La Plaza Esperanza represents community's ‘hopes and dreams,' Latino Network says
PORTLAND, Ore. () — Thursday marks the grand opening of a new Latino cultural center in East Multnomah County — a vibrant hub where families can grow, celebrate, and connect.
offering everything families need to thrive.
It's barely open and already, the preschool is at full capacity, with a growing waitlist.
For many families, it's the first time their children have access to care that reflects their language, culture, and story.
Latino Network Executive Director Tony DeFalco says the preschool is just one of about 60 programs run by the organization, all built to help families thrive.
, located at 16515 SE Oak St in Portland, is the region's first culturally specific Latino community center, decades in the making. It's built to deliver education, healthcare, and the arts, all under one roof.
'I think this represents so much of the hopes and dreams of our community in some ways but also a really clear expression of that we're here and that we're really strong as a community,' DeFalco said.
Latino Network teamed up with 45 partners to raise over $20 million in just 3 years.
Comcast and Free Geek stepped in with tech, donating devices and high-speed wi-fi to power everything from job training to medical care.
'Allows the community to get on a reliable high-speed wi-fi internet connection to do the programs they need to do, to access the tools and resources to be successful and hopefully thrive in this digital society,' said Rebecca Brown, Comcast's senior director of community impact.
The 18,000-square-foot building is built to last — with solar panels, Oregon timber, and an earthquake-ready design.
But it's more than eco-friendly — it's a community anchor, giving Latino families a place to start strong and feel at home, for generations to come, DeFalco said.
For nearly 30 years, has powered Portland's Latino community with culturally specific services. And now, it has a building to match.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Sky Content Chief Says 'We Had an Amazing Bubble' in Production
The state of U.K. TV production 'has been really tough, and anybody who's been in production these days would echo that,' Cécile Frot-Coutaz, the CEO of Sky Studios and chief content officer of Sky, owned by Comcast, told the Media & Telecoms 2025 & Beyond Conference in London on Tuesday. 'I think it's been tough for a number of reasons,' she shared at the event, organized by Deloitte and Enders Analysis, . 'Less has been commissioned, although I think if you look back over a period of 10 [or 15] years, I'm not sure there's less today…. So, you know, we had an amazing bubble. Everybody got used to the bubble, and obviously now we're sort of coming back down to volumes that are more akin to those that were experienced 15 years ago.' More from The Hollywood Reporter U.K. Culture Secretary Talks AI Regulation at London Media Conference Netflix EMEA Content Boss Touts 'Adolescence,' Debunks a "Myth," Talks Ted Sarandos' Acting Debut Paolo Sorrentino to Receive Sarajevo Film Festival Honor and Retrospective Also, 'there's been a funding issue, because the U.S. hasn't been co-producing British content nearly in the same way, or actually not at all, potentially,' the Sky top executive added. But she also had a silver lining to tout. 'What we're seeing is [that] Europe is actually coming into some shows. We've seen that on some of our own programming. So you have to be very entrepreneurial these days when looking at how to get things financed, unless you're a goal player like Netflix.' About Sky's content output strategy, she highlighted: 'We were never a volume player. So actually, what we've been doing has been very consistent and very steady, and because we're part of the Comcast group, we're able to be flexible on the funding model.' She concluded by predicting that 'looking forward, I think things will settle again. Hopefully, the U.S. will start to come back online.' She made the comments during a panel discussion that also featured Larry Tanz, vp, content, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) at Netflix, Sarah Rose, president of U.K. broadcaster Channel 5 and U.K. regional lead at Channel 5 owner Paramount Global, and Wayne Garvie, president of Sony Pictures Television. The panel discussed commissioning trends and industry opportunities and challenges. Tuesday's conference also featured top executives from the likes of the Walt Disney Co., U.K. public broadcaster BBC, streaming giant Netflix, and Comcast-owned Sky. Best of The Hollywood Reporter 'The Studio': 30 Famous Faces Who Play (a Version of) Themselves in the Hollywood-Based Series 22 of the Most Shocking Character Deaths in Television History A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) Shareholders Reject CEO Pay Amid Stock Slump
A majority of Warner Bros Discovery (WBD, Financials) shareholders voted against the 2024 compensation package for Chief Executive David Zaslav, according to a regulatory filing issued Tuesday. The nonbinding vote reflects growing shareholder frustration as the company's stock continues to underperform. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 4 Warning Signs with WBD. Shareholders rejected Zaslav's $52 million pay deal, which exceeds the 2024 compensation reported by Disney CEO Bob Iger ($41 million) and Comcast CEO Brian Roberts ($34 million). While the vote does not mandate changes, the board said it takes the results of the annual advisory vote on executive compensation seriously. Revenue and cash flow concerns have persisted across WBD's television business, prompting S&P Global to cut the company's credit rating to BB-plus last month. Shares of WBD have fallen nearly 60% since the merger that formed the company in 2022. At the time of the merger, WBD reported $55 billion in debt, which had declined to $38 billion as of May, according to the company. Some analysts expect Warner Bros Discovery may consider spinning off its studio and streaming businesses as it works to regain investor confidence. See insider trades for WBD. Explore Peter Lynch chart. This article first appeared on GuruFocus.
