17 Oct 2015

Puente Farm Bike Day rides into the field

Gabriel Echeverria is rarely seen around Pescadero without his blue mountain bike with his guitar strapped to the back. The bicycle, a gift from Puente in September, is his means of commuting to the plant nursery where he works.
“It’s really a great way to get around the area. Going by foot is a huge disadvantage. I use my bike every time I go out. I go to the bank, to the post office, to the beach every now and again,” says Echeverria, a Puente board member, song leader, and friendly figure among farm workers.
Seventeen years in, Puente’s bike program is still one of its most iconic and essential services. Dozens of local farm workers rely on Puente’s donated bikes – and its free bike repair – to make their independence possible. “A bike makes a huge difference in someone’s life around here. It removes a barrier and gives people a level of freedom they didn’t have before,” explains Ben Ranz, Puente’s Community Outreach Coordinator and facilitator of the bike program.

Ben, center in orange shirt and black jacket, at Farm Bike Repair Day in 2013.

Ben, center in orange shirt, at Farm Bike Repair Day in 2013.

Puente gives out about 25 bikes a year, but demand exceeds supply – Ranz is always on the lookout for adult mountain bikes in good condition. Most farm workers ride a mile or more on a bumpy dirt road to get to the field they’re working in that day. They also ride from one side of a farm to another. Those are hard on their bikes.
Enter Farm Bike Day, a special outreach event on the coast that brings the mechanics to the people. On October 18, several bike mechanics and gearheads visited a Pescadero ranch called Campinotti, home to many farm workers and families, and spent the day fixing their bikes for free.
 
Farm Bike Day is now in its third year. It was the brainchild of a woman named Every, who stewards the ever-popular Bike Booth at Puente’s farmers’ market. She repairs perhaps two or three bikes per market day. But not everyone can make it to the Market. Those who show up are usually people who can get off work early enough to wait while she works on their bikes, and young people, and those who have a big enough car to tow their bikes to the market.

Every helps a young rider with her helmet.

Every helps a young rider with her helmet.

In other words, not a lot of farm workers.
“When she came on the scene, she realized how challenging it was to get people’s bikes to the market, and she said, ‘I want to take this into the field,’” recalls Ranz.
Lior Shaked, a fellow bike mechanic who used to share time at the Bike Booth before he moved away, helped recruit the first group of local Farm Bike Day volunteers through an online Meetup group.
But Puente owes much of its bicycle repair program to Kyle McKinley of The Bike Church in Santa Cruz. He came up with the idea for the Bike Booth and The Bike Church now provides Puente with many bike repair parts and equipment at cost.

Kyle, center, works on bikes at the Farmers Market.

Kyle, center, works on bikes at the Farmers Market.

Additionally, Puente’s volunteer-based bike program relies on generous contributions from a few Puente donors who are passionate about bikes and the way they empower local men, women and children.
La Honda resident Liz Chapman has been supporting the bike program since Puente founder Rev. Wendy Taylor founded it in the late 1990s. After Rev. Taylor left, Chapman helped Puente provide continuity by finding some farm workers who knew how to repair bikes – which they did for a time, until Shaked and Every became Puente’s permanent bike mechanics.
Chapman’s financial contributions, and those of other bike supporters, help Puente pay for extra bike repairs as needed.
“It’s become clear to me this is so enabling for these guys who don’t have a car,” says Chapman, who in an avid bike rider herself. Even people who have cars may do better getting around Pescadero by bike rather than driving, she believes.

Liz, right in pink hat, at the first Farm Bike Repair Day.

Liz, right in pink hat, at the first Farm Bike Repair Day.

Echeverria’s current bike is actually the second one he received from Puente. The first came from Rev. Taylor back in 2000. Echeverria met Rev. Taylor back when she was giving out bicycle lights to keep farm workers safe at night.
“That’s where she got the idea to give away bikes,” he recalls. “She was walking around giving out the lights for people’s bikes, and people would say, ‘Well, I don’t even have a bike.’ So that’s where it all started.”
Eventually Rev. Taylor surprised him with a mountain bike to replace the creaky road bike he had worn to bits.

Rev. Taylor and Gabriel

Rev. Taylor and Gabriel

“In those early days, there were very few people who donated bikes. To this day, Puente is more complete,” says Echeverria.
Farm Bike Day was the first of a series of Puente field outreach programs that, taken together, mark a shift in focus toward connecting services with residents who may find it difficult or intimidating to come into Puente. One recent example is Puente’s new program to send community health workers out to rural ranches. The health workers, known as Promotoras de Salud, are being trained to help connect people to health insurance and plug them into the medical clinic and mental health programs housed within Puente.
“I feel like putting the effort into bringing services into the field is the logical next step for Puente,” says Ranz. “This helps us cast our net as wide as we possibly can.”
 
