The rapidly growing Society of St. Vincent de Paul of Contra Costa County (SVdP) announces the appointment of Melanie Anguay as its new executive director.

“Melanie Anguay will help St. Vincent de Paul increase its service to the poor and maximize the benefits that the poor receive from the help we provide,” according to Jim Noe, president of the Contra Costa Council of SVdP.

“Anguay already has had a highly accomplished career in service to the vulnerable,” Noe said. “Her experience with SVdP in Alameda County, and her international efforts to help the impoverished will now benefit those who receive help from SVdP in Contra Costa County.”

For the past six years Anguay worked with the SVdP of Alameda County, first as the director of programs and for the last four years as director of social enterprises. In those roles she managed SVdP’s thrift stores and other facilities, helped develop workforce development programs, a dining room serving 1,000 meals a day, and drop-in resource centers.

In 2005 Anguay was a lay missionary in Cochabamba, Bolivia with the Amanecer Foundation. She managed volunteers in eight facilities for orphans and former street children. Last August Anguay was the western regional leader at the Catholic World Youth Day in Madrid, Spain.

Anguay holds a Master of Business Administration and also a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, both from California State University East Bay in Hayward. She also completed the Executive Program in Social Entrepreneurship at Stanford Graduate School of Business.

She succeeds Ron Weston, who retired after seven years as executive director.”We are grateful for the important work Ron did as SVdP grew,” said Noe. “His efforts helped move us to the point where we can continue to increase our service to the poor.”

Programs offered from St. Vincent de Paul “Family Resource Center” include:
· RotaCare Pittsburg Free Medical Clinic at St. Vincent de Paul; a clinic to provide urgent/primary health care and disease prevention for uninsured adults.
· Free Dining Room, in partnership with Loaves and Fishes of Contra Costa County, providing 150 meals daily, Monday-Friday.
· Homeless Prevention Support by conducting 25,000 person-to-person visits annually, providing assistance to the needy by trained volunteers.
· Food Support Programs in Pittsburg, Brentwood and 22 other St. Vincent de Paul locations within Contra Costa.
· Free clothing/furniture at St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Stores in Pleasant Hill and Pittsburg.
· Thanksgiving/Christmas food baskets to over 1,200 needy families.
· Daytime Homeless Shelter in Pittsburg, in cooperation with “Winter Nights” program, providing daytime shelter October-April.
· One Warm Coat Program, distributing over 12,000 coats in the county.
· Health Programs; including health fairs, flu shot programs, free eye-glass programs, and bi-lingual AA.
· Transitional employment/job training for disabled and recently incarcerated.
· Rental and housing assistance and case management services offered in partnership with Catholic Charities.

Inspired by values of charity, humility, and social justice, the SVdP provides person-to-person service of time, talent and resources to help neighbors in need regardless of gender, national origin, race, or religion. It is part of an international non-profit, organized locally to bring concrete aid and comfort to those who are poor and suffering in Contra Costa County. The Society collaborates with other people and organizations of good will in mitigating need and addressing its causes, making no distinction in those served.

The public is warmly welcomed this Saturday, January 21st to the annual Santo Nino Celebration, sponsored by the Fil-Am Club, to Holy Rosary Church at 1316 A Street, Antioch.

Join in for all or any of the festivities, which start with a resplendent 5:30 Mass with songs in Tagalog and offerings of flowers by elegantly costumed youth. At 6:45 a Filippino feast starts at the rear of the parking lot in the Father Vicente Dominican Hall. At 7:15 entertainment begins, which includes native and popular dance acts, comedy and vocal and instrumental solos. The food and show are both free.

The Celebration is one of the most festive in the Philippines, The origin dates back to the landing of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan who was commissioned in 1519 by the King and Queen of Spain to find the Spice Islands. Instead, Magellan landed at Limawsa in the central Philippines.

He was befriended by King Humabon and Queen Juana of Cebu, who embraced Christianity. Magellan then used Cebu as headquarters for his exploration, Christianization and conquests, At the behest of the gracious King, Magellan agreed to join his fight against the neighboring Mactan tribe. He was killed.

