Luis Garden Acosta Gisely Colon Lopez

Description

This segment is mostly about how El Puente started getting governmental funding, although the founder, Luis Garden Acosta, was hesitant to receive such funds. He describes his hesitations because of a fear of the funds being restricting to El Puente's programs and goals. Luis Garden says that El Puente received its first govermental funding in 1984, and identified the Assistant commissioner of the then called Youth Services office (known today as the Department for Youth and community Development), Roberto Soto, as having helped secure 25K in funds. Garden Acosta also discussed Frank Negron (co-founder and board member of El Puente) and Dr. Michael Greene as also being integral for El Puente securing governmental funds, which led to a 7 year grant for general operating costs that did not limit or restrict the vision of the organization. As part of this segment Garden Acosta also states that the vision for El Puente was to be a militant Human Rights driven organization.

Record Contributed By

Center for Puerto Rican Studies, Library and Archives

Record Harvested From

Empire State Digital Network