April 20, 2013
By Harold Brubaker

A tiny church that has served Spanish-speaking Philadelphians for a century will be closed in June, leaving behind a history that stretches from Spain to Spring Garden Street and is marked by the benevolence of a future saint with a keen sense of inflation.

Katharine Drexel, the daughter of a Philadelphia investment banker who was canonized as a Catholic saint in 2000, contributed $1,080 toward the $12,250 purchase in 1912 of a Spring Garden property that became a cherished chapel, called La Milagrosa, where generations of Hispanics have worshiped.

Drexel, a careful steward of her family fortune, stipulated that her order of nuns should get a proportionate amount back if the chapel at 1903 Spring Garden St., purchased by Vincentian priests from Barcelona, were ever sold.

That day has come.

Vincentians in Barcelona decided last year to sell the chapel to help pay retirement costs for their priests in Spain – a move that could bring a tidy windfall of $75,000 to the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, which Drexel founded in 1891.

“We are very appreciative to the Vincentians for informing us, keeping us in the loop, and honoring this in the way they have done,” Sister Sandra Schmidt, congregational treasurer and councillor for the Bensalem-based order, said this week.

Priests from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia have been saying Mass at La Milagrosa, which means “The Miraculous” in Spanish, since 1978, when the Vincentians departed.

The final Mass is scheduled for June 23, and on June 30 a procession will lead from the chapel to the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, where a weekly Spanish-language Mass will be added, the archdiocese said.

Members of the congregation, which is part of the cathedral parish, have protested the closure with complaints to archdiocesan officials, who insist they have no control because the archdiocese does not own the property.

Opponents of the closure, who are planning a protest vigil Sunday morning, also said they have received no response to letters sent to the Vincentians who ordered the chapel’s sale.

“They have never, never, sat down with us and said, ‘Let’s make a plan,’ ” said Miguel Ortiz, 41, who emigrated from Mexico in 1989 and has worshipped at La Milagrosa for 18 years.

A maintenance worker for a real estate company in Center City and a member of the cathedral parish’s pastoral council, Ortiz said he had suspected for five years that La Milagrosa’s future was in doubt.

He has accumulated documents on the origins of La Milagrosa and its relationships to the archdiocese and the Vincentians.

“In another life, maybe I’ll be a reporter or a lawyer,” he joked while stuffing papers back into a black canvas briefcase.

Central to Ortiz’s hope that the closure could be averted is an agreement the Vincentians made with another nun, Sister Maria de Jesus Quintana.

Vincentians arrived in Philadelphia in 1909, leading services at Old St. Mary’s Church in what is now Society Hill. Three years later they moved to the Spring Garden neighborhood, which in the late 19th century was home to newly wealthy industrialists.

In 1910, when Philadelphia’s population was 1.55 million, there were between 5,000 and 7,000 Spanish-speaking people in the city, estimated Victor Vazquez-Hernandez, an historian whose doctoral dissertation at Temple University was a history of Puerto Ricans in the city from 1910 to 1945.

Spanish-speaking enclaves were in Southwark, Northern Liberties – and Spring Garden, after La Milagrosa took root there with the help of Sister Maria, the daughter of a cattle rancher and merchant in what is now California.

She was born in San Luis Obispo in 1847 and joined the Daughters of Charity in 1864, coming to St. Joseph’s Hospital in Philadelphia in 1898.

In April 1912, the nun wrote to Vincentian authorities in Europe, seeking permission to “establish a mission for poor Spanish-speaking Catholics in Philadelphia” and agreeing to provide $30,000 to support it, according to an online catalog of letters at DePaul University in Chicago.

Her 1912 agreement with the Vincentians said she would donate the money “for the purpose of securing the spiritual well-being of the Spanish-speaking Colony of Philadelphia.”

The Vincentians did not receive the $30,000 until 1920, when her estate, which included Pennsylvania Railroad Co. stock and assorted railroad bonds, was settled after her death in 1919.

The Vincentians purchased the chapel in June 1912, according to Philadelphia property records.