In 1565 the Spanish organized a return expedition from Mexico. It was led by Augustinian priest, Andres Urdaneta, a world-renowned cosmographer. The natives, though, feared retribution and a battle quickly ensued. Pounded by cannon and superior firepower the natives retreated to the mountains. Their villages were decimated.

In the ashes a Spanish soldier found a wooden box with an unscathed image of the infant Jesus. It was deemed a miracle and for four and half centuries the icon has been venerated. Further devotion ensued from instances like the World War II bomb that heavily damaged the cathedral but, again, left the icon untouched.

A strong tradition of adoring the infant Jesus took root in the Philippines. The Cebu Cathedral was renovated on the 400th anniversary of the fire and declared by the Vatican a Basilica Minore, with all the attendant status and privileges.

City of Antioch Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Celebration, 2012

Keynote Address

by Rev. Keith Archuleta

Good afternoon. It is my honor to be before you this afternoon as we commemorate the life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you were to visit Memphis – and go to the site where Dr. King was assassinated – on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, you would find there not a statue, but a simple plaque, quoting the brothers of Joseph, written in the Book of Genesis Chapter 37:verses 19-20, stating:

Here comes the dreamer. Come now, let us kill him…and we shall see what will become of his dreams.

For there were those who said of King, “Let us kill the dreamer…and see what becomes of his dreams. But, though they may kill the dreamer, they couldn’t kill the dream.

In 1954, in Montgomery, Alabama, King, just 25 years old, began serving as the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, a little church in the heart of the Jim Crow south, as segregation laws were being challenged.

In 1955, a courageous Black woman named Rosa Parks refused to sit in the rear of a public bus, violating Montgomery’s segregation laws and affirming her own dignity. She stood up for justice by sitting down in the front of the bus, the section reserved for whites only. It is in this context that King emerged as a leader of the civil rights movement.

Note that 1955 was still less than 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and the close of the Civil War. But even though slavery ended, Black people in the south would be free citizens for only a period of less than 15 years.

In 1865, there those who wanted to kill the dream.

Dream killers like the Ku Klux Klan, the first home-grown terrorist group in the US, emerged after Blacks were freed from slavery, and they joined with the aristocracy of the former confederacy to take the south back, back to the days when Black people were a subjugated people.

By the 1880’s, through terrorism and legislation, southern states began to forge apartheid, called Jim Crow, and it impacted the psyche of all America.

Robert Kennedy described the impact of this element of American history in this way:

“When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.”

During Jim Crow, not just in the South, but throughout the US, Black people were relegated to second class citizenship, openly lynched, denied the right to vote, confined to the most dilapidated schools, more likely to be accused of crimes and convicted, denied equal pay, denied access to employment, housing, and public accommodations and eating establishments.

So, when we thought we’d won our freedom

Twasn’t long ‘fore we found out

That right here in America

Freedom and democracy had been sold out

Though we’d fought for Reconstruction

And worked for forty acres and a mule

Through the use of terrorist violence

The Klan soon brought back white rule

Oh children ‘twas a terrible time

Throughout the South you see

Jim Crow took away our land, our vote

And Black life was hung upon a tree

So again the struggle started

Ah, but you shouldn’t be surprised

And inspired by Garvey, Robeson, Dubois

folks were on the rise!

Jim Crow laws they started breakin’

from Greensboro to Little Rock

They joined in organized action to put

U.S. apartheid into shock

And from Newark to Detroit and Watts

They were dancin’ in the streets

From Montgomery to Mozambique

They were movin’ to a brand new beat

And so to folks like Fannie Lou, the Panthers, and SNCC

King, Malcolm, Cabral

To the everyday people fighting for power,

For peace and justice for us all

And to those who sang “you can make it if you try”

“keep on pushin” to “higher ground”

And those who said, “It’s nation time!”

And “I’m Black and I’m proud!,” we sing:

Thank you for lettin’ me be myself again!

Thank you for lettin’ me be myself again!

Thank you for lettin’ me be myself again!

Thank you for lettin’ me be myself again! ¹

Even though there are dream killers, there are also people of vision.

