

Senior leaders in our community like Feliciano senior, Larry Vega, Juan Molina Crespo, Jose Vazquez, many others who stood behind this dream.

This idea offering invaluable guidance and unwavering support.

Our Board of directors bravely placed their trust in me and championed the vision from the very start.

A turning point came a few years later while we were doing this planning.

When Cleveland elected its first Latina councilwoman, Jasmine Santana further.

Further energizing this movement.

We rolled up our sleeves.

We dug in.

We organized community charrette and meetings and formed host committees.

We literally called and knocked on anyone across the city, or at least everyone in Jose Feliciano cell phone.

I jokingly has said, Jose, I know you have another 100 years, but please leave that cell phone in your will for me.

I mean that.

And now you guys are the witness.

He has everybody's number.

Though roadblocks were many.

At that time, much of Cleveland's corporate community hardly even recognized that we had a vibrant Latino community.

Which, by the way, is 14% of the city statewide.

We are over half a million and now and representing 4.8% of our total Ohio population.

The Hispanic community has more than doubled since the year 2000 or in the last five years.

So still we pressed on, driven by the unwavering belief that representation, opportunity, and cultural pride could transform not only our own quarter, but could transform an entire city.

There are a few things that were non-negotiable.

This project needed to be created by us and for us, rooted in the conviction that communities, when properly resourced and supported, hold the power to devise solutions to their biggest challenges.

It took a decade a staff steadfast planning, relationship building, advocacy and selling this vision along the way.

We faced another one of the greatest challenges in our generation the Covid 19 pandemic.

With philanthropy and funders redirecting their funding to emerging needs.

And no funds are very little funds available for capital projects.

Or at least they were put on pause.

All the odds were stacked, stacked against us.

Yet we refused to give up.

We continued refining the concept, building our team, and garnering the support from every corner that we could reach.

We launched a campaign called power 100, a bold call to our community to each invest at least $5,000, aiming to collect a half $1 million of our own people's pockets.

Today, we have raised $360,000 of that half $1 million.

And it continues.

No expectation back.

Just pure trust and believe in knowing and having the conviction that this was the right thing all together.

As Josie reminded us, our capital campaign was an impressive $14 million.

While this may be modest in the world of physical development, it's truly historic and has never been achieved by any Latino organization in the state.

In 2019, we purchased the former H.J.

Webber Building, a 32,500 square foot structure on one acre of land.

And in July of 2023, we held a historical groundbreaking to the project.

Today, it stands as Cleveland's Latino Hub.

But it's more than just an ordinary renovation of an old warehouse building.

Bold, vibrant colors greet you, transporting you elsewhere inside the market.

The air is alive with the richness and the bustle of vendors serving up authentic flavors from México, Venezuela, El Salvador, El Republica Dominicana, Cuba and Puerto Rico.

Beyond the food, we have a retail market which is home to a jewelry store, a massage loft, a gift shop, a real estate office, a cigar shop, a print shop, and so much more.

Inside, visitors can glimpse into our messy, sometimes commercial kitchen, a state of the art facility now fueling food entrepreneurs beyond the market walls.

And outside, we have a spacious plaza that invites community to savor the best of summer days, soaking up the fullness of this vibrant cultural experience.

The development of West 25th in Clark and Centro Villa 25 unfolded alongside the remarkable growth of our organization and many other Latino organizations.

Each fueled by leaders, staff and volunteers relentlessly committed to improving the quality of life of our community.

Why not us?

Why not here in Cleveland?

At the Hispanic Business Center, we expanded our impact, offering vital support, technical assistance and access to capital for entrepreneurs determined to realize their dreams.

We grew by leaps, leaps, and bounds, moving from a place of invisibility to having a consistent seat at the table.

Even if at times that meant we stood in the back of the room of boardrooms and forums where decisions affecting our community were being made.

Today, our organization is proudly headquartered in the second floor of Centro Villa, operating as a full fledged business innovation center.

It has become a place where hopes and ambitions take root.

A welcoming space for anyone seeking guidance and support to prosper and what once was a foreign city but now is a place of opportunity and belonging.

Every person who walks through our doors brings their dreams with them.

And together we help turn those dreams into reality.

Centro Villa is so much more than just the building.

It is a living testament to the resilience and vision of Cleveland's Latino community.

