The music of Sangre Azteca could be heard a block away from the Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church on Sunday, as hundreds of parishioners, some from as far away as Santa Rosa, Napa and Windsor, braved the heat bouncing off the hot asphalt to celebrate one thing — being a community.

“We have a summer festival every year,” said Marisol Ceja, a long-time member of the local Catholic church. “The reason we do is really just to celebrate being a community, not only a church community, but being neighbors and friends.”

From one end of the church property to the other, from the banks of the Napa River in the back where the food was being served, to the curb beside lower Washington Street, people were busy dancing, listening to Mexican music and playing games.

“Everything here is being done by volunteers,” Ceja explained. “People cooked food at home and brought it here to be served to their neighbors. Other people volunteered to work the games and hand out tickets and prizes.

“The tickets being bought and sold raise funds that the church uses to operate its programs that benefit the community,” Ceja continued. “The festival is really about being there for each other.”

This is the first year that dancers from the newly-formed Our Lady of Perpetual Help Ballet Folklorico performed. The four dancers, Claudia Gallegos, Ana Rodriguez, Olivia Angell and Tania Torrez, presented a variety of dances from several culturally diverse areas of old Mexico.

“I was born here,” said Angell. “But I was raised in Mexico. The thing about the dance is that we can celebrate the diversity of our culture, but it’s not just about being Mexican. The dance is about celebrating who you are, no matter who you are.”

Angell had to return to Mexico the day after the celebration, but she mentioned that the church’s Ballet Folklorico group wants anyone interested in learning to dance — including men — to contact the church’s office during normal business hours.

“We want women to sign up, but we’d also like to see more men join the Ballet Folklorico,” Angell said. “There are really a lot of dances that would be much more exciting if we had the men to dance the male roles in them, so everyone sign up.”

Print this story   |   Email this story | Browse today's articles in this category: Previous | Next