The efforts of civil rights activists culminated with the milestone passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But King’s outspoken criticism of the Vietnam War and for the plight of the poor caused him to be a target of the CIA and Hoover FBI counter-intelligence program, Cointelpro, to discredit King and other civil rights and anti-war leaders. The dream killers hoped to kill the dream.

Yet King continued on, remaining steadfast to his ideals of non-violence and his call for a better, more just society.

The Poor People’s campaign of 1967 would prove to be King’s last major effort. In 1968, he traveled to Memphis, Tennessee in support of striking sanitation workers, where he gave what would be his final speech. The next day, April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.

Let us kill the dreamer…and see what becomes of his dreams.

We know that there is no freedom without sacrifice. In reality, we all stand in the footsteps of countless, courageous unheralded leaders and followers of the civil rights movement in America. We stand on the shoulders of giants, King and countless others who sweat, bled and died to make real the promises of our democracy, so that all American children could have an equal shot to make it in this nation.

Yet, the dream of our democracy is still not yet fully achieved. We still have yet to become a nation with, “liberty and justice for all.”

Still in America, too many do not have access to decent, safe housing, adequate health care, and a thorough education. Too many still face painfully persistent poverty. Too many live in the grip of gun violence.

Too many have given up hope and too many languish in despair and confusion, and sadly, far too many suffer from short-sighted vision, or a lack of maturity or a lack of understanding of personal responsibility.

Too many in this country are filled with fear and bound by the shackles of hatred and anger and ignorance and prejudice. Too many seek only self or the opiate of fame or are consumed with greed and power.

King’s question of where do we go from here, chaos or community, is still unanswered. The story is not yet finished…

So, I say, to truly celebrate the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., we must understand the cause for which he died. More importantly, I say, we must commit to the ideals for which he lived.

This generation must keep the dream alive. Let us not be lulled into a state of inactive agitation, where we are very upset about the state of our nation, but we fail to get up and work together to do something about it.

And let us not allow our inability to do everything, undermine our determination to do something.

We are reminded of what Everett Edward Hale said: “I am only one, I cannot do everything, but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do.”

It is time for daring, determined dreamers and doers to rise again.

The change we seek must come from neighborhoods, communities and individuals all across our city, our nation and the world. It must come from us in the church, the synagogue and the mosque, on the playground and in the work place, in the classroom and in the boardroom.

King gave his life working for what he called the beloved community. My wife and I feel that to carry on the legacy of King we must work to build beloved communities, which we call, high performing communities.

Antioch can be a beloved community, it can be a healthy, caring community, it can be a prosperous community with safe streets and schools that graduate students ready for college and career.

We are one city, let us be one community.

Each day, my wife and I pray for every family and every situation here in East County, and we continuously pray for all of our young people and that we do not lose even one more of them to gangs, violence, abuse or drugs.

It is time to redefine our relationships in this community, with one another, to the Earth and to the world; to redefine the meaning of community; to feed hope, and not nurture despair; to find the courage to love and care for the peoples of the world as we love and care for our own families. It is time that each of us becomes the change we want to see in the world.

Because it:

Seems like so long since Rosa Parks just said “NO!”

and King walked down that freedom road

To remind America of the fierce urgency of the moment…

Dr. King said, “I have a dream.”

But more than that

Dr. King said, “The problem is that through our scientific genius we’ve made the world a neighborhood, but through our moral and spiritual genius,

We’ve failed to make it a brotherhood…

Tell them Dr. King

“The hour is late and the clock of destiny is ticking out…

Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.

Now is the time, to make justice a reality for all of God’s children….

For, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere…

We are are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be.”

Heal them Dr. King

Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom

by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone and we cannot turn back…

When evil men plot, good men must plan…

When evil men burn and bomb, good men must build and bind…

When evil men would seek to perpetuate an unjust status quo,

good men must seek to bring into being a real order of justice…

Teach them Dr. King

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that.

Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that…

I believe that unarmed truth & unconditional love will have the final word…

That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant…

So, let us not wallow in the valley of despair;

I say to you today my friends that in spite of all the difficulties

and the frustrations of the moment, I still have a dream!

