“Volunteer.”
This was the main message from Saginaw’s Mexican American Council when a group of 50 leaders and supporters gathered on Jan. 26, inspired by an historic budget boost.
They focused on giving time and effort to make the most of a. $500,000 federal ARPA grant that the City Council approved two weeks earlier, marking the largest sum in MAC’s 31-year history.
Alberto Jimenez, in his new role as Mexican American Council vice-president, told the audience he will continue to oversee after-school and summer classes in arts and crafts at the MAC Center, based at 1537 South Washington across from Hoyt Park.
He was volunteering long before the arrival of ARPA, the American Rescue Plan Act. This was approved by Congress during the first months under President Biden to help local governments across the United States cope with COVID-caused economic and social hardship.
Jimenez is an accomplished artist in his own right, even though his resume does not show a diploma
“Kids see me and say, ‘That’s my art teacher,’ ” Alberto noted to the group.
He added, with a self-modest pause, “and I don’t even have an art degree.”
His point is that anyone has something to offer, some type of skill or experience to contribute to the cause, These are time dollars, in effect.
John Ayala compiled the ARPA grant proposal based on basic goals. He included other leaders who already were active, including Jimenez for his arts and crafts youth group, Gilberto Guevara for immigration and MAC’s founding president, Bobby DeLeon, for overall operations.
Ayala is retired from General Motors, where he began in a 1960s high school co-op that helped pave the way to his career in GM finance administration. This type of program nowadays is called in terms such as “mentoring” or “career prep” or “voc ed,” or even “anti-drug.” Expansion in this mode is a.major goal not only for MAC, but for any worthy group. For example, GM is long gone but the Mexican American Council has started to build links with Hemlock Semiconductor, and with STARS for transit to jobs
John donated his expertise not only to place the ARPA budget amounts in sync, but to begin expanding youth groups into cultural music and even into food prep. These classes will aim to draw children and older students into general related school work, starting with basics such as reading and writing and math, reaching into STEM science and technology.
The wide range will promote a list of learning for the young people. This means volunteers are needed now more than ever, but someone who gives their time and effort also will have more choices on what type of service work they could select.
“Education infrastructure” was Ayala’s selling point in the MAC plan, in which he requested $250,000 from ARPA, a modest share of the $52 million from Saginaw’s largest one-time boost of federal anti-poverty funds, even higher than during the 1960s. MAC leaders also addressed the City Council in person as a group back near Labor Day, and they became part of the give-and-take that led to the approval vote on Jan 13.
These two steps combined for a double achievement. The Mexican American Council not only will gain the entire $250,000 for programs, but up to an added $250,000 for historic restoration of the former Catholic bishop’s residence, with a rear yard across Lake Linton from Ojibway Island.
This can be seen as a tribute to the final resident, Father Joseph Schabel, who during the not-so-distant hardest times would scramble simply to pay the center’s heat bills, serving as “a doorway for people in need.” He was 89 when he passed away on Christmas Day 2019.
Minerva Rosales first took time to thank Arturo for supporting her service work and volunteerism during their 65 years of marriage. She quickly noted that as a children’s advocate, she had worked as a nurse during the 1960s and then had joined her husband as foster parents.
This was before her 1990s landmark tenure with the Saginaw Board of Education, on which she often was a lonely advocate for equality.
Her history lesson at the Jan. 26 MAC assembly was that during the heart of the 1980s, the bishop’s home had served as a senior citizens center after Bishop Kenneth Untener departed to reside month-by-month in the various parish rectories. Senior lunches and activities were funded by the Commission on Aging with a special grant for the purpose of ethnic access and justice.
Among more than a dozen sites across the county at the time, this mini-grant was not deemed fit for the regular budget, because the daily patron count often was lower than at other locations. As a result, the grant and the senior center both dissolved in 1992.
Mrs. Rosales expressed hopes that some sort of senior citizen program may be restored with the ARPA monies, especially during hours when MAC-tutored students are in school with increased attendance, one of her top school board goals.