You too can support Puente’s bike program:
 
• Puente seeks donations of adult mountain bikes in good working condition only. No street bikes or bikes with rusty or broken parts. (NO CHILDREN’S BIKES, please. Donate those to South Coast Children’s Services.)
 
• Make a financial donation to Puente’s bike program here. Thank you!

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11 Oct 2015

For every child on the South Coast: training childcare providers

The South Coast is a children’s paradise, with beaches and marshes to explore, farm animals to visit, and fields to run through. Unfortunately, many infants and toddlers under the age of 3 have no idea about the beauty and outdoor fun that lies so close at hand. They may spend their days inside dim, claustrophobic farm worker housing.

Although providing early learning opportunities has been a priority for the South Coast for nearly two decades, efforts have been revitalized thanks to partnerships between Puente, the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District, the Heising-Simons Foundation, and the Big Lift — a collective impact collaborative led by the three agencies – SVCF, the San Mateo County Office of Education, and the County of San Mateo County.

Three years ago, the La Honda-Pescadero Unified School District initiated a series of meetings to discuss how to address these problems, which go deeper than a lack of exposure to books or toys. Over several sessions with Puente staff and local leaders, a clear priority emerged: to fully engage caregivers and parents in children’s inner lives and brain development. Luckily, Pescadero’s caregivers are passionate, caring and enthusiastic about giving their young charges the best chance for success.

But many have no professional training in early childhood development or basic skills in how to interact with the children. So Puente stepped in to provide those trainings. With major support from the Heising-Simons Foundation and in partnership with the school district, Puente launched its Family Engagement Initiative in 2014 with a number of targeted programs to benefit home childcare providers, parents, and the children themselves. These programs make up a comprehensive plan drew on the momentum from the Early Childhood Learning Initiative.

This partnership and plan were critical to a successful effort resulting in the school district being awarded The Big Lift funding to support longer days and a longer year for the district’s preschool program. Last year, an expert with the San Mateo County Department of Education gave a 12-session workshop on early childhood development to 26 home care providers using curriculum from PITC, the Program for Infant-Toddler Care. Puente will offer another round of classes in the coming months, classes that are made possible because of funding by  First 5 San Mateo County. Puente Family Engagement Project Manager Arlae Alston provides monthly check-ins for caregivers to ask questions and observe how she handles difficult situations, like a child with a temper tantrum.

Because the South Coast lacks a daycare center for children before they enter preschool, local women do the bulk of childcare for families who work full-time. Some of these local venues are not ideal for childcare: cramped houses, trailers and farm barracks with barely any room to crawl or play. Sometimes it’s not safe to play outside, so children remain indoors.

The years before preschool begins are a crucial period in a child’s early development: the time for self-expression, play, and contact with books and toys. But books and toys are not always at hand for all childcare providers, especially the kind that directly promote growth and curiosity. Recently Puente stepped in to provide a toy lending library and a book bag program for the area’s youngest children, along with home visits from a Puente specialist – weekly interactions to stimulate children’s play and interest, as well as guidance for childcare providers.

“Children should be raised in an environment of beauty and color. We want them to be able to dream and be surrounded by hope. You need to have those early memories be pleasant, meaningful memories. And you need to be able to express yourself as loudly as you wish, instead of having to be quiet because some men who worked late are sleeping in the room next door,” says Alston. Alston joined Puente full-time this summer, following an earlier stint as an early childhood development specialist, to help the community address the complex sources of the ‘readiness gap’ that begins as early as preschool.

When children arrive in preschool, they’re eager, energetic and ready to learn. But sometimes, the early deficits associated with lacking a proper environment for literacy and learning can set kids up for academic problems later on in areas like language and math. And those problems may become compounded over the course of a student’s academic career.

She has started visiting two local ranches with books in tow so she can read to the children, a program she dubs “story time on wheels.” “I’ve done it regularly enough that the children are waiting for me at the door. They are just hungry for knowledge, for information. We play with toys, we sing songs,” she says. Every at-home childcare provider now has a box of toys to keep. Puente and the school district have also turned their attention to local parents (including in-home caregivers) with Raising a Reader, a literacy program that teaches parents how to explore books with their children even if they themselves do not know how to read.

Raising a Reader sends children from preschool through second grade home with a colorful book bag that is filled with new books each week – picture books, reading books, numeracy books. Although LHPUSD has offered Raising a Reader in preschool for many years, the Initiative supported a more robust Raising a Reader with additional family nights.