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ I have a dream

That my four little children, will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!”

We share your dream Dr. King

This is our hope, this is the faith that moves within us…

With this faith, we will be able to transform

the jangling discords of our nation

into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood and sisterhood

With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together,

to struggle together, to go to jail together,

to stand up for freedom together…”

Knowing that our cause is just

And through our struggles, through our suffering, through our sacrifices

We will be able to make real the dream of democracy, peace, and justice

“And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city…

…this will be the day when all of God’s children

Black, Brown, and White; Jews and Gentiles; Protestants and Catholics

Will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual,

Free at last, free at last

Thank God Almighty

We are free at last!” ²

1. Thank You

©1991 Keith Archuleta

2. Black Liberation Suite

©1986 Keith Archuleta

• Including compilation of quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have A Dream” speech delivered in August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., his “Mountaintop” speech, delivered in April 1968 in Memphis Tennessee his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” written April 1963 to challenge the inaction of local clergy and from his books, including Strength to Love, Why We Can’t Wait, Stride Toward Freedom, and Where Do We Go from Here? From Chaos to Community.

  Reprinted with permission.

Jan. 14 – MLK 2012 Spoken Word Celebration
Souljahs Building, Prizes for High Schcol (HIV AIDS) and Open (Protecting Our Women & Children) divisions. 564 West 10th St., Pittsburg, 6 p.m.

Jan. 16 – City of Antioch Martin Luther King Observance
City of Antioch MLK Observance will be held at Antioch High School’s Beede Auditorium, 700 W. 18th Street, 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Jan. 16 MLK March & Celebration
A march will begin at Pittsburg City Hall at 11:15 a.m. and end at Marina Vista Elementary School. Speeches, program, awards. Program starts at noon and features information booths and special guest speaker, author Marvelyn Brown.

Jan. 16 – Martin Luther King holiday
County offices closed.

Jan. 17 – Martin Luther King Celebration
Martin Luther King Celebration at the Board of Supervisors’ chambers, 651 Pine Street in Martinez includes Humanitarian of the Year Awards, entertainment and refreshments. Starts at 11 a.m.

By Mass Communications Specialist 1st Class Elizabeth Thompson
NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan Public Affairs

KABUL – Walking around Camp Eggers, contracted linguist Rafia Yusuf is flooded with pleasant memories of the pre-soviet Kabul she grew up in, a Kabul that she hardly recognizes now.

She remembers when Camp Eggers, home to U.S. military and coalition forces at NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan (NTM-A), was a residential area where she once got a privileged glimpse of King Mohammad Zahir Shah driving his Rolls Royce through the city.

“That was a big impression on me to see the king and have him wave to me,” Yusuf said with a smile. “I think about that all the time.”

According to Yusuf, women wore European clothing and it was not unusual to travel at night to see movie without a male escort. She also had no problem getting an education, graduating from Malalai School with a degree in history and geography.

When the Soviets invaded Kabul, she witnessed a drastic change in civil liberties.

“Once Russia came over it all stopped. No one could go out. Nothing. We were just inside the houses,” remembered Yusuf. “It made me very upset. Why did these things happen? We did not know the consequences of these actions on our future and the future of the country.”

At 20, Yusuf, her husband and both of their families left Kabul. After spending four years in a camp on the border of Pakistan, they immigrated to the U.S. The family lived in Southern California for a few years and Yusuf lived in Sacramento before moving to Antioch, Calif.

Sept. 11, 2001, ignited a desire for Yusuf to return to Afghanistan even though the timing in her life was not ideal.

“My son was too young on Sept 11th to come over but since then I wanted to come,” Yusuf explained. “I do remember that I was at work, and I said to my coworkers, ‘I want to go.’”

Last year Yusuf got her chance to return. She was hired by Mission Essential Personnel (MEP) as a linguist and received an assignment to Kabul as an NTM-A interpreter. Nothing could prepare Yusuf for her return to Afghanistan. After she was picked up at the airport, her first drive through the city she once called home was described as a “shock and disappointment.”

