Wabash College hopes to have a new Latino Community Center open at the northeast corner of Wabash and Grant avenues by the fall of 2025.
The center has been a long time coming, especially with the growing Latino student population at Wabash College.
The LCC has been made possible by a $25 million Lilly Endowment grant along with funding from the college.
Demolition in preparation of the new center began last week.
The center will give La Alianza, the student group that represents Hispanic and Latino culture, a permanent home. It also will allow the group to forge new and improved relationships with the Crawfordsville community.
Dr. Julio Enriquez-Ornelas and Chris Keller are the director and assistant director of the LCC, they were both appointed this year. Keller has been a soccer coach at Wabash for 11 years, but he has also been helping the Latino community, recruiting more students to attend Wabash and assisting with admission processes.
“We had 16% of the incoming class last year was Hispanic, which is the largest ever,” Keller said.
Enriquez-Ornelas started his second year as a professor at Wabash when he was chosen for the role of director. He came to Wabash with an extensive background working with Latino organizations and activities at Millikin University. He is also an alumni of Wabash, he graduated in 2008.
The LCC hopes to help in the community by collaborating with existing organizations, rather than creating duplicate programs. They currently work with the Crawfordsville Adult Resource Academy to help with language services for the Spanish-speaking community. LCC hosts table talk sessions for people to practice their English language skills.
Keller and Enriquez-Ornelas said language literacy is the main focus the center wants to start with as it integrates into the community. There are many different aspects of language literacy LCC wants to address down the line, including financial literacy and tutoring.
The goal of the physical building is to also create a home away from home for students and people in the community who miss their Latino/Hispanic culture and language.
Enriquez-Ornelas wants people to know that the center is not only for La Alianza, but for all of the community.
Keller believes this center is important because it will help create a space of representation and visibility for the Latino community in Crawfordsville and at Wabash.
“I think that’s what the center is going to bring, more visibility, more inclusivity to the Latino community through our guys [students],” Keller said.
While the center will be there to help the community, the directors also hope to engage and integrate into the community as well by hosting events full of Hispanic/Latino music, food and culture.
