Filipino-US Alumni reunion (sourced from Boscolink)
BENICIA (Cal): 1 July 2005 -- Don Bosco
teachers and alumni from the
Philippines who now reside in California are sponsoring a reunion in
the San Francisco Bay Area over this Independence Day Weekend. The
two-day celebration, entitled SALAMISM 2005, features a Dinner
Dance on Saturday, 2 July, at Salesian High School (Richmond), and a
day-long picnic on Sunday, 3 July, at Frontierland Park (Pacifica).
Opening the events are the celebration of Mass on 2
July at the
Salesian Community Chapel, at 4:30. Fr Larry Tan SDB, visiting from
Manila, is preaching; Fr Joe Boenzi SDB, delegate for the Salesian
Family in California, is presiding at the concelebration. The
Dinner Dance begins at 6:30. Guest speaker for the evening is Fr
Nicholas Reina SDB, president and director of Salesian High School
(Richmond). The family-style picnic at Frontier Park on Sunday begins
at 10:00 am.
SALAMISM is a biennial reunion of alumni and past
teachers from twelve
Salesian schools from different regions of the Philippines who
are now
living and working in the USA. Each reunion is held in a different
North American city, as chosen by the host. This is the seventh
reunion.
Attending SALAMISM 2005 are "Bosconians" (the
nickname that Don Bosco
Past Pupils from the Philippines have earned) from Florida, New York,
New Jersey, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Washington, Nevada, and
from California "Bosconian" groups in San Diego, Los Angeles and the
San Francisco Bay Area. A number of Bosconians are also attending from
Canada, Australia and the Philippines.
"The main purpose of SALAMISM 2005," says organizer
Joe Padilla, "is to
get old friends and classmates and teachers together. We shared a
common spirit as young people and young teachers in the Philippines
thanks to Don Bosco. We want to keep that bond alive now, because Don
Bosco is alive in us."
Joe Padilla, who trained as an engineer but whose
first job was at Don
Bosco Technical College in Mandaluyong (Philippines), acknowledges the
support of the Salesians of Don Bosco in the San Francisco Bay Area to
the efforts of the Bosconians to keep up their traditions. "Don Bosco
is alive here in California too," he says. "This is why another feature
of our Reunions is to raise some funds to help poor young people today
get an education. We have created a fund that supports the technical
education of poor youth in the Philippines, in the Don Bosco Schools.
At the same time, we continually put aside moneys to help with the
education of young people in the San Francisco Bay Area, for it is here
that we now live and work."
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