“When I first came here they drove me through the city at night, and I saw all of the dust and the carts and poverty,” said Yusuf. “I heard the news that there were a lot of changes that happened here, and I expected a lot but not this much. This was too much … I couldn’t believe that this was the capital that I grew up in.”

That first impression did not stop her desire to be a part of positive change within Afghanistan.

“I have been here one year and now I see the coalition countries come here and try to train the military and police and work to clean up the country,” Yusuf said. “No one can blame [the Afghans] that they grew up in this situation…They need direction on how they are suppose to go.”

During Yusuf’s time with NTM-A, she has seen the Afghan government’s proactive approach to improve vehicle security and traffic by implementing advanced vehicle search techniques and plans to one day install traffic lights throughout the city.

She also comments that sanitary conditions are better throughout Kabul. When she first arrived, food vendors let fruit and meat spoil outside their shops by being exposed to the weather and pollutants from highly trafficked streets. Throughout the year, the government has worked with store keepers to improve overall health standards.

But Yusuf believes that more can be done by the government and Afghan people.

In an office of approximately 12 Afghan linguists, she is the only Afghan American. She believes that it is important for all Afghans, living in Afghanistan and abroad, to be involved in the country’s future and one-by-one people can make a difference.

“All of us cannot be the president, all of us cannot be the vice president, all of us cannot be the ministry, all of us cannot be the general; everything starts from ordinary people,” emphasized Yusuf. “Once they put hand-to-hand together and they are shoulder by shoulder; then we get victory. That’s the main thing.”

Yusuf’s coworkers enjoy sharing their experiences with her and feel comfortable asking her for personal and work related guidance.

A former Afghan National Army (ANA) dentist and now linguist for NTM-A’s Medical Command and Inspector General, Shokrya is optimistic with Yusuf’s encouragement to make positive changes within Afghanistan. Shokrya was dismissed from the ANA when her hospital tried to force her into a job she was not properly trained for and now she works with the IG who is responsible for correcting those kinds of problems within the ANA medical community.

“Sometimes when she has time, and I have time, we talk about personal issues,” said Shokrya. “She also gives us advice like Afghan people should serve their country because this is Afghanistan and Afghanistan needs improvements.”

Nabiullah, also a linguist with NTM-A, is also recovering from an IED attack that claimed the lives of four U.S. service members he considered friends while working as their interpreter in the Paktika Province. Nabiullah suffered major injuries that still affect his speech abilities, but he is very thankful to be alive, to continue working with U.S. and coalition forces and to have caring coworkers like Yusuf.

Working with other Afghan linguists, has been rewarding for Yusuf. She is glad coworkers feel comfortable enough to open up and talk with her but believes more could be done by her colleagues outside the office.

“[My Afghan colleagues] are young, educated, they can think clearly and are not scared,” stressed Yusuf. “Every day, I ask them and tell them if you guys have time, when you go home, relax a little bit and then clean up your street. This is going to start with five or six people and then grow to hundreds if they make a group or organization.”

A source of inspiration for Yusuf is a quote by Robert Frost, which was re-quoted by President Kennedy and says, “The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

Yusuf completed her one year contract with MEP in December and renewed her contract to work with NTM-A for another year. June 2011, she was presented with a certificate of appreciation from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police-Combine Training Advisor Group for her work with the Afghan National Police. December 22, she was presented with another certificate of appreciation from MEP and given a thank you letter from the company.

Currently, Yusuf is enjoying some vacation time to relax and enjoy time with her family stateside but looks forward to continuing her work in Afghanistan. She hopes one day to be a cultural advisor for the Afghan government and encourage others to work together to re-build the country.

“Everything starts from zero,” comments Yusuf about the power a community can have if people are willing to band together to create positive change. “Nothing starts from hundreds; it starts from zero and then goes to the millions.”

NTM-A is a coalition of 37 troop-contributing nations charged with assisting the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (GIRoA) in generating a capable and sustainable Afghan National Security Force ready to take lead of their country’s security by 2014.

“Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics once gave a speech and it started with “Do not be afraid.” This was the jumping off point for Guy McIntyre’s keynote speech this morning at Dow’s Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King.

