By: Luis Chacon
Province Coordinator for Volunteers

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On Friday, October 22, the 3rd Collaborative Team Meeting was held at the new Salesian parish of Santa Isabel in Boyle Heights. Representatives of the Confirmation Program from St. Mary’s, St. Isabel and some representatives from the Salesian Family Youth Center participated in this meeting. Participants included:  Fr Marcos Castillo, Mrs. Elizabeth Villanueva, Juan Carlos Montenegro, Miriam Hernandez, and Luis Chacon.

The Collaborative Team’s main objective is to join forces amongst the Los Angeles Salesian presence in terms of Youth Ministry, for this reason the first step has been a collaboration of the Confirmation Programs. The Collaborative Team has unified in the monthly organization of Youth Nights in which all young people from the confirmation programs are asked to participate.

Almost 70 young people attended the October Youth Night, most of the youth participated in the procession at St. Mary’s Parish in honor of Saint Jude Thaddeus, then they met at the Salesian Family Youth Center. There Miriam gave them a warm welcome to the second Youth Night and everyone was handed different colored halos that later helped us create teams.

Mrs. Elizabeth, using a PowerPoint, spoke on “holiness in the Church and particularly in Salesian life”. Following her presentation, we split up into groups and had a dress up contest. The contest consisted of quickly dressing up a member of each team as a Salesian saint. Each team was given a description of their saint along with a photograph. There were limited supplies to work with, so teams had to work quickly and strategize to trade items with other groups.  The creativity of the youngsters was impressive and at the end it was difficult to choose the winning team. Each team was also tasked with explaining a little about the life of their saint and identify a value they lived by.

Ending the night Juan Carlos Montenegro gave the good night, motivating young people to fight each day to achieve sanctity. He also explained a little on the history of Halloween and why we decided to make an all-saints day the theme for Youth Night.

Stay connected for news on our November Youth Night focusing on Gratitude!