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La Peña event honors activist, union leader Dolores Huerta 

Teacher, community activist, union leader, lobbyist, organizer, advocate and mother of 11, Dolores Huerta has won many awards and public recognition for her dedication to farm workers’ rights, women’s rights and the environment.  

She will be honored for her work June 9 at La Peña Cultural Center’s 26th anniversary. 

In 1955, Huerta began work as a grassroots organizer with the Community Service Organization. Seven years later, in Delano she met Cesar Chavez, with whom she created the National Farmworkers Association, a precursor to the United Farm Workers. 

The event, which costs $20, will help defray some of Huerta’s recent medical expenses. 

Huerta herself will be present, as well as Dulce Mambo, Piri Thomas, La Paz, Jose Luis Orozco, Raphael Manriquez, Herbert Siguenza and Father Bill O’Donnell. Maria Chavez will present a slide show. The event begins at 7 p.m. at 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

YMCA art gathering  

fund-raiser features auction  

Wosene Kosrof, an Ethiopian-born artist who lives in Berkeley, has donated a painting to the Berkeley YMCA. The piece will be sold at a silent auction and all proceeds will benefit youth at the YMCA. Kosrof’s work explores the aesthetic dimensions of Amharic, one of the major languages of Ethiopia.  

The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art, the Rockefeller collection, the United Nations and many others have Kosrof in their collections. The YMCA is hosting an art gathering in the Crystal Room of the Shattuck Hotel at 8:30 p.m. on June 13 where Kosrof will exhibit and discuss his paintings and the YMCA piece will be up for auction. The Shattuck Hotel is at 2086 Allston Way. Admission is free. 

Groundbreaking celebration for Computer Technologies Program 

The Computer Technologies Program will be celebrating the groundbreaking of its new facilities in the ARTech building at 2101 Milvia at 9 a.m. on Tuesday.  

The ceremony represents the culmination of the three year project by CTP and Panoramic Interests to create a multi-use building in downtown Berkeley. 

The CTP, a nonprofit organization that provides computer job training to students with disabilities, will occupy the entire second floor of the new building, almost tripling the size of its facilities. A cafe will occupy the ground floor and 20 housing units will comprise the top three stories. The outside of the building will feature works of several local artists and include a wrought iron gate, tile murals and mosaic benches. 

— staff reports