Indianapolis Star
7 hours ago
- Indianapolis Star
Will small-market Finals bother the NBA? Not necessarily. 'This is the league's future here'
OKLAHOMA CITY – Big stars. Small markets. That's been the verdict on these NBA Finals since the Pacers closed out the Eastern Conference playoffs over the weekend and sealed their place opposite Oklahoma City in this year's NBA Finals. And in the most basic telling, that is an accurate summation of the forthcoming series. But the public's (and the media's) love of easily digestible Nielsen ratings and viewership numbers glosses over what is in many ways a more nuanced discussion. Will Indianapolis and Oklahoma City make for a less commercially successful Finals? Not necessarily. It's important to acknowledge upfront there is some truth to the basic maxims of the TV-market discussion. In most cases, yes, pulling a major audience share like New York, Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles or even Dallas-Fort Worth makes for a better-watched series. That just doesn't paint a full picture, according to Patrick Crakes, a former senior vice president at Fox Sports who now runs his own media consulting firm. 'The NBA Finals is a national event. It's better to have a base from big-market teams, from a mass of viewing, but the whole ecosystem is much more complicated than that,' Crakes said. Think of a television distribution deal as an ecosystem serving three key constituencies: The league (the rights seller), the carriers (Turner Sports, ESPN, etc.) and the distributors (Comcast, DirecTV, YouTube TV, etc.). Those constituencies are concerned with their own self-interests, yes, but in many cases, those interests overlap or align. These deals are also negotiated as large packages, with inventory (games) from the regular and postseasons all bundled together. ESPN/ABC did not secure the rights solely to these Finals. The money culled from the Finals is just a portion of the overall measure of the commercial success of the deal in a fiscal year. Per Crakes, advertising often constitutes approximately 20-30% of the overall financial pie, a meaningful number but not a decisive one. And much of that income that's attached to the playoffs is derived not from the showpiece Finals, but from the early rounds, where TV partners broadcast the largest sheer quantity of games. Yes, bigger markets in later rounds makes a difference, but sometimes not as much of one as a busy, engaging start to the postseason. Good, long series in rounds one and two will fill the advertising-dollars bucket long before the Finals. Short, uncompelling sweeps can leave a hole no big-city viewership or last-minute dramatics will fill. 'Postseason economics, a lot of it gets determined by the first couple rounds. That's where all the inventory is,' Crakes said. There are also headwinds untethered to a market share, or an individual sport's popularity. The rapidly fragmenting viewer ecosystem has prompted small dips in ratings for even America's most popular sports. Consumers no longer need easier-to-quantify access points to live sports like traditional carriers (Comcast, DirecTV, and so forth), with cord cutters eating into wider TV share. More fans come to games via social media, be it through highlights, real-time updates or other links back to the games themselves. There is an extent to which these Finals will be impacted by shifting viewer habits no matter the markets involved, whether it's No. 1 New York, No. 25 Indianapolis or No. 47 Oklahoma City (per SportsMediaWatch). Which circles back to one of Crakes' basic points: The Finals can also appeal across a wider base irrespective of market size. 