By Christopher Seifert
In the rural community of Genola, hope took the form of a 32-foot tall plastic balloon Friday.
The balloon, measuring 101 feet in diameter, was inflated to serve as the outer dome wall of a new Head Start center for children of local migrant workers. The center will officially open in July.
Migrant workers come to Genola to work in the apple and cherry orchards, said Rudy Anderson, the director of Migrant Head Start in Utah.
The children of migrant workers are often left unattended while their parents work during the day, he said.
'The federal government has paid to keep kids out of fields and away from pesticides and to help them to get an education,' Anderson said of the center that will serve pre-kindergarten children of low-income farm families.
While the center will teach children English and social skills, the center will also sponsor programs for parents, Anderson said.
'We really are a family program, not just for children,' he said of family partnership agreements that will teach parents about child rearing, health and nutrition.
Some parents will learn English or earn their high school degrees in classes held at the center itself, he said.
In total, the center will accommodate 56 children to be taught by 10 to 15 faculty members. About half of the faculty will be bilingual, Anderson said.
Arnold Wilson, a structural engineer and former BYU professor of engineering, helped design the dome.
'I''ve had a lot of fun,' he said of his experience working on the project.
Now that the balloon has been inflated, a polyurethane foam will be applied to the interior of the balloon, Wilson said.
A rebar cage will be constructed over the foam and four-inch thick concrete will be applied over the rebar to create the dome''s inner wall.
The result will be a remarkably strong structure, Wilson said.
'(A tornado) might take out the windows and doors but the structure would hold up,' he said.
The structure is environmentally friendly and extremely energy efficient, Wilson said.
'If it''s 20 below outside, it probably wouldn''t freeze inside,' he said.
'Because of the mass of the dome up above the temperature inside doesn''t change very rapidly.'
Despite the structural superiority of the design, Wilson said the structure''s uniqueness is a matter of aesthetics.
'You have to convince people that round is beautiful,' he said.
Anderson said the energy efficiency of the dome design, the first such structure in Utah to his knowledge, was one of the main selling points.
'They say it takes the equivalent of eight hairdryers to heat the building,' he said.
Rebecca Chavez-Houck, community affairs manager for Centro de la Familia de Utah, the organization that sponsors Utah''s Migrant Head Start, said construction of the center will proceed in phases over the next few months.
Eighteen artists will be invited to decorate the structure, she said.
Anderson said the Genola Head Start center will be a much-needed relief for migrant families.
'These folks are invisible,' he said. 'Sometimes they''re kind of hard to find and sometimes they don''t want to be.'
Sergio Varela, a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, has worked in the Genola cherry orchards for the past two years. Varela said he looks forward to the center''s opening in July because his two young children will be able to attend.
'It''s good for the people here,' he said.