By Megan Granados

Citizenship is happy to announce that we’ve had a very strong start to this fiscal year. Since July of this year we have celebrated the beginning of strong monthly citizenship workshops as well as record attendance at our citizenship classes. In the last three months we have celebrated as 73 of our students have taken and reported that they passed their naturalization exam. This group has been a mixture of people who were studying and passing the exam in English as well as those who were eligible for and passed their exam in their native language. Congratulations to all our new citizens!

We are also excited to announce that our New Americans Initiative workshops are now occuring monthly and have seen the strongest attendance levels in recent years. As the lead and legal processing agency of a collaboration with the Alliance of Filipinos of Immigrant Rights and Empowerment, Centro Romero, Logan Square Neighborhood Association and the Polish American Association, Erie House has given services to over 200 Legal Permanent Residents looking to apply for naturalization.

We are holding our next workshop at Ames Middle School (1920 N. Hamlin Ave) Saturday, November 19, 2011. Doors open to walk-in clients from 9 to 10:30 a.m. where we expect to have at least 100 more applicants.