After years of planning and a tight squeeze inside a converted house, the Community for the Advancement of Family Education, or CAFÉ, has a new home.
Earlier this month, CAFÉ announced it had purchased the former Chelan-Douglas Community Action Council building. CAFÉ leaders said the move marks the first phase of their long-term vision to build a full multicultural center in the Wenatchee Valley.
The purchase was made through financing from Self-Help Federal Credit Union and the Community Foundation of NCW. CAFÉ will share the new space with Northwest Family Services Institute, a behavioral health organization.
Tonantzintla “Tona” Chacón, CAFÉ’s executive director, said the organization’s move was long overdue.
“If you were to step into our office, it’s very tight quarters. It was really just a house made into an office space,” she said. “We had about eight staff in one room. We just needed more space.”
Chacón said the new building allows CAFÉ to expand its education programs, add on-site behavioral health services and create more areas for meetings, workshops and youth programs. It also gives partner agencies room to provide co-located services for families.
“Our end goal is to have a community center where we can have a lot of different partners join us,” Chacón said. “This is a really good first step.”
CAFÉ’s sister organization, Northwest Family Services Institute, will now operate alongside CAFÉ, with programs offering counseling, trauma-informed care and recovery support in the same building. Leaders of CAFÉ say the integration will create a more holistic model for serving Latino, immigrant and multilingual families.
Jorge and Alma Chacón co-founded CAFÉ in the early 2000s, after seeing Latino families struggle to find English classes, navigate paperwork and access basic information in Wenatchee. At the time, they said, few Wenatchee agencies had bilingual staff.
“We saw families come in not knowing where to turn,” said Jorge Chacón, a Vietnam veteran who arrived in the United States as a child. “There was always a need for individuals who were bilingual, who knew the community, who could guide people. There were very few organizations that could provide that.”
He said the new location represents more than office space. It continues a cultural tradition of hospitality and connection that has shaped CAFÉ since it began.
“We greet people with warmth. This building doesn’t belong to us; it belongs to the community,” he said. “That’s part of the way our culture expresses trust.”
CAFÉ’s programs have expanded significantly since those early years. Today, the organization offers ESL and digital literacy classes, youth mentoring, recovery navigation, leadership training and support for small businesses. Its signature community events, including Pachanga and Mercaditos, regularly draw families from across the region.
The new building gives the nonprofit additional classrooms, a computer lab, private offices for behavioral health sessions and a dedicated youth space for tutoring and mentorship
Tona Chacón said the larger facility will also help staff manage a challenge familiar to many community-based organizations: balancing demand with capacity.
“We never want to turn people away,” she said. “But we also need to make sure our team has the time and energy to keep going. Having more space helps us support our community without burning out.”
For Alma Chacón, who helped field those early requests for help two decades ago, the milestone reflects both progress and continuity.
“The needs back then were extremely high, like they are now,” she said. “People needed a place to go for information and support. That continues to be a need, and that’s why we are still here.”
Reneé Diaz may be contacted at [email protected]. Collaborative reporting by The Wenatchee World, NWPB and Murrow College of Communication Newsroom Fellowship.
