Vecinos Education & Recreation Center
The final component to the Vecinos neighborhood will be a 2-floored Education & Recreation Center. This facility will consist of the following:
First Floor
This area will be the Recreation portion of the building and will include the following: an office for the “Vecinos” Administrator, a kitchen, men and women’s bathrooms, and a large meeting hall that can be used for Quiceaneras, weddings, dances, yoga, aerobics, gymnastics, food distributions, community meetings, neighborhood movies, etc. This room will be set up with sliding walls so that there can be one large room or several smaller rooms depending on the current use demands. There will also be an outdoor patio next to the kitchen which will include a shade structure, a large grill for barbeques, a chiminea with built-in outside bench seating for conversing and fireside stories and outside meals when the weather permits.
Second Floor
This will be the Education area of the building and it will include an office for the Administrator of the Education & Recreation Center, men’s and women’s bathrooms, the computer learning center which will have its own bathroom and a separate entrance (per governmental requirements) and several smaller classrooms so that different adult and child educational classes can be conducted at the same time. An arts and crafts room is planned to accommodate the teaching and implementation of various cottage industries for the Vecinos residents and residents of the surrounding area. This floor will also be equipped with the technological infrastructure necessary to implement state-of-the-art, web-based learning programs.
Funding
The cost of this facility is estimated at $320,000. Funding was achieved through a matching grant structure. Eight donors have contributed $20,000 for a total of $160,000. These funds were held on account and could only be released upon the receipt of matching funds. In early 2007 the Dorrance Family Foundation donated $160,000 to meet the existing matching donations.
In addition, approximately $40,000 has been raised to date for the purchase of furniture, additional computers and learning systems, kitchen appliances, arts and crafts tools and other amenities necessary to open and operate the facility.
Construction
Building construction has been delayed pending the resolution of title issues involved in the City of Agua Prieta’s original donation of the land. Ground breaking is now scheduled to begin in September of 2008.
The donation structure to date looks like this:
1) $ 20,000 Gil Gillenwater
2) $ 20,000 Irene Carroll
3) $ 20,000 Jim & Jo-Ann Armstrong
4) $ 20,000 Mike & Linda Musulin
5) $ 20,000 Vince & Georgia Carter
6) $ 20,000 Peter & Joanne Schust
7) $ 20,000 Philip & LuAnn Williams – Mike Tie & Jeanette Chaney
8) $ 20,000 Roger & Becky Smith
$160,000 Matching Funds Donations
9) $160,000 Dorrance Family Foundation
$320,000 Total Funding