Thursday, April 25, 2024
Fair, 70°Wind: 10.4 mph, S
Welcome to our new web site!
To give our readers a chance to experience all that our new website has to offer, we have made all content freely avaiable, through October 1, 2018.
During this time, print and digital subscribers will not need to log in to view our stories or e-editions.
“Hard work and generosity, that was my mother,” Olivia McDonald said Wednesday morning, March 9, as a plaque was unveiled at Klein Park, 155 N. Mesquite St., honoring McDonald’s mother, Consuelo “Connie” Lerma, who founded Las Esperanzas, Inc. neighborhood association in 1999.
In 23 years (1917-2004), Las Esperanzas has grown into a nonprofit leading many projects to improve and revitalize the Mesquite Historic Neighborhood that Lerma “would be very proud of and the city is very proud of,” McDonald said. “This neighborhood continues to thrive,” she said.
The Mesquite Historic District contains Las Cruces’ original townsite, with the first adobe house built in the area dating to 1782, McDonald said.
“We are here standing with the energy of our families,” said Mesquite district resident and community activist Irene Oliver-Lewis.
“The legacy that was left by Mrs. Lerma is still alive and thriving,” said Las Esperanzas President Martha Rodriguez.
Rodriquez said Las Esperanzas is currently at work on an oral history project and is raising money for a Jardin de Las Esperanzas – a community garden.
Mayor Pro Tempore Kasandra Gandara, who was master of ceremonies for the plaque unveiling, thanked city Parks and Recreation Department Director Sonya Delgado and her staff for maintaining Klein Park, which Las Esperanzas adopted through the Keep Las Cruces Beautiful program and has continued to improve.
To honor preservation efforts, LEI awards memorial plaques to the owners of homes and other buildings in the district. The plaques were designed by McDonald, using “an adobe home built in the early part of the last century by her grandfather, Jesús Ríos, on Tornillo Street,” according to LEI’s website.
LEI’s first plaque was unveiled at Klein Park and have since been awarded to more than three dozen sites in the district.
Attendees at the plaque unveiling, in addition to Delgado, included: former Mayor Bill Mattiace; former state Rep. Antonio Lujan; former state Sen. Mary Jane Garcia; former City Councilor Dolores Archuleta; and former Las Esperanzas presidents Elizabeth Lannert (who was the first president) and Sylvia Camunez. Archuleta is also a former president of the nonprofit.
Visit www.las-esperanzas.com/home.html.