For me, Centro Villa represents the power of collective Dreams realized, a project that embodies years of hope, collaborate, passion, and unwavering faith in art in what our community can achieve together.

Where others saw a vacant, forgotten structure, we saw possibility.

I gave lots of tours in an old, dusty, empty building trying to sell a dream.

That's all we had today.

Centro Villa stands transformed from an empty outlook building into a building bustling market and a food hall filled with sights, sounds, flavors of Latin America.

This space not only offers opportunity to local entrepreneurs to grow, but it also awakens new hope and pride in our neighborhood.

It is where culture is celebrated.

Memories are created and the spirit of our community thrives.

A dream built together and a bea As I look towards the future, I urge all of us leaders in civic, education, business and nonprofit sectors to recognize our unique responsibility and immense collective power to shape the Cleveland that we desire.

The potential of our city is is greatest when every every voice is included at the decision making table.

When diversity is honored not just as a value, but as a strategic advantage.

The story of Centro Villa and the broader center for Economic Development reminds us that transformative change isn't propelled by one person or one organization.

It's born from the persistent efforts of individuals, of families and entire communities that sacrificed and refused to accept the status quo, and instead envision something much more greater.

Collaboration is at the heart of progress.

Meaningful partnerships between established institutions and emerging leaders can break cycles of exclusion and elevate, innovate and elevate innovative solutions.

True equity requires a commitment not just to representation, but to equal participation, offering resources, respect and real influence to those who have traditionally been overlooked or not seen.

I have seen in my own life and through the people I work alongside, that hope grows strongest in environments where barriers are removed and ambition is met with opportunity.

There's no mistake that we are living in a time of unprecedented threats to the very values that make our country strong.

Diversity, inclusion and equity.

I'm going to keep saying.

Across the nation, we are witnessing open attacks on our rights, gutted protections and the demonization of Latinos, immigrants, and so many who have contributed to the fabric of America.

The current political landscape.

It's not just challenging our progress.

It is actively working to reverse it.

This is not the moment to stay silent.

This is not the moment for comfort or business as usual.

Now more than ever, we must rise to the challenge with bold leadership leadership that is unapologetic in its defense of justice, that refuses to allow fear, hatred, or division to define our reality.

We need leaders who are willing to speak truth to power, built coalitions across lines of difference, and demand that our nation live up to its highest ideals.

We owe it to those that came before us who sacrificed and who who, who sacrifice.

Faced discrimination and hardship but never gave up hope.

We owe it to those that will come after us, who deserve to inherit a world where they are seen, valued and protected.

Let us stand together with uncompromising courage.

Let us organize, advocate and vote.

Let us build alliances that empower the next generation of voices.

This is our time to show what true leadership looks like to be visionary, united and relentless in the fight for equity and justice for all.

This is the call to action is clear.

We must dare to lead in ways we have never had to before, because the stakes for our communities and for our democracy have never been higher.

So my challenge to everyone here is this keep building.

Seek out to those right, raising their voices in our neighborhoods and invest in their potential.

Whether it's mentorship, partnership, or listening with intention.

And yes, it takes money.

The next generation of leaders Latino, black, immigrant, working class, Lgbtq+ are in the midst ready to join the conversation and help propel Cleveland to new heights.

The future belongs to those who believe in the power of community, who commit to learning from each other and who never stops.

Strive for a city where everyone has a fair shot at building their own Latin American dream.

So I know there's a few young people in the room.

Some of them might be from Lincoln, while some of them.

Yay!

I see some, perhaps.

So in my closing, this is really to you.

I was sitting in your seat.

I never got to come to the City club back then.

But I sat at the desk of Lincoln West High School.

I sat on West 30th.

I played in Park.

Roberto Clemente Park.

Right.

And yet, here I stand today.

Right?

And so my biggest message, and I know it sounds cliche from us older people, right?

Dream big, dream bold.

Right?

People say that, and it's like, what does that really mean?

That has to be backed up with action, with consistent and aggressive believe that you could do it and that anything is possible.

And when you have that little voice in your heart that tells you, I believe in this, and I think of this.

Don't let your current conditions define where you could go or what you could do.

And sometimes is a building right across the street from your house.

And so they can you can.

Okay, we're about to begin the Q&A with all of you.

If you're here in the room or listening on the radio, just say again.

I'm Dan Northrop, chief executive here at the City Club, and we're joined by Denise Contreras.

