CoFiA’s Saturday workers’ group, the delegados, met on July 14, 2018, at St. Michael’s Roman Catholic Church, Central Avenue, Palisades Park. Thank you so much to Father Cho and the congregations of St. Michael’s for making the space available to us.
In the photo of a previous meeting of the group, we celebrated an honor recently presented to our organizer, Elias Garcia, as a Leader of the Community. Elias worked with Pedro Calan from St. Michael’s, as well as Angelica, our summer intern LeAnne,intern Enok Cho, Norm Smith and others to put the meeting together.
Here is a summary written by Norm:
We had an excellent, productive and participative meeting thanks to Elias’s leadership, Angelica’s guidance, Enok’s research, and LeAnne’s presentation. Elias opened the meeting, welcoming the attendees, announcing plans to build interest in a future OSHA training, and inviting the participants to bring acquaintances who might benefit. He then turned the program over to LeAnne, who distributed the new CoFiA Guide to Community Resources which she has been putting together this summer. She asked the group to review it, especially the health resource section. Members made very helpful suggestions. Elias noted the importance of prevention, and the group noted that town health fairs can be a source of preventative medicine–blood-pressure testing, cholesterol checks, etc. Every year the Health Department of Palisades Park invites CoFiA to participate in the town health fair.
LeAnne asked the group if the topics included in the Guide (banking, legal, health) are correct and they said they are. The Guide has been translated by CoFiA member Ruth Swinney.
Enok Choe presented a survey on participants’ attitudes toward education.
The consensus was that learning is important for both children and adults. Elias’ emphasis on OSHA training and the participation of some of the delegados in ESL underscores their commitment.
It was a packed meeting with lots of participation. Elias announced that the next meeting will be in mid-August, on the Saturday or Sunday of the weekend of August 18.