Fourth Annual Christmas Celebration of Lancaster FilAm Circle to be held Saturday, December 19, 2015

Fourth Annual Christmas Party of the "Lancaster FilAm Circle" features Gatsby Theme

Fourth Annual Christmas Party of the “Lancaster FilAm Circle” features Gatsby Theme

A “Roaring Great Gatsby themed Christmas Party Endorsed by Amalia Gohn representing Philippine American Heritage Council

The “Lancaster FilAm Circle” is hosting a “Great Gatsby” Christmas theme party at the upscale Lancaster Marriott at Penn Square, Heritage Ballroom on Saturday, December 19 starting at 5:30 PM with dinner served at 6:15 PM and a cash bar for drinks throughout the event.  This is an “invitation only” dinner buffet with a flyer distributed which says there will be “fun, singing, cultural presentations and (to build) camaraderie among Filipinos, friends and families.”

Amalia Gohn, owner of Amalia Beauty Boutique in Red Lion, will attend the event with her husband Ron, representing the Philippine American Heritage Council (PAHC).

Amalia, a sponsor of several of the recent PAHC events, is enthusiastic about helping and promoting functions such as those of the “Lancaster FilAm Circle” and fostering cooperation and friendship between the various nearby Filipino-American organizations.

She contributes both money and time for that purpose.  Amalia also serves as President of the “Follow the Dream Scholarship Pageant” which held a benefit dinner dance recently on Saturday, November 14 at the Red Lion PA Community Building.  The KalayaanUSA Cultural Ensemble sponsored by Philippine American Heritage Council was gave its debut performance at her dinner dance.

The “Great Gatsby” Christmas theme party requires formal attire, preferably with “a touch of Gatsby.”  The best dressed guest wearing a 1920’s inspired outfit will win a prize.  The price may be too steep for some used to free annual picnics and pot luck parties but for those serious about meeting new friends who are either Filipino-Americans or those interested in them this does seem like a nice opportunity and well worth the higher price of $55 per person ($110 couple), $25 per kid (12 years old and younger) which includes besides the dinner buffet, one raffle ticket.

The deadline for purchasing tickets was listed as December 14 but we were unable to look more closely because our request to be approved as a member of their closed Facebook “members only” page was not accepted, nor was there any contact information we could obtain to make further inquiry.

Last week’s Barangay Friends ‘n Family dinner-dance Christmas Party reported that an extra 25 tickets were sold to their ALREADY sold out party after our story appeared just before their event.  Many of the last minute dinner-dance purchases came from members of Philippine American Heritage Council, as well as readers of the KalayaanNews e-newsletter. In that case we did have more information available and theirs was not a closed Facebook page so we were happy we could be more helpful to them by reporting more information about their event in advance.

The KalayaanUSA Cultural Ensemble joined in a performance with the “main event” at this party last week, the group’s own “Barangay Friends ‘n Family” dance troupe.

There will also be a “silent auction” at the Lancaster FilAm Circle” Great Gatsby themed Christmas party on Saturday, December 19, with proceeds to go to what they called their “miscellaneous” fund for next year’s event.

Those interested in further information about Lancaster FilAm Circle can look for them on Facebook and hopefully you will have better luck than us in “joining” their page if this is of interest to you.

One of the Associate Editors of this KalayaanNEWS e-newsletter, Valerie Shut, urged those who are putting on events which might be of interest to Filipino Americans, especially those residing in central PA (although we do have a national following) should write to us at KalayaanNews@PhilippineAmericanHeritage.org for coverage in this e-newsletter and website of their future events.  Please provide contact information in any such requests so that we can followup with questions we may have.

Free subscriptions to the e-newsletter KalayaanNews are also available upon request by writing to the same email, and we urge our friends to pass along this email via “forward” and also to post the link to the website on your Facebook page, http://PhilippineAmericanHeritage.org.

For those in the area who are interested, the new KalayaanUSA Cultural Ensemble plans to give their third performance within the next week, stay tuned for more information in this space.  Classes are now forming for training new dance troupe members so, if this is of interest to you, or if you simply want to play a support role which would be very appreciated, you can contact Valerie Shutt at Chairman@KalayaanUSA.org.

The training classes are expected to take place in the Harrisburg suburbs and also the York area so if either of these locations is convenient for you please contact Valerie right away to be included in the new dance classes being formed for 2016.  The same email address can be used to contact KalayaanUSA to make appearances at your function.

KalayaanUSA is an all volunteer “ensemble” (dance and song) with the leadership helping to fund and create the unique and attractive costumes worn by the dancers.  Donations are also welcome to help pay for these costumes, especially that worn by the younger members of the troupe (all such funded costumes remain the property of the group so that we can provide them for future performers).

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