RECENT EVENTS

CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS, February 23, 2008

Under the Dragon: friends and relatives are invited to be "dragon legs" to help our dragon come to our Chinese New Year Celebration and Fundraiser. It takes 27 people plus 3-5 drummers to let our dragon dance.

Round fruit to symbolize wholeness, incense for spirituality, flowers for renewal, friends to ensure good luck. Everyone who chooses is able to participate in our Traditional Chinese New Year activities.

Backstage, our youngest dancers eagerly await the beginning of our festivities.

In the kitchen, Kevin Ablett (back) and his son Garrick (left) move so fast, all is a blur. Our food is delivered by a caterer, and then prepared for our buffet style serving.

Buy your raffle tickets from Linda, or any of the other raffle tickets salespeople. Get a single ticket, lots of tickets or a body wrap. Our raffle prizes included a trip to Disneyland, food, wine, manicure, restaurant dinners and many, many more wonderful, donated treasures.

From the stage, looking down, we can see the silent auction table with its interesting items for bidding, and the many people interested in being the highest bidders. At the second table, our governmental dignitaries were seated. Center right, Santa Rosa Mayor Bob Blanchard chats with past mayor, Janet Bender. Other officials in attendance included City Councilman Lee Pierce, Sonoma County District Attorney Stephen Passalaqua, and Sonoma County Office of Education District Superintendent, Dr. Carl Wong, who helped serve our food.

RECA's Member of the Year 2008 Lily Kwan's art table is always popular. She will write your name in calligraphy.

Our special guest at the crafts table was Henry Kaku, master of origami. He was assisted by college students from SSU and by Joyce James and her son, Andrew. In the background are posters from the language classes.

Our special entertainment was Changing Face artist. In the second half of the program, he did a magic show.

Our youngest students are always a smash hit. For the Year of the Rat, they all became mice, watched over by the cat, teacher's aide, Sophia Freed. Watching over all was the God of Good Fortune, played by David Chung, with a costume loaned by River Rock Casino.

We were all astounded at the beautiful music of our special guests, The Six Golden Flowers Gu Zhang Ensemble from San Francisco with RECA member, Wanda Wang, top center.

Our ever-popular lions finished our entertainment in grand style. Other acts included students and instructors from Li's Tai Chi Acadamy, Children’s Umbrella Dance, RECA Adult Chorus, Teen Xin Jiang Dancers, Adult Fan Dancers, Jr. Martial Arts by Alex and Derick Baldi, Ribbon Dance with Meesha and Savanah Heydon.