McIntyre, a former offensive lineman with the San Francisco 49ers was on hand to address the community and Dow employees about Dr. King – and he did through his experience as a pro athlete.

Though sports stories were only part of his twenty-minute address (citing the difficulties faced by Jackie Robinson and others), growing as human beings took center stage. He spoke about fear, courage, love and faith, saying, “The only way to master fear is with love … perfect love,” and ending with an old English proverb, “When fear knocked on the door, love answered and there was no one there.” No doubt, his words came from experience.

But just as inpiring was the essay read by Pittsburg High School sophomore, Bianka Machado, who took first place in Dow’s annual essay contest. The contest this year focused on civility, a value that the County Office of Education is working to restore in our schools.

Specifically, the question asked of students was “How has modern technology (cell phones, social media and the Internet) impacted civility?” Machado weaved Dr. King – and his era of no cell phones, no reality television shows and no Facebook – into an expose of how we have lost sight of civility.

“Modern technology has changed civility because we’ve inherited a shyness and timidity to meet people, so we add them on Facebook,” she writes. “Dr. King would go out and meet people to understand how they felt and reach a level of formality and kindness towards each other. We demolished that with new modern day technology.”

Also part of the packed program was noted jazz saxophonist Kevin Moore, who played two selections from his new CD “The Prayer Closet.”

Dow honored Silvester Henderson, Chair of the Music Department at Los Medanos College and a professor at UC Berkeley, with Dow’s MLK Community Award, for his decades of work using gospel to unite the community. Dow also presented the Dow MLK Employee Award to employee Jamie Polan, an engineer who has been a champion of diversity in the workplace and has promoted unity not only among her colleagues but across the entire site. As her supervisor, Paul Caizzi, said, “She inpires me to not only be a better employee but a better person.”

All attendees left with a gift – a journal. On the cover of the journal was the winning artwork from Deer Valley High School senior, Karla Rosales. Her art was chosen over more than 50 submissions in Dow’s first Poster Contest, asking students to illustrate one aspect of civility.

This was Dow’s 12th annual Celebration of Dr. King and is indicative of the company’s commitment to all Dr. King espoused – respect for others, tolerance, love, acceptance, diversity and equality.

The City of Antioch and Antioch Unified School District, along with community partners and sponsors, will present the 4th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Birthday Celebration at Antioch High School Beede Auditorium on January 16th, from 1-3 PM.

The event, which grew from Antioch City Council Member Reggie Moore’s desire to celebrate Dr. King’s historical contributions, along with creating a scholarship program for high school and middle school students, began in 2009. Mayor Pro Tem, Wade Harper, will continue the celebration with the support of business and community leaders. The celebration will include local community member Keith Archuletta’s tribute to Dr. King, performances by the Delta School for the Performing Arts, DVHS Divine Voices, DVHS Show Choir. Dr. Donald Gill, AUSD Superintendent will announce the 2012 Scholarship program.

The event is sponsored by the City of Antioch, Antioch Unified School District, CCC Supervisor Federal Glover, Arts & Cultural Foundation of the City of Antioch, and Parents Connected.

___________________________________________________________________________________

BLACK HISTORY MONTH EXHBIT AT THE LYNN HOUSE GALLERY

The Black History Month Exhibit at Lynn House Gallery begins on January 21st – February 11th, and is open Wednesdays & Saturdays from 1-4 PM. The exhibit will feature past and present individuals who have contributed significantly to African American history and to American culture. The artifacts will illustrate some of their contributions. The free artist reception will be held January 21st, 2-4 PM. Admission to the gallery is free.

The Lynn House Gallery is located at 809 W. 1st Street in Antioch (across from the Amtrak Train Station) and is open Wednesdays and Saturdays, during exhibits from 1-4 PM. For more information, visit www.art4antioch.org or contact Diane Gibson-Gray at the Arts & Cultural Foundation at 925.325.9897 or e-mail Diane@art4antioch.org. Hosted by The African American Village Collaborative: Ruah Community Outreach Ministries, Inc., Parent Partners Providing for the Education of Young Children Family Solutions, Inc.