San Diego Cesar E. Chavez 

 2nd Annuual

Day of Service

 

with Rebuilding Together and REI 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Saturday March 20 over 600 Volunteers spent the morning revitalizing Communities, educating our neighbors regarding environmental stewardship, incorporating public art, and enjoying the act of service in honor of Cesar Chavez.
 
At Rebuilding Together Headquarters, nearly 100 volunteers came together to clean up our streets, remove weeds, debris, indentified graffiti and reached out to our neighbors to invo9lve them in our festivities! With the help of local artist Randy Janson of Two Roses Tattoo, our youth created four murals that celebrate local community heroes here in San Diego. These murals will be installed on the artist's home at the corner of Logan and Sampson in the heart of our festivities! With the help of Rebuilding Together we were able to reach approximately 1,000 homes and cover over 20 square blocks to ensure we continue to foster pride and upkeep in our community! 
 
Swan Canyon Restoration Event: 
As part of the San Diego Science Festival, Ocean Discovery Institute and REI hosted  a community habitat restoration event at Swan Canyon.  Trash was removed, trails maintained to increase public access, and local students gave educational tours to learn about San Diego's unique canyon environments with students from Ocean Discovery Institute, as well as informed community members about the life of Cesar Chavez.  
 
Golden Hill Park Trail Blaze
Over 300 volunteers came out to the Golden Hill Park to restore Balboa Park Trails, a historic fountain, expand and maintain a community garden, spread new soil and mulch to protect our native plant space, and repaint light posts that keep our park safe and usable! 80 metric yards of trash were removed from the park and surrounding neighborhood!

Public Art Boxes & Casa Familiar Community Garden
Two local artists came alongside Chula Vista and San Ysidro youth to incorporate their designs which celebrate all they are proud of in their community.   Two electric boxes were painted to kick off the UARt program in San Ysidro.

Cesar Chavez High School Essay Contest Grand Prize Essay 
Hispanic heroes and leaders are often overlooked in American history. Out of 984 pages in my history book, there is half a page about Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta and a picture of them. Even the picture of Elvis is bigger. It is a problem that there are few role models for Hispanic young people presented in school and our country.
 
The Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress is an innovative activity that I have been part of. I videotape the oral histories of World War II veterans so their stories are saved for future generations. I started videotaping Hispanic veterans when I was 12 years old. In 2007, Ken Burns made a documentary with KPBS called, "The War."  It had seven parts with interviews of World War II veterans. Even this documentary with so many parts did not contain the stories of Mexican-American veterans.  Mr. Gus Chavez,  a San Diego native and  Navy veteran started a protest because of all the seven parts of the KPBS documentary, there were no interviews of Hispanic-American World War II veterans. This is what I mean that it is a problem when Hispanic-American heroes are left out of American history. I knew there were many, many World War II veterans in San Diego alone.
 
How could this man make a documentary and not have any Mexican-American veterans in it? It was like our Mexican-American veterans did not exist. I felt so horrible for the Mexican-American veterans because I thought they must have felt forgotten by America. From my work, I knew the sacrifices and patriotism of our Mexican-American veterans. I had heard their stories. The first veteran I interviewed was John Moreno in 2005. Even after 60 years, Mr. Moreno suffered from malaria he contracted in the Philippines fighting the Japanese in World War II. He was born in San Diego in 1926. He is an American hero. I am very proud that his story is archived in the Library of Congress. His story has been preserved for his family and all Americans.
 
The innovative concepts and skills I use are a digital and video cameras, my research skills, and writing video scripts. I also listen to music from the World War II era to use in the videos.  I have turned some of my interviews into 3-minute movies. One is on the Stories of Service website at www.stories-of-service.org. I have tried to inspire other people by teaching other students how to write interview questions and videotape oral histories. One senior, Carmen Gallo, needed a school project so she got involved with the Veterans History Project. I helped her find photographs and write interview questions for John Marroquin, who served in the Pacific Theatre. Carmen was inspired to choose this project after she saw some of my movies and she wanted to do it too.
 
The way that my activity fits with Cesar E. Chavez's belief that "a lasting organization is one in which people will continue to build, develop and move when you are not there" is that by preserving the oral histories of our military veterans in our national library, the Library of Congress. The continued role of Mexican-American war heroes will not be forgotten in the future of the United States of America. Cesar Chavez would understand how important this project is because he was a World War II veteran. He served in the western Pacific during the end of World War II.
 
Writers, researchers, historians, students and all Americans will be able to listen and see the stories of Mexican-American veterans even after my lifetime. These are the stories of their lives told by those who lived it, members of "the greatest generation." I would like to close by adding that interviews of Mexican-American veterans were added to the KPBS documentary, The War.

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-To help teach our future leaders about the goals, dreams and activities of Cesar E. Chavez.
-To foster critical thinking skills in our high school students so that they can prepare for a post-secondary education.
-To help our students think outside of their daily experiences, and to help them see community engagement, civic pride, and service to the most needy as worthy life-long causes.
-To help students see non-violent action as a tool for compassionate social change.
-To inspire students to think of what kind of legacy our society will leave for future generations.

Please join us in congratulating Ironworkers Local 229 as the Inagural recipients of the Black Eagle Award for Service, recoginizing their extraordinary volunteer contributions and support of the 2009 committee and events!!
 
The Black Eagle Award for Service is a newly established way for our committee to celebrate the extraordinary volunteer contributions made in the spirit of service to the community.

 Thursday, April 8
C�sar E. Ch�vez Celebration Kickoff Luncheon
UC San Diego's opening event includes an award ceremony honoring a San Diego community member and a UCSD alum and staff member for furthering C�sar Ch�vez's ideals in their lives. Suggested donation is $5; proceeds benefit MECHA's Raza Graduation.
11:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m., International Center (map)
Ticket info: ivelasco@ucsd.edu  or (858) 534-6862

 SAVE $3.00

Get your official 2010 Commiserative T-Shirt at the pre order rate for only $12.00. 

 

 

 

 

 

  

for more info contact panayajr@cox.net