La Casa de Amistad opens new youth and community center

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- La Casa de Amistad celebrated the opening of their brand new community center, after two years of hard work and raising over $3 million. 

“We’ve been working for this for so long and finally, it’s here," said Felix Bueno Jr, the Board Chair of La Casa de Amistad. 

The non-profit has gone from its previous location on Meade Street, moving into a 41,000 sq. ft. facility on Michigan street.

The added space has given La Casa the much needed ability to expand.

“It’s pretty much the same programs that we have currently at the old facility, but we’ve just expanded the enrollment," explained Bueno Jr. "Which is nice because we had a waiting list at the old location. Here, we don’t have to worry about it.”

Juan Constantino, the Executive Director of La Casa, said “This building allows us to grow five times- do things like vaccination clinics, getting hundreds of people vaccinated in our community, host job fairs, graduations, ceremonies—all under one hub!”

This expansion not only allows La Casa to serve more people in South Bend, but its new location means it can expand its services to other parts of Michiana.

“The location itself is not far from the bypass and US-31, which connects us to our neighboring counties,” said Constantino. 

“We’ve been helping communities from Plymouth, Elkhart, Goshen, even Warsaw!" said Bueno Jr. "So we’re figuring this is the perfect spot.”

La Casa de Amistad has long worked to serve members of the Latino, Hispanic and Immigrant communities since the 1970s. Now with this new youth and community center in a new location, they hope the expansion will help them continue to help their ever-growing community.

“We’ve needed to make a commitment to our community for a long time, and this is just the first step in doing that, to making sure we’re supporting our Latino, Hispanic and Immigrant community and all the needs that they have," said Constantino.