Presidents Message
President Therese Garces with her
husband Jose Pedro Garces |
Dear Members,
As we are nearing the end of 2011, I would like to thank the Portuguese Historical
Center’s Board of Directors for their hard work and dedication. I have
been blessed with a group of wonderful people who believe in the cause of
preserving our history. Although we still have many things to accomplish
our accomplishments this year are so gratifying.
The Portuguese Historical Center (PHC) is
like no other organization. We have a building to maintain,
rent, utilities, archival equipment to purchase,
and
technology to keep up with. This requires the need to have the funds in order
to accomplish the goals we have set forth for the PHC. We are blessed with
the many people and businesses in our community who believe
in our cause. We are
very thankful to Odette Virissimo in chairing our 3rd Tunaman’s Ball
which was not only a fun and exciting event, but a very successful one. I thank
every
one of our directors and Natalie A. Virissimo for their hard work in making
the Ball a successful evening.
I thank all my directors for accomplishing
their duties this year. The library committee is organizing
the library which will now be called The Mary Giglitto
Library. The Grant committee is continuing to find grants so the PHC can
become a bigger and better Historical museum. Our Newsletter
and Website committee
continues to keep our members and community informed in our accomplishments
throughout
the year, please visit our website at www.phcsandiego.com. Our archival committee
is scanning away all our documents, pictures, and newspapers into our computer
and having them backed up to our carbonite backup system. The Scholarship
committee has done a superb job of giving out money to
our students. The 2011 Scholarship
recipients were Madison Friel and Ashley Barandiaran! The Ways & Means
committee has been working hard with Cooking Classes, Breakfast with the
Easter Bunny,
Breakfast with Santa, Raffle Giveaways in oder to fund our scholarship fund
and offset the costs to the PHC. The Education committee is working diligently
with
the Portuguese Language and striving to make the Portuguese Language an accredited
language in our San Diego unified school district. The Membership committee
has been working hard to find new members bringing our membership about 25%
this
year! Finally our Financial Committee headed up by Daniel Silva has been
working very hard to keep the PHC on budget. These are only a few things
that the PHC
has been working on this past year and they have all been successful. I would
again like to thank my hardworking Board of Directors for their time and
enthusiasm this past year!
I am honored to be a part of the PHC. It
is an organization that requires a lot of hard work but
when the work is done it is such a gratifying feeling
of accomplishment.
I am excited to start the New Year with new directors. The PHC is growing
in
a positive way with many young adults who want to become involved in preserving
our history. I feel that the PHC, although sometimes a challenge, with
new directors and new ideas is the only way for the PHC
to be a success and I
am so glad to
be a small part of it.
Thank you to the community and a special
thank you to my Board of Directors who have made my job
a little bit easier, for always backing me up, and
always leaving
our monthly meeting with a positive attitude. To all our members I wish
you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year filled
with health,
happiness
and love!
Boas Festas and Muito Obrigada!
Therese M Garces
President
Portuguese Historical Center