She's the president and CEO of the Hispanic Center for Economic Development.

And we're talking about economic inclusion today, as well as her own story of economic inclusion.

We welcome questions from all of you City Club members, guests and students, and those of you joining us on the web or on the radio on 89.7 KSU Ideas Stream Public media.

If you'd like to text a question, please text it to (330)541-5794.

That's (330)541-5794, and our colleagues will try to work it into the program.

We have our first question.

Denise, how did you manage all the challenges?

What what what skills would you recommend to all of that?

All of us that have been through so much growing up in this amazing country.

You know, people ask me that a lot.

And now, as I hear, I think I'm learning from folks as they're giving me feedback on the Centro Villa experience.

And what I often hear people say is you never give up, right?

You never gave up.

A lot of the practical stuff that I had to learn around how projects get financed or how decisions get made.

Yeah.

It took, you know, constant learning.

It took building a team.

It took finding champions and allies.

There were rooms that we were not in, right, that were making decisions in spaces that we weren't.

And that was extremely difficult.

Right.

It took years, I think, to take the longest.

Right.

Because we had an idea and we had passion and we had grit and we had sweat equity, and we had Jose's phone.

And that was literally it.

Right.

And so it was that constant, constant.

Let's do this.

I was very stubborn, in not compromising this project.

I wanted a kitchen.

I wanted a plaza.

I wanted to own a kiosk, I wanted this, I wanted that because I knew that when we did this, I didn't know if we would ever get a chance to do something else.

I had one chance.

Right?

And so we could have done it quicker.

We could have done it smaller.

We could have we could have made a lot of decisions along the way.

But there was something in me that was relentless around, nope, we need to do it all.

And when you say this is this is our one shot.

This is our one time.

We've waited for this forever.

And guess what?

Our community deserves it.

we're in a time right now in this country where, people, especially people of brown colored skin or darker colored skin, are being subject to ice raids where people who are U.S. citizens, permanent residents, asylum seekers and others are being harassed by Ice.

And I think that's having an impact, obviously, in our society.

And I would have thought that Senator Avila, as a senator, where people of, you know, of Latino and diverse backgrounds are potentially subject to some, some of these Ice raids where you have people in masks were coming in and just picking people up.

Like I said, U.S. citizens, green card holders, other are people who are, you know, who are legally here, as well as perhaps some undocumented folks as well.

So I wanted to know what sort of plans does Centro Villa have?

Has there been any experience in terms of any Ice raids or other raids, and what is the preparation that's being done, in case you did have some sort of an ice raid at Center of Excellence?

Sanjeev, thanks for the question and thanks for your leadership and support of Centro Villa.

So hey, I have the brightest, loudest building in town and we have a big H in our name.

Like, we kind of can't hide, right?

So it's unfortunate what's happening.

You know, I want to say it was the third week in January.

The market was open three weeks, and our soft opening, and it was the time where Cilantro Taqueria and some other, close, because I feel like Cleveland has not had this experience ever.

And then obviously, what's happening is just unprecedented, right?

I had a meeting with my vendors that morning.

Every Tuesday morning we meet, and I walked out of there and I had a vendor say, hey, I need to close my kiosk.

It's not safe for me to be here.

I'm in the middle of the process.

And of course, you know, what can I say to that?

We had other, like, workforce, like people that just left the market because they were scared.

I said in the market, I had a meeting, with with another leader in town, and she was bright eyed and bushy tailed, and we were eating all his tacos.

And I just started bawling because in all of my planning of Centro Villa and the things that could go wrong, right?

The leak could roof, the roof could leak, or we don't have enough vendors or not enough sales, right?

Like we did so much planning, but none of my planning could keep the space this place safe.

Has been super, super hard for me to process.

And I'm a dona.

I cry often around that, but at the same time I am so grateful.

We have Centro Villa 25.

It in this moment in time.

Because guess what?

We have so many people that are showing up in the masses.

We have so many people that are spending money with our vendors.

We have so many people that are asking, how do we help?

How do we help?

And that is the way you help.

We help we.

This is an economic battle, guys, right.

Like this is about economics.

And so where we spend our money matters more than ever.

There's a portion of our community that is scared to leave their house, but there's a whole lot more people in this city that could come out in the masses to Centro.

Yeah.

25 and so that is a true call to action.

