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 was originally estimated in January of 2007 to be $320,000. Funding was achieved through a matching grant structure. Eight donors 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 February 2007, the Dorrance Family Foundation donated $160,000 to meet the existing matching donations.
Construction & Funding Update
Building construction was delayed pending the resolution of title issues involved in the City of Agua Prieta’s original donation of the land. Please refer to: Rancho Feliz "Vecinos" Housing Program, “The Land” - included in this web-site. In July of 2008 the title (deed) to the land was officially transferred from the Ejido Agua Prieta to the Vecinos Dignos Sin Fronteras, Asociación Civil and ground breaking is now scheduled for September of 2008.
However, the cost of construction has increased approximately $106,000 since the original bid was tendered in January of 2007. This is due to two reasons: 1) the global increase in the cost of construction materials, and 2) the devaluation of the American dollar to the Mexican peso. To date Rancho Feliz has raised $64,000 of this shortfall and is currently soliciting donors for the $42,000 needed to complete the funding of the building.