MEETING NEEDS

The Wesley Community Center brings its services to the south side

IBy Jonathan Baker f you live on Amarillo’s south side, you may not have heard of citizens. “We serve people from all walks of life,” says Director Liz the Wesley Community Center – but odds are you’ve seen the Rascón-Alaniz, “from as early as 6 weeks old, all the way to senior effects of the center’s work. That’s because a city, like an organism, citizens who are 99 years of age.” is only truly healthy when the entire entity is being cared for. For the The Center was founded in 1951 by Maria Fields, a native of past several decades, the Wesley has performed nearly every service Argentina who’d moved to Amarillo’s Barrio and soon felt a need to you can dream up for folks in Amarillo’s Barrio Neighborhood – and start programs and projects in the neighborhood. Fields teamed up residents of the Barrio will tell you, with a great deal of pride, that with Polk Street United Methodist Church and a few local United this is their community center. The Wesley keeps kids off the streets Methodist women, and together they raised the money to build and teaches them new skills, serves the east side’s elderly population the original Wesley Community Center, which was located just a in myriad ways, and helps new Americans learn the language and couple of blocks down the street from the Wesley’s current location assimilate into society. And, like a beating heart, the Wesley spreads at 1615 S. Roberts St. In those early days, Mrs. Fields and her staff kindness into the neighboring regions, keeping our city healthy in of volunteers began providing sewing classes, arts and crafts and ways large and small. athletic activities for youth, English as a Second Language classes,

This year, the Amarillo Wesley Community Center will celebrate its and daycare services to Amarillo’s underserved Hispanic community. 70th year of existence. And now, through a bit of good luck (the kind That original Wesley Center continued to grow for 30 years, until that falls into the laps of people who’ve been acting with grace and the current location was built under the leadership of Reverend integrity for decades), the Wesley has plans to open a new location Jacinto Alderete, who served as leader of the center for 32 years. in south Amarillo. The Wesley has shown us, beyond our wildest Alderete was followed as executive director by Belinda Gonzalez dreams, how vital a community center can be, and the rest of our Taylor, who served for 15 years, until Liz Rascón-Alaniz took the city has much to learn from this stalwart organization. Here’s to reins 10 years ago. 70 more years! A Crash Course in Service Get with the Program “One of the special things about the Wesley is, we identify the need

Over the past seven decades, the Wesley Community Center has in our community and then we build programs and projects around served everyone from children and youth to families and senior that need,” Rascón-Alaniz explains.

The Wesley’s childcare facility provides a good example. “Childcare is really important to low-income families, so we offer a subsidy program that helps families in need to be able to attend a program like ours.” Another great example is the Wesley’s afterschool program. “We always say it’s safer for [kids] to be in a safe and structured environment, in a facility like the Wesley, because we’ve noticed that students who aren’t in a structured environment start partaking in risky behavior.” In addition, the Wesley offers a summer camp program run on a similar framework as the afterschool program. “It’s just a way to have these kids in a safe and structured environment.”

But the Wesley isn’t all about children – not by a long shot. “A lot of seniors suffer from social isolation, depression, anxiety,” says Rascón-Alaniz. “So senior citizens can come to our facility and receive services. Most recently, we built a program that feeds our senior citizens at no cost – so they eat here for free, and that program itself is free for all senior citizens, like all of our programming. They don’t have to pay any membership fees or registration fees.”

For the general public (as well as children and seniors), the Wesley also offers mental health counseling and play therapy services. Furthermore, the Center provides immigration services, as well as language lessons.

And then there’s the youth modeling and mentoring program, “Behind the Scenes,” which addresses abstinence and financial responsibility, self-esteem, self-confidence, by having kids perform in a modeling show. And finally, there’s the celebrated Wesley Club wrestling program, which is ranked second in the state of Texas. “One of the main goals of our wrestling program,” says Rascón-Alaniz, “is to teach kids about good grades and good nutrition. Also, because we’re part of the Methodist church and Methodist institution, we instill a concept we call “two knees for thankfulness,” just making sure that all of our students learn how to live a life of gratitude.

“When people walk in,” Rascón-Alaniz adds, “it’s a very familyfriendly atmosphere. We’re very multicultural and multigenerational, and we are the heart of the Barrio. There’s everybody here, all walks of life come through our facility, people who need our help, and we don’t hesitate – even if it may be something we’re not too familiar with. We’ll either buy their resources for them, or we try to help them ourselves, but yes, we are the very heart of the Barrio. And we’ve been here for so long that people know us from all over. We’re nationally recognized, we [do all the things] that a community center should do. And we’ve been really proud of that over the last 70 years.”

So many programs, it’s enough to make your head spin – and all of this from a small, dedicated staff in a facility on Amarillo’s east side. With so much success and goodwill happening on the east side, it makes sense that the Wesley would look to expand to other parts of the city. led to an agreement.”

The south Amarillo Wesley will perform many of the same functions as the legendary east Amarillo location. “We have the background with serving senior citizens, we have the background with serving children and youth and things like that, and so it’s such a special gift to us.” Heading South

Not long ago, Liz Rascón-Alaniz was approached by Reverend Felicia Hopkins, the district superintendent for the United Methodist Churches. “She came to me and said, ‘You know, Liz, we’re thinking about giving you a church.’ The church in question, a south Amarillo Methodist house of worship, is located on South Austin Street. At first, Rascón-Alaniz was confused. “When somebody tells you they want to hand you over a church, you’re kind of shocked.”

Hopkins asked Rascón-Alaniz to think hard about the offer and let her know about her decision within a couple of weeks. “One of the things is, we have outgrown this [east Amarillo] center,” says Rascón -Alaniz. “We’re running at full capacity here at the main campus. We’d been praying for growth. So, when this came about, we were like, great, yes, let’s do it. We talked to our board of directors, which It Takes a Village

Despite the myriad signs of bright days ahead, the new Wesley Center will still need help getting up and running. For the time being, while it raises the necessary funding, the Wesley has loaned its new building to the Amarillo Senior Citizen Association until June. As of last month, the Wesley had raised $60,000 of the needed $380,000 – much of which will go toward remodeling the new facility’s commercial kitchen. “We also need backup lighting and a fire suppression system,” adds Rascón-Alaniz.

“The reason we have to do some of these upgrades is because we’ll be a licensed facility for daycare and for afterschool [care],” explains Jerry Branch, the Wesley’s associate director. “That’s where the commercial kitchen comes in.” The new Wesley will also feature a seniors’ program, just like on the east side, and staff will even perform pickups in the local area. We’ll do some pick up for after school, as well,” say Branch. “It’ll basically be a map outline like we do here [on the east side], and we’ll have seven, eight, nine schools that we can get to safely and under licensing. So we’ll have some area over there that we’ll cover quite significantly. And then eventually we’d love to start our team mentoring program over there. We would love to do counseling, too, because it’s got a beautiful office space.”

How You Can Help

For 70 years, the staff at the Wesley has provided vital community services to Amarillo’s east side. Now they want to bring their work to the south side – but they can’t do it alone. Amarilloans who want to help the effort can visit wesleyamarillo.org and donate online, or call (806)372-7960. Those who want to mail a donation can address it to the Wesley Community Center, 1615 S. Roberts Street, Amarillo, Texas, 79102.