The Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations of Philadelphia (also known as Concilio), which celebrates its 60th anniversary serving the city’s Puerto Rican and Latino communities, unveiled its 2022 cultural agenda in the Professional Networking Mixer, an event held on March 16 at the headquarters of Taller Puertorriqueño.
Adonis Banegas, executive director of Concilio and María Del Pilar Morales, a journalist dubbed as the voice of the Latino community in Philadelphia with 33 years of experience in Spanish radio, made the announcement for the Hispanic Fiesta, a yearly event organized by Concilio.
“We try to bring joy, and the joy through music, which is very important,” said Morales in Spanish. The Hispanic Fiesta will be on July 9 and 10 at Penn’s Landing. It will have the Dominican NY-based merengue group Oro Sólido on Saturday 9 and Charile Aponte (a Puerto Rican salsa singer who belonged to El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico between 1973 and 2014) on Sunday 10.
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Along with the Hispanic Fiesta, Concilio organizes year after year the Puerto Rican Parade on September 25. 2022 will be the 58th parade.
More than social programs
Banegas highlighted that Concilio is not just social programs but also the cultural events. “This year we’re excited to announce that we’re bringing everything back. We’re bringing it bigger, and better than ever before,” said the executive director of Concilio. “We dedicated our time, money and efforts to make sure that we bring all the energy back. We want everybody to come on, enjoy and support these amazing and beautiful events.”
The event had the participation of Rafael Toro, director of Public Relations of Goya Foods and the longest active sponsor of Concilio for more than 40 years. “We’re going to bring the flow back (to the Hispanic Fiesta),” said before the artist announcements made by Morales.
Collaboration with non-profits
Priscilla Jiménez, board member of Concilio, stated that the organization looks for collaborating with all the non-profits in the area. “All we want is creating a collaborative environment, to make the events we have planned the best than can possible be, and we can’t do without your support,” she said.
“This year highlights our 60-year of serving this great and wonderful community,” complemented José Rodriguez, board member of Concilio and the event host.
On the other hand, Janessa Rivera, deputy director of Concilio, took the opportunity to reveal some figures. “All together (two departments) have brought in more than 2 million dollars to the agency on new programming in the last 5 or 6 months. So that’s definitely something to celebrate,” she said.
But not everything was party announcements and celebrations. Banegas remarked the importance of giving the young people opportunities to find employment. “Giving them certain skills or just a different environment is important,” the CEO said. “Unfortunately, the homicide rate in Philly, 122 deaths as of today (according to Banegas) is still there. That’s the reason why we wanted to get into the workforce development field, because that’s the antiviolence prevention.”
About Concilio
Founded in 1962 by a group of Latino leaders concerned with discrimination faced by new arrivals to the city, Concilio is the oldest Latino organization in Philadelphia.
“This is now a Latino city for the most part, and we want to make sure we don’t forget that,” said Banegas.
Photos José Hernández
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