'If you think about a total package of how NBA rights work,' Crakes said, 'it's important to keep in mind that small-market finals, like what we're about to see, that feature some of the game's best young players, that are going to be around for the next 15 years, being showcased, is not a bad thing for the league.' Shai Gilgeous-Alexander's star turn this season has included a scoring title, his first-career MVP nod and a center-stage role for the winningest team in the NBA. There has been perhaps no more compelling individual storyline in these playoffs — certainly in the Eastern Conference — than Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton's ascension into the elite tier of the league's guards. Around them orbit meaningful subplots (Jalen Williams' remarkable year, Pascal Siakam's impact in Indy, the dynamism presented by Indiana's backcourt depth, Chet Holmgren's continued development). The sport by nature puts fewer players on the floor, offering a bright spotlight to its stars. And unlike in football or baseball, those stars are often involved in games for long stretches, unfettered by offense-defense swaps or at-bat limits. In many ways it's easier to sell stars in the NBA, so long as they deliver their best. Whether the uniforms they wear say New York, Indiana or OKC, compelling performances from those players will go a long way toward determining the commercial success of the series upcoming. 'This is the league's future here,' Crakes said. 'The Thunder are fantastic. If the Pacers give them a series, my guess is everybody gets interested, even in New York and L.A., and it carries along just fine.' Which leads into the most fundamental determining factor in this discussion: The series has to entertain. Crakes worked at Fox Sports in October 2000, when the Yankees and Mets delivered their famed 'Subway Series." Top to bottom, the company was energized by the prospect of capturing a compelling championship dominating the country's biggest market. Instead, despite the fact that every game was decided by one or two runs, national interest never materialized. The favored Yankees eased to a 4-1 series win in front of a national audience that delivered what was at that time the lowest-rated World Series in history. 'The thing was a giant dud, because the rest of the America (wasn't interested),' Crakes said. 'You can be the dog that caught the car when you wish for these things.' Which means, of course, the same can be said in the opposite direction. Oklahoma City and Indiana have been, across the season's final months, arguably the two best teams in the NBA. Their records since Jan. 1 are first (Thunder) and fourth (Pacers) in the NBA. The Thunder finished with the league's best record and, while Indiana's path might have been smoothed slightly by Boston's bow-out, by almost any measure the Pacers have been playing championship-level basketball for five months. If that continues in this series — if Indiana can stand toe-to-toe with Oklahoma City and turn this into a six- or seven-game series — it will drive viewership everywhere. Likewise, an uneventful series decided in five games or fewer wouldn't do well, regardless. 'The real component in how successful something like this is, is a seven-game series,' Crakes said. 'That's where the gold is. Game 6, Game 7, and if we get to that with this series, this Finals will do just fine.' Of course, there's an extent to which the Finals will own the airwaves anyway. With football in hibernation, and baseball entering its summer dog days, the NBA Finals are virtually always a ratings winner. Crakes pointed out there can be long-term benefits for the league in small-market success. The last decade has seen Cleveland, Toronto, Denver and Milwaukee all win the NBA championship, strengthening the league's exposure in those markets and suggesting efforts to even the playing field between big- and small-market teams are paying dividends. 'The system's working. The small-market teams are figuring out ways to compete with the big-market teams,' Crakes said. 'This is an opportunity for these smaller markets to continue to have a deeper relationship with the NBA.' As with so much in sports, the impact of this series will be determined foremost by what the NBA makes of it. Does Oklahoma City complete a season of dominance? Do the league's two best teams at this time of year deliver a compelling Finals? Does this mark the transcendent moment for one of the NBA's young stars? All those things can, in the long term, matter as much as raw viewer data. The tendency to compare across years is reflexive. The sport's ownership of the national stage at this point in the annual calendar, though, is undeniable. 'This is going to be a gigantic number,' Crakes said. 'It's going to rate better than anything else, probably anything else at this point in the summer, and the economics are already largely in the bank.'