And this is how we respond, right?

We thrive.

We thrive in adversity.

We're built for this.

So we are not going to live in fear.

We are not going to shut down Sandra Avila.

We are not.

On the contrary, we're going to double up.

We're going to go harder.

We're going to go bigger.

And we're going to lean on the people that can help us get there.

Yes.

I've had to say, hey, we have an emergency preparedness plan.

Just like if it was an active shooter, a hurricane or a storm.

It's just this time is against our very own government.

Right.

And so we have a plan.

We have a plan of people that are willing to be arrested or go to jail or bail us out, or and we need a fund for that to, we need to be prepared.

Right.

And it's hard to prepare because you don't know exactly what you're preparing for.

So, I'm learning.

I'll be going next week to Kansas City, to the needles U.S conference, to meet with other civil rights Latino leaders throughout this country who are trying to solve for the same problem.

But yeah, no Centro Villa.

We're going to get past this, but we need you.

my question to you is, to the extent that you can share your strategic thinking and your strategic strategic vision for Via Veinticinco and for the Hispanic community in general.

If you could give us some insight into that thinking, you know, Dan and I were talking in the back and we start I started a month before he started his role here.

And he asked me, how long did you think you were going to stay in this role?

And I'm like, five years.

I was like, I'm going to go five years.

Create some programs limited to shape and go do something else.

Right?

12 years in county.

Right.

Because the work continues.

And so I thought I knew that I knew that I was committed to getting Centro Villa done, and I knew that we were going to do it no matter how long it took.

And so now the central area is up and we see the full impact right of of what this creates, again, not just for the poor Latinos in, in the colorful to neighborhood, but to the city.

Right.

To this region, to a country that's watching.

And so now the vision has become a lot bigger.

How do we take this one building and how do we have an entire district of colorful buildings, of housing, of shopping, of organizations that are housed in this area?

And so, now I have another 30 years of work to do.

Thanks, Jose.

But we can't stop here, right?

Because I think the hardest part was learning and navigating, and figuring out how it's done.

And so now we know a little bit to be dangerous.

But I think we've also proven ourselves like, hey, this is what happens, right?

Like, this is what happens when you support community, when you support community and you get out of our way and just figure out ways to support them.

And so I hope that this spills over not just on West 25th, but the rest of the neighborhood and the rest of our city, and a lot of other communities outside of the Latino community who long and yearn and dream and plan and never get to see it.

I hope that they find hope in our project for a bigger vision.

The future of our community in Greater Cleveland is somewhat uncertain.

How do you plan and prepare for growth that may or may not come?

And while you do that, how do you also protect long term residents from the threats of gentrification and ensure that they, too, can benefit from any present or hypothetically future economic development?

Yeah, the market pressures are inevitable, right?

Like things are changing and they're changing fast and everything's expensive.

And it's and we knew this a decade ago.

So it's not you know, the fact that rents are going up in our neighborhood, that's not a surprise.

We knew that and part of Centro Villa.

Was a part of that was how do we anchor?

How do we own something?

Because it's going to happen, right?

Development is going to happen.

We thought we could do things to slow it down.

We thought we could encourage more home ownership.

We thought, you know, but then things happen, right?

A pandemic like this, economic crisis.

And then now leading to this new political environment that, that we're having to, to travel with.

So, I think I hope Centro Villa is part of that anchor in what happens in this community.

I think that's just an acknowledgment of this community that like, what happens when you think about community development and investment, but it doesn't have to equal gentrification and displacement.

What happens when you develop a neighborhood that people get to stay in place, that people get to take advantage of those amenities, that they get to eat an empanada, that they get to work there, that they get to own a business or a house.

Right.

And so I think we have a very antiquated way of doing community development.

There has been very cookie cutter.

Right.

And so we have some really cool neighborhoods.

But how do they really differentiate themselves?

I will challenge folks to say they don't.

I know the same thing.

So I think we have a unique opportunity for Centro Villa 25, the district.

I'm just claiming it, to be different and to be ud and to be authentic and to be for the people, by the people, and to welcome all this is this is this is a Cleveland thing.

This belongs to all of us.

to build upon that.

How can the work force ecosystem are there any ways that we can work better with the Latino community so that we can prepare the residents, incumbent residents, with economic opportunity to push back against displacement?

You know, I've focused, my, you know, the last years of my career, primarily in business development.

