The Mission of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, Inc. is to advocate and provide a forum for educational, leadership and economic development programs and enable access to benefits from available resources to the Puerto Rican and other Spanish speaking communities and promote cultural awareness.
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The Puerto Rican Cultural Center has over 33 years of dedicated services to the Puerto Rican community and other Latino residents in Western Massachusetts and is proud to announce is beginning a new era. This new era will be lead by the promise of an intense focus on education, accountability and civic responsibility.
Currently PRCC has completed the development of a new structure. During the development process we considered the new challenges that arrived with an economic crisis, the assessment of effectiveness of past practices and the promise of future opportunities for the fastest growing population in this country. We understood we needed to adjust to harder economic times. A closer look at our policies, procedures and practices allowed us to realize that this was an opportunity to re assess our mission and our standing in the community and become more efficient and effective. In addition we evaluated the status of the Latino community in terms of issues affecting our progress, our leadership and our contribution to the greater community. We assessed all issues we have been addressing for as long as our organization has been in existence; physical health, economic health, education, civic engagement and all specific issues branching from these core concerns.
In essence we concluded the lack of access and meaningful connection in addition to the need of a comprehensive approach is the biggest issue facing our community members. The provision of isolated services assist in increasing some skills however, will not provide the path to success that our community members will need to increase the chances of significant progress.
Now we dedicate our energy and commitment to implement our new structure and closely monitor and measure our progress and to create new partnerships in addition to nurturing longtime relationships. We understand collaboration is the key to ensure the Latino community and our greater community is successful in addressing and improving the health and economic growth of our region.
It is important to us to thank and recognize the collaboration of all the organizations that continue to support our mission and the progress of our community members primarily the success of our youth, our new website will serve as a vehicle to ensure we demonstrate our appreciation for that valuable support and provide our community with a resource to keep track of resources and progress.
I am honored and very proud to serve as the Executive Director of The Puerto Rican Cultural Center and encourage you to join us in this exciting journey.
Ivette Cruz