“This agreement with Sister Quintana has nothing to do with the property or the sale of the property,” said Christopher E. Cummings, a lawyer and partner in the Malvern office of Stradley Ronon Stevens Young.

Ortiz recognizes that the Quintana agreement does not mention the property. “I think it’s more about the formation and continuity of the service to the community, which is still standing and a good number,” he said. “It’s indirect.”

By contrast, St. Katharine Drexel, who donated an estimated $20 million to charitable works for poor blacks and Native Americans, was explicit that her contribution of $1,080 to the Vincentians was for the purchase of 1903 Spring Garden St. and that the proceeds from a sale should be split proportionately.

If the property, which is being marketed by Flynn Co., were to fetch the new assessed value of $846,300, the proceeds to Drexel’s 123-member order would be $74,613.

Schmidt said she recalled two occasions since 1996 when money came back. “Whenever we do get money of this nature, it’s ordinarily used for mission,” as opposed to paying for care of sisters or for buildings and maintenance, she said.

For members of La Milagrosa, where about 150 worship each weekend, according to the archdiocese, the loss of the chapel is heart-wrenching.

“It’s of religious significance and it’s of cultural significance,” said Maria Miranda, who said she has attended Mass at La Milagrosa off and on since 1978, when she arrived in Philadelphia from Puerto Rico.

“That’s our Liberty Bell right there,” she said.

Source: Philly.com

April 22, 2013
By Luis Carlos Lopez

In a not so distant past, corporate sponsorship and Latino advocacy groups were like oil and water.

It wasn’t until the mid 1980′s when companies realized the potential behind Mexican and Latino consumers. As community organizer Steve Renderos remembers the quid pro quo didn’t go mainstream until Coors Brewing Company capitalized on a golden opportunity. It used Cinco de Mayo to repair an already troubled image among Hispanics.

But a few fat cats aside, political outcry and change in the community didn’t come by way Fortune 500 funding. It was a little bit more cunning and inexpensive such as a small group of reporters choosing to use different payphones around Washington, D.C. complaining to the White House that the name of the media room designated for Spanish reporters “lower press” was insensitive and needed fixing.

After numerous nagging calls and a ringing endorsement from then U.S. House of Representative Bill Richardson, the White House acquiesced and changed the name to “specialty press.” No lobbying money was exchanged.

Now, with Hispanics gaining political footing and as eight U.S. Senators plan to give immigration its biggest overhaul in 26 years, companies are endearing themselves with Hispanic political leaders and becoming bedfellows with some of the most influential Hispanic organizations. What seemed like oil and water just a few decades ago is now as common as tamales and chile.

Hispanic organizations and Latino consumers

Mother Jones made light of this in their April 8 piece. Reporter Andy Kroll used The Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, which he described as “an obscure offshoot of the 27-member, all-Democratic Congressional Hispanic Caucus,” to show just how much funding has grown for these once inconspicuous organizations.

“CHCI’s coffers have steadily grown in recent years, from nearly $950,000 in revenue in 1990 to $7.7 million in 2012,” Kroll wrote.

The article also pinpoints how $1 million yields a VIP treatment and an opportunity to “maintain a special relationship with CHCI leaders.”

Throw in $300,000 and a company can be the “sole host of the institute’s annual public policy conference, which includes exclusive access to networking events.”

While CHCI maintains that the organization is not for profit, using its money to develop young Latinos by giving them better access to jobs and colleges, many critics have said that organizations such as CHCI and National Council of La Raza are way too involved with big corporations.

Retired educator and current Hispanic Link News Service contributor Jim Lamare made the observation of just how lucrative funding Hispanic organizations was when, a few years ago, he covered a conference hosted by the NCLR — the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States.

Lamare wrote in jest that before listening to President Barack Obama deliver the keynote speech he had to hear a word from NCLR’s sponsors.

“One by one, they came to the dais to make a little pitch for their respective companies. Up they marched — a representative from ATT, JP Morgan Chase, McDonalds and Time Warner…” Lamare later wrote.

“All the spiels were delivered in near first-rate English, but the intros were done to a nice spicy Latin beat. Oh yeah, then President Barack Obama spoke.”