Right.

But we all know that we have a workforce crisis in our hands, and we are all scrambling, right, trying to figure out where is the disconnect, like where is the disconnect to people and opportunity, and opportunity for, for upward mobility, which is I think is what we're struggling with.

We're seeing like entry level jobs and then like professional jobs and then entrepreneurship as an option.

And so not a workforce, professional, but deeply concerned in our, in our inability as leadership to solve for it, to solve for the disconnect, to solve for how we lift people up.

And so I challenge folks in workforce and folks like me, not in workforce, because sometimes it takes that right.

It takes folks to see it differently because maybe it's not as complicated.

I don't know, too simple, I get it.

But we need to we need to do things that are radical and different and disruptive.

We we are, we don't we?

It's urgent.

It is urgent.

Right.

And so until we start seeing that type of bold stepping out from your usual programing, that is just not turning the needle long enough.

We've known that.

We've known that we're not turning the needle on these issues.

We've known this, we've known this pre-pandemic.

We've known this pre administration currently.

Right.

So it's no surprise.

But it really takes that bold level from funders, from corporations, from individuals, from institutions to really make the shift.

And we're not moving it fast enough.

I want to encourage you to share with us what is the call to legislators policy makers, heads of corporations here locally?

What do they need to do specifically?

Because you got us.

We'll take this opportunity to call on them.

What do we need them to do so that we could continue this work?

I invite them all to meet me on Clark and March 25th.

Is for real.

You know, it's very hard to make decisions that affect people when you don't know who these people are, right?

When you are so disconnected from the realities.

And I find myself often in rooms where I'm hearing them talk and I'm like, you really have no clue.

It happens in real communities.

And that is that is scary, right?

Like it should scare us all.

We're seeing it.

We're seeing it in women's rights, right?

We're having folks making decisions that are not women.

Right?

So we're seeing it everywhere where people are making decisions about our livelihood, our future, our children that don't really understand the realities of that.

And that is frightening.

And so I think any opportunity, regardless of, you know, where you're at professionally or personally, that you have to tell the story to bring the folks along to be the voice, because many times these communities will never have the opportunity to sit here and share this with you.

And so it is our responsibility to use every platform we have to advocate and push our leadership to make decisions that are in the best interest of people, of all people, not just some.

What I studied, but equal.

So, we're here at the City club.

City club likes doing roadshows.

Outside a Centro Villa.

Is there any businesses that you would suggest to do a forum similar to this that kind of demonstrates this evolution of our community?

Yeah.

I mean, anywhere possible, you don't need a building, you need anything.

I had an empty building and I took you guys all to it.

Right?

And your feet get dusty.

So, like, I think we need to, Yes.

We have amazing places, like coming downtown and coming to the City Club and many other historical assets that we have.

First of all, we belong there too.

We belong there.

And so I think we need to make sure that we are in spaces that maybe make us uncomfortable, maybe make others uncomfortable, that we're there.

But we need to reclaim those spaces.

We need to take up the whole space.

And then it's also okay to meet at Trent Park, or it's okay to meet community meet at the basement of a church.

You know, where a lot of organizations started.

It's okay to meet people where they're at.

And so I wouldn't let the walls of buildings, limit our ability to have these conversations, whether in large forums or smaller conversations.

We need to talk about it.

We need to be about it, and we need to empower and support each other to do it.

And we need to hold each other accountable.

Hi, Jenice.

Eileen Torres.

Lorain, Ohio I'm wondering what have you found to be the best methods of invite in and encouraging participation and discovering Centro Villa by the non-Latino community?

Yeah, I mean, I think Centro Villa in its seven months of being open, we literally did our grand opening on May 31st.

Right?

So we're still in in our pre startup phase of our business.

But the community has been very well welcoming.

Once you come into Centro Villa, it's so much more than what people expected.

So people are really taken back.

I've been there and I planned it and I picked the paint colors.

Right.

So like for me, it's hard to see, but when I see people come in and react to the space is when I start to realize like, oh, okay, we did something here, right?

Like we're onto something.

We have, we managed to have and I can't take credit for it.

An enormous diversity of the countries that are there.

My biggest fear was that we were going to end up with a bunch of Puerto Rican restaurants with and, and empanadas, and actually, I'm still waiting for my Puerto Rican restaurant because we have everything else but.

Right.

