Letter from the President

Letter from the President:
Welcome to the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Hispanic Resource Center (HRC) website.

We hope this new electronic bulletin board will keep our friends, new and old, informed about what we’re doing and where we’re going.

Many of you already know that we are a current version of the 19th century settlement houses of New York City. Our goal, like theirs, is to help new immigrants integrate into our community and become productive residents as soon as possible.

Paul Fried, our Mamaroneck superintendent of schools, is telling our community that we will probably become much more Hispanic in the years ahead and should begin constructive planning for it now. He said the Mamaroneck school system has already gotten the message and is putting in place actions and programs to deal with it. HRC is too.

We are conducting a number of educational programs in conjunction with the school system to help both students and their parents move ahead. In addition, HRC also sponsors English as a second language classes in our facilities in St. Thomas Church, work and safety workshops, and programs on health, common sense money handling, basic civics, housing, parenting, immigration law and other subjects useful to newcomers. In many instances we partner with university professors, bankers, business people, physicians and other professionals.

We also run a general social service agency at our offices. In the past year approximately 1,000 clients were helped. In some cases our own case workers solve the problems. In other instances we refer the matter to specific individuals in other agencies who specialize in the issue at hand.
A third service we offer is advocacy for day laborers. Our site coordinator spends time each morning with day laborers, making sure they are fairly treated by employers and alerting them to services available at our offices.

Professor of Law Vanessa Merton of Pace University School of Law and her senior students help HRC clients with their immigration law issues and have gotten to know a number of them. She said: “We are impressed with the immigrants we meet. On the whole they are so honorable, trusting and hard working. They mostly come from small towns where people know and don’t abuse each other. Now, they are in a new country with new rules and they learn that not everyone is out to help them.”
And that’s why HRC exists ---- to let the immigrants know that we are out to help them in a welcoming atmosphere where we will show them the ropes as other individuals and organizations helped our forebears when they came to these shores.

John Gitlitz, President, HRC