The Filipino American Chamber of Commerce of Orange County, in cooperation with Southern California Edison, will hold its 6th Annual Green, Conserve and Health Expo on August 21 at Southern California Edison Energy Education Center in Irwindale.
The occasion will mark the day that green conservationists and go green adherents and advocates will take center stage and get recognized for their exemplary effort in pushing the environmentalists’ agenda. Emerald Awards will be given to the “Best Green Company (City or Entity),” Best Green Product or Service”, and “Best Conservation Program”.
Close to a dozen companies and organizations are pitching as sponsors and partners in this annual event which moved its venue from Orange County where it was traditionally held until two years ago to Los Angeles County.
Community activist, civic and religious leader, Atty. Linda Sarno, co-founder and presently Director Emeritus of the Filipino American Chamber of Commerce has been credited for FACCOC’s adoption of the go-green project a few years back, being herself also a chemist who seriously concerned with environmental issues.
Participants to the annual event were quick to join the worthwhile movement during the initial staging and saw the opportunity to put to public knowledge and consciousness their own environmental-friendly products and services as part of their contributions to the movement.
People from several sectors of the society had jumped into the bandwagon of the green movement which actually is not a recent development.
The Green Movement as we know about it today is an advocacy that has evolved since the early days. The Movement traces its origin to the intellectual thought of the 1830s and the 1840s and was part of the “American philosophical thought first developed by Transcendentalists and expanded during the era of American pragmatism in the second half of the 19th Century”. The quintessentially American Movement is a