So, just that just real talk about what ended up happening in Centro Villa.

We have some things like Jorge from flying pigs has tacos.

And we have empanadas.

Right.

That I feel like everybody kind of relate is safe for people to have those things.

But we're getting folks coming in willing to try new things.

Like I see Maria Lee's back there, her got chop bars, which I love from Venezuela.

Right.

Or, So I think our community has been so good at being open to try something different.

And you don't have to jump on a plane, you just have to come on west 25th to really have this experience like you're somewhere else.

And I promise you, it doesn't matter what your background is, where you come, you are going to come in there and there's going to be something in there that's going to make your heart smile, right.

And it was always the intention.

It was always the intention to do that.

We are hoping to build, you know, hold hand.

I talk about this all the time.

A taste of Centro Villa, where people could come in and taste different things.

We hosted Huntington Bank, 200 of their associates for employee appreciation, and they got a passport, and they got to go to each kiosk and try something different.

Right.

Something that maybe they had never had, you know, those better days and just things that are just very, Latino, but people are so open to trying something different is just providing them.

And so I think that's the easy part for us.

Like, it's just getting them in the building.

Obviously we're startup, we're run by a nonprofit.

We're doing the best we can to amplify that, but really relying on friends like you to help us amplify Centro Villa.

Bring them over.

And by the way, I'm the food police.

So tell me what people eat.

My name is Hillary with the Cleveland Foundation.

And I would just like to know, during this whole process, what obstacle do you wish you could have removed?

Something tangible that maybe someone in this room could help make that change for the next person?

Going through community development and bringing business to Cleveland?

I think the hardest part was there isn't a playbook on how to do you want to do a project?

Okay, so what you basically have to prove yourself.

Right?

And then you have to bring friends that have their track record.

And we didn't necessarily have that social capital, like we didn't have like the individuals in our community that had done this.

We had Jose, we had Lorain.

We had a handful of people.

Right.

And so I think that took us longer.

It wasn't necessarily that it stopped the project, but it took us longer, versus having the folks that today I could pick up the phone and call and help.

I think sometimes we faced challenges because we had never done this before, that we didn't know how to navigate.

Right.

And so it cost us money and it cost us times.

We had a lawsuit we went through to architects, we went to two GC companies.

Right.

So like it took us a long time to get the right team to get this work done.

And in turn it cost time and money.

And honestly, at times it could have killed our project.

And there were definitely moments where it's like, is this really going to happen?

Right, that we had to sit down and talk about, well, or our realities?

And again, it was just that relentless lesson of let's not stop.

We had all the odds stacked against us yet, but, eventually people saw it and saw it as an opportunity.

And it was so important for me to sell this to Cleveland.

This is, yes, in the Latino community, but Cleveland is missing this.

You go to other cities and you have your ethnic hubs and you have, why not the Latino community?

We have lots of Latino businesses, right?

We continue to grow.

Right?

So there's just one point for that.

But people don't know that it's a secret or you got to know somebody.

We don't we want to amplify that.

We want to amplify and lift all of our communities.

And Centro is just a vehicle for that.

Forums like this one are made possible thanks to generous support from individuals like all of you, and including many of you.

You can learn more about how to become a guardian of free speech at City club.org.

Special thanks to our friends at Huntington with whom we present this Building Success series.

We would like to welcome students joining us from Jardin for life in the Roberto Clemente League.

Also, a special welcome to guests at tables hosted by the center for Community Solutions, Cleveland Foundation, Tracy Huntington and the Hispanic Center for Economic Development.

Also thanks to Zulema for all the vibes.

A lot of vibes.

Next Friday, we've got Anita Zaidi.

She's the president for gender equality at the Gates Foundation.

Please do consider joining us for that.

She works globally, or for for gates and also just announced on our website a whole series of events, related to Cleveland Book Fest and the Anna's Field Wolf Book Awards, September 19th and 20th.

It's going to be very exciting.

Lots of good stuff.

If you don't have plans tonight, I have two suggestions for you.

The obvious one is dinner at Centro Villa.

The other is that there's line dancing in the plaza right across the street, starting at 6:00.

So let's go.

That brings us to the end.

Thank you so much.

I'm Dan Moulthrop.Have a wonderful weekend.

This forum is now adjourned.

For information on upcoming speakers or for podcasts of the City Club, go to City club.org.