Supporters of a Cesar Chavez monument in Riverside are more than halfway to their fundraising goal and hope to install the monument this fall.

Following an event last week seeking donors in the legal community, more than $200,000 has been committed to the project to commemorate the labor leader, said Ofelia Valdez-Yeager, a member of the monument planning committee.

The design created by artist Ignacio Gomez entails a 6-foot bronze statue atop a 4-foot base depicting Chavez leading farm workers up an incline. It is projected to cost about $350,000, all to be raised privately.

Backers had initially hoped to unveil the statue March 31, which would have been Chavez’s 85th birthday. Now they’re aiming for completion by November, Valdez-Yeager said.

“I think we’ve been very successful. I understand some of the other statues took years and years to complete the fundraising,” she said.

The statue of Chavez, who organized California farm workers to demand better wages and working conditions, will join other monuments on Riverside’s downtown mall honoring civil rights leaders Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., Korean independence activist Ahn Chang-Ho, and Medal of Honor recipient and Riverside native Ysmael Villegas. The newest statue on the mall and the only one of a woman, celebrating local citrus pioneer Eliza Tibbets, was unveiled in August.

With Riverside’s population now nearly 50 percent Hispanic, it’s appropriate to add a monument to someone who helped give that community a voice, said Mayor Ron Loveridge, who also is on the monument planning committee.

“These are statements of our civilization, statements of aspiration,” Loveridge said. “They’re not simply statutes, they’re memorials. They tell stories about freedom and dignity and civil rights.”

Information about the Cesar Chavez monument and how to donate is available at riversidelatinonetwork.org.