This year, the district designated additional funding to expand the Raising a Reader Plus Family Nights to second graders and their families. Another key strategy is Abriendo Puertas (Opening Doors), a ten-part workshop that teaches parents how to support their children’s growth and education and empowers them to get involved in the local school district.

Local mother and at-home childcare worker Silvia Acosta has participated in every early child development workshop and program Puente offers, including the PITC sessions. She attends Raising a Reader with her 4-year-old daughter and graduated with the first Abriendo Puertas cohort last year. She helps Puente organize and distribute its book bags.

“I want to be a better mom. I want to do good for my children. And it’s important to continue to learn new things,” says Acosta, who asked that her name be changed because she is undocumented. Today, Acosta earns $50 a week caring for a neighbor’s 4-year-old in addition to her own. The parents drop off the child at 6:30 a.m. as they head to work and pick her up at 5:30 p.m.

She would love to take the children for a walk – just outside are fragrant rows of flowers, zucchini and pumpkins. But sometimes she can’t, because she doesn’t feel it is a safe environment. So they mostly stay inside, which can be difficult and confining.

Acosta dreams of becoming a teacher’s assistant or a professional, accredited childcare provider. She has already learned so much from her trainings with Puente: when to use a ‘time out’ to discipline a child and how long it ought to last. The reasoning behind letting a child climb a tree, since it helps them test their own strength. “I’m giving more of my time to the children now. Before, I didn’t read to them that much. I didn’t pay as much attention to them. Now I’m spending time playing with the children and talking to them,” she says.

Puente ultimately hopes to raise money to build a comprehensive licensed childcare center in Pescadero. A full-time daycare “would really help us,” affirms Acosta. “A lot of people leave to go to work at 6 a.m., so we need something that would take care of children all day.” Alston hopes women like Acosta can continue to empower themselves by finding work at a future childcare center while they further their own education.

It’s not just about babysitting. Puente and the school district want children to benefit from a formalized early education, staffed by professionals who are trained to notice learning deficits and speech delays.

“I want a safe place for children. Kids need spaces that encourage them to be creative, with people who know how to help them play and to learn a set curriculum,” says Rita Mancera, Deputy Executive Director of Puente. The more children learn by the time they enter preschool, the more we can expect from them. And that starts with a level playing field. Right now, the playing field is tilted away from families who can’t afford more than $15 a day for childcare.

“I’m always hearing about the ‘achievement gap’ and when I do, it’s like putting the blame on children and families. That’s not how I see it,” says Alston. “They’re not broken; they have not been given the same resources as others. But if we have a children’s center for them, they would have the same as everyone else.”

Please contact Rita Mancera at rmancera@mypuente.org or (650) 879-1691 Ext 102 to learn how you can help build a childcare center in Pescadero.

06 Oct 2015

Rita Mancera

Rita Mancera Hernandez was born in Mexico City and grew up in the Mexican state of Baja California Sur. She comes from a small family that values education, hard work and family time. Her experience with non-profit organizations goes back all the way to her teen years.

Rita’s previous work with the YMCA of Mexico and the Latin American and Caribbean Alliance of YMCAs gave her a foundation for understanding the many challenges and strengths of North, Central and South America, an introduction to poverty, inequality and immigration, and a taste for the results of collaboration among agencies.

However, it has been her ten years of living in Pescadero and her relationships with local immigrant friends and neighbors (as well as with community leaders and mentors) that opened her eyes to a different implication of immigration. She has seen poverty right next door to wealth, injustice in labor practices and the challenges and opportunities of living in an isolated rural community such as the South Coast.

Rita Mancera at the 2015 Fall Harvest Celebration

Rita Mancera at the 2015 Fall Harvest Celebration

Rita joined Puente in 2006 with responsibilities for home visiting families with children ages 0-5 to talk with parents about early childhood development. Later she became Puente’s Community Builder with the primary goal to create programs that would introduce the Latino and the Anglo community to each other. For four years she served as Puente’s Program Director overseeing a diversity of programs from immigration to physical activity to education and youth leadership. She is currently Puente’s Deputy Executive Director where she is responsible for integrating all aspects of Puente’s programs and activities, including grant writing, fundraising and budgeting.

Rita’s goals for the community are to continue closing the gap in education for children, youth and adults, increasing services so youth can succeed academically and personally in the 21th century, expanding the development of local leadership and supporting local individuals and families to move out and stay out of poverty.

Rita lives in Pescadero with her husband Jim and son William.