She did not mention on Jan. 26 that before ARPA arrived, she was advocating a gazebo on MAC Center grounds in Father Schabel’s name. The $250,000 for restoration may open the door for so-called “capital” projects, which often are pet projects for private donors large and small.
At the same time, there is a reason that decision-makers often prefer bricks-and-mortar over operations. Statistics show their lasting success rate is higher. This is why MAC’s plan provides specific goals on both sides, so that a renovated MAC Center will maintain services and programs.
Danny Soza’s father, Daniel Guzman Soza Jr., passed away in 2014 with a full list of accomplishments. Part of his legacy during his third term on the City Council was to achieve needed votes from his elected peers, black and white, to transfer building ownership in 1992 to a new organization on the scene, which called itself the Mexican American Council.
At the Jan. 26 session, Daniel III co-chaired on the downtown Delta College ground floor with DeLeon, who spoke of never-ending phone calls to counsel a teen girl at risk of hanging herself, or that an elder in an emergency did not make the City Hall list for furnaces (also from ARPA). And these were not old stories. The suicide scenario had occurred earlier the same day,
Soza followed Deleon on the small stage and spoke with the independence of his family forefathers, going back to his grandfather organizing ball games at Hoyt Park back in the day.
“You can’t rely on the schools to do that,” he declared, referring to improvements that Jiminez and Ayala have started to organize.
Soza later announced that Christmas with Angels raised a record $31,000 during the holidays, pushing beyond 1,000 the number of families reached through the years and achieving top charity status across Saginaw County.
Some speakers took note that a basic element must be addressed. Among people of Latino and Mexican persuasion, a too-high share remain discouraged and sometimes intimidated by the daily journey into unfamiliar culture, especially when it comes to all the agencies, public and private.
A Michigan Works senior program manager at the downtown branch office, Olga Pilar, brought the point home that today’s state offices should be viewed as a place to advance, not as a confusing spot for endless paperwork.
“It seems we are the best-kept secret in Saginaw,” she told the audience, with expert help offered to fill out job aps, to prepare resumes and to search for employers.
Pilar added, “We have a lot to offer, and we’re not seeing (enough of) the people coming in.”
DeLeon asked City Councilman Michael Flores to serve as timekeeper, limiting all speakers to three minutes, or the same 180 seconds as for City Hall on those televised Monday nights. The inside joke, known only to those who are regular viewers on cable or social media, is that Flores a year ago lost an 8-1 Council vote for an increase to five minutes.
Since then he has won, by his own count, more than 100 individual spur-of-the-moment calls to extend speakers’ times for up to a minute beyond the three. Whenever a speaker runs over, everyone in the Council Chambers knows Flores will call a vote to grant more wrap-up time.
Other members for some reason will not give him the satisfaction of a vote to restore five minutes, but they also will not shut down a speaker to their face at the podium in cases that exceed the more strict holy trinity of minutes. This scenario became endless during the entire calendar 2022 and continued in January.
At the Jan. 26 MAC meet, timekeeper Flores raised his phone about a half-dozen times to inform speakers that their three minutes were up. It did not occur to anyone in the audience to call for a vote to extend time.
On the serious side, through most of last year, Flores was as isolated on the City Council as was Minnie Rosales three decades ago on the Board of Education. He currently no longer is such a lone wolf because some of the other members have started to become not always unanimous.
He did not speak of any personal credit in achieving the $500,000 grant. Instead he stressed that MAC advocates should view the funds as simply the start toward the goal of gaining long-term inclusion and equity.
“There is $1.84 million remaining” in unspent ARPA funds on the bargaining table, he pointed out.
His message can be summed up: This should only be a beginning.
The MAC planning session ran for about two hours, and this report contains only a sampling of statements. For the full picture, visit the Facebook pages for LLEAD, Latino Leaders for the Enhancement of Advocacy and Development, and/or the Mexican American Council. A YouTube video of the City Council meeting of Sept. 12, 2022, includes the MAC presentation that raised awareness for the ARPA funds.