Esther Aguilera, president and CEO of CHCI, told VOXXI that her organization and other Hispanic institutions have grown their capacity to serve the Latino thanks to the help from corporate and other supporters.

“As the Latino community’s influence and numbers continue to grow, corporations increasingly understand that it is a good business practice to engage with Latino organizations as Latinos are the future of their workforce and customer base,” Aguilera added pointing out that 73 percent of overall giving comes from individuals.

Only 5 percent comes from corporate funding with less than 2 percent of foundation giving goes to Hispanic organizations, Aguilera said.

Despite good efforts critics argue that National Hispanic organizations go down a slippery slope when enveloped in corporate funding. A recent fight over New York’s ban on large sugary drinks serves as a case in point.

Hispanic organizations along with other advocacy groups aimed at helping people of color, sighted with the bottlers in their fight to stop New York mayor Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to ban high-calorie soft drinks even when obesity affects Hispanics and blacks at alarming levels.

Their effort against Bloomberg’s ban is “not surprising” critics say considering Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. fund Hispanic organizations.

To that end, community organizer Renderos, who is part of Center for Media Justice, said big funding has blinded Hispanic organizations to issues such as net neutrality.

“I can’t speak directly to the relationship between many of these Latino Civil Rights organizations and telecommunications companies,” Renderos told VOXXI, “but when you talk to some of these organizations, what they’ll say is they take money from corporations but it doesn’t impact their stances or our policy platform. But when you look closer, they are often on the same side.”

As far as CHCI is concerned, Aguilera argues that supporters understand that their participation does not guarantee control over policy platform and how the organization is to conduct it’s business.

Renderos said the growth of national Hispanic organizations have alienated many voices. As a result, communities such as Center for Media Justice and Presente.org have sprung up to safeguard issues overlooked.

“We are online communities,” Rendereos said. “These are groups that are saying, we don’t feel reflected by these national groups and we have to establish our own institutions otherwise our voices are not going to be represented.”

Source: The Huffington Post

From Rolling Stone to Wheat Thins, brands on Vine have leveraged the video-sharing service to market with consumers, empowering fans through co-created campaigns and personalizing the brand-to-fan experience.

While Vine is still very young, usage of the Twitter-owned app has quickly increased; 2,324 videos were uploaded every hour over one weekend in February that included footage from events such as New York Fashion Week, the Grammy’s, and the Northeastern snowstorm.

Brands still wondering how to best accomplish their social marketing goals with Vine should take note of these five Vine accounts and what they’re doing to make their brand stand out:

Rolling Stone

Popular music/culture magazine Rolling Stone has regularly used Vine to build anticipation for new issues. With Vine, Rolling Stone will reveal cover art and have fans interact via comments about which celebrity they think will appear on that month’s edition.

ASOS

One of the obvious drawbacks of shopping for clothes online is missing out on the in-store experience of browsing and trying things on. ASOS, an online clothing retailer in the UK, used Vine to demonstrate the appealing aspects of shopping online, particularly the excitement of diving into a new delivery. Followers can tag videos of them opening their ASOS orders with #ASOSUnbox for a chance to win free clothes from the online store.

Wheat Thins

Wheat Thins utilized Vine and its parent company Twitter to run a clever UGC campaign during the Super Bowl between San Francisco and Baltimore. Wheat Thins asked dwellers from each city to make their case for a free Wheat Thins delivery by submitting a Vine video of their Wheat Thins creation with the tag #MUSTHAVEWHEATTHINS.

Bacardi UK

Posting photos of alcohol and good times has always been a popular aspect of photo sharing networks like Instagram. Bacardi UK has been using Vine to bring followers video of special Bacardi cocktails being made in six seconds. Users interact and decide which cocktails will be poured.

30 Seconds to Mars

30 Seconds to Mars shows us a good example of how musicians and yes, even brands, can use Vine to directly interact with diehard fans or brand loyalists. This Vine shows the band thanking fans for pre-ordering their album.

This year, brands are focused on marketing with consumers, using social media to empower fans to collaborate with their favorite brands. If the recent Vine adoption is any indication, brands making the collaborative video play are the ones set to drive big brand-to-fan engagement.