Create a Commuter Workshop with Hacienda and Easter Seals
On Friday, November 18th, we delivered our first ever Create a Commuter workshop exclusively in Spanish to a group of Spanish-speaking residents from Hacienda and clients from Easter Seals Latino Connection Program. This was our first Create a Commuter workshop with both agencies and was an exciting opportunity to merge two organizations that provide housing and career support services to the Latino community.
The workshop, held at Hacienda’s Salon Comunal in NE Portland, was co-facilitated by our outstanding Youth Program Instructor Omar Casillas and Program Director Laura Koch and went off without a hitch! In the past we have interpreted our workshops into different languages, but this was the first time we ran the entire workshop in Spanish.
Even though we were all speaking Spanish, there was an incredible diversity of folks in the room. In just one corner of the room there were participants from Puerto Rico, Texas, Cuba and Mexico. “The fact that we were delivering the workshop in people’s native language really made people feel comfortable and able to contribute,” Laura shared. Many of the participants had not been on a bicycle in many years but had lots of great questions about the rules of the road that we were able to answer.
We had a lovely group ride through NE where we were able to show the group bike lanes, Neighborhood Greenways, and the new Cully cycle track. The group was very confident on the road and shared comments and laughter throughout the ride.
At the close of the workshop, Adriana Martinez, the Case Manager from Easter Seals, gave a huge thank you to our staff and volunteers for our efforts to deliver the workshop in Spanish. Adriana hoped to coordinate rides with the Easter Seals group and was excited to see how folks would use their bicycles to connect to their training programs, jobs and activities around town.
After the workshop, two men from the group huddled over a map with huge smiles on their faces preparing for the ride back to Gresham together on their new bicycles!
To view more photos from this workshop, please click here.