UP Alumni-SF culture summer camp for Fil-Am kids opens for enrollment

Last year’s UPAA-SF Filipino Cultural Immersion Campers and their mentors. CONTRIBUTED PHOTO

• Features Tagalog classes, cultural immersion, meetings with role models 

• Camp open to Filipino youths 10 to 17 years old

SAN FRANCISCO, California — Alumni of the University of the Philippines in the Bay Area are calling on parents who want their kids to learn more about their Filipino heritage and be inspired by Fil-Am role models, to register in the second annual Filipino Cultural Immersion Summer Camp. The camp is open to Filipino youth from 10 to 17 years old.

The University of the Philippines Alumni Association of San Francisco (UPAA-SF) is holding the two-week camp on weekdays from July 7 to 18, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Community Room of the Holy Child St. Martin Church on 777 Southgate St. in Daly City. Graduation is on July 19.

Experts on various aspects of Filipino culture such as history, Kulintang music, native folk dances, literature, history, Tagalog, local cuisine and arts will teach the children. This year, a healthy living module and Filipino martial arts will be added to the curriculum.

Campers will meet Filipino American role models and celebrities, “Balitang America’s” Gel Santos Relos, Henni Espinosa, and Daly City council member and former mayor Ray Buenaventura. Daly City mayor David Canepa will also grace the event. UP System President Alfredo Pascual, who will be visiting the UP Bay Area community from the Philippines, will address the students on their last day in camp on July 18.

“My child always came home speaking new Tagalog phrases every day when he did not even speak a word of Tagalog before the camp,” said one Filipino parent whose child attended last year’s camp.

UPAA-SF President and Camp’s Program Chair Letty Quizon said: “We hope to top the successful Filipino immersion camp we held last year at the Bessie Carmichael School in San Francisco that drew a lot of positive feedback from parents and participants.”

To register, contact Letty Quizon at [email protected] or Sonia Delen at [email protected] or they can visit www.upaa-sf.org to download registration forms.

UPAA-SF’s Filipino Cultural Immersion Camp is made possible through a grant of the Ramar Foods Scholarship Foundation headed by Ramar Foods President Susie Quesada, and its community partners, the Philippine Consulate General in San Francisco, the Office of the San Francisco Mayor’s Adviser on Education and Family Services, the Holy Child St. Martin Church, and AARP-California.