CENTRO ROMERO
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Mission Statement
Centro Romero is a community-based not-for-profit organization that serves the communities of Edgewater, Rogers Park, and Uptown on the northeast side of Chicago. From volunteer efforts of Salvadoran immigrants arriving in the city in the early 1980s, Centro Romero was founded in 1984 to meet the needs of the rapidly increasing Latino immigrant and refugee populations. The mission of Centro Romero is to empower those with the fewest options in the immigrant and refugee community by developing and strengthening the family unit, fostering community leadership and providing quality social and adjustment services. In 2019, our staff of 38, with the help of 328 volunteers who provided 14,592 service hours, empowered 14,342 persons in three programs: family services, adult education, and immigration legal services.
About This Cause
Centro Romero has developed a solid reputation in the community over the past 35 years due to the dedication, perseverance, and organizational skills of current and past Board members, staff, and volunteers. Centro Romero is a distinguished organization for five reasons: 1. The co-founder of the organization in 1984 and its current executive director 2. A Board of Directors that reflects the community that it serves 3. A dedicated staff 4. A very large number of volunteers, and 5. A diverse funding base. Daysi J. Funes, Executive Director and co-founder of Centro Romero, is the chief staff administrator. She is herself a refugee from El Salvador fleeing the civil disturbances and violence there in the early 1980s. Over the past 35 years, Ms. Funes has worked at Centro Romero in the capacity of board member, program director, community organizer, and administrator. She was the agency’s first English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher. As Executive Director, Ms. Funes works with program coordinators and develops programs that realize the agency’s mission. Centro Romero is an organization that is efficient and well managed. Its Board of Directors numbers 14 (ten of whom are Latino/a) and is a mix of Latino/a and other professionals and community residents, and they demonstrate an abiding interest in the Latino community. Their professions include banking, health administration, health services, legal services, insurance, consular affairs, and academia. The Board meets regularly, approves an annual plan, and works closely with the agency’s executive director. Its full-time staff of 21 includes 12 Latinos. A majority of the staff are Latino refugees and immigrants from throughout Latin America: El Salvador, Mexico, Colombia, and Ecuador. Because of the agency’s emphasis on leadership development, most of them were volunteers prior to employment. There are also 17 part-time staff, most of whom are ESL teachers, and several are Latino/a and come from Latin America. The agency attracts and utilizes a large number of volunteers that assist agency clients. Many are college students from Loyola, DePaul, and Northwestern that are fulfilling community-based service learning credits. Others are high school students and community residents who want to give their time and talents to serve the agency’s clientele. Last year (2019) 328 volunteers contributed over 14,000 hours of service, and at $10/hour, this amounts to over $140,000 in pro bono service. Centro Romero has an additional distinguishing feature: the agency continues to demonstrate a diversity of funding. Its 2018 audit shows public sources comprise 32% of revenues: grants from foundations and corporations and contributions from the general public, and 68% of its revenues comes from the public sector of City and State agencies. In 2018 the agency received 19 grants from 15 foundations and corporations that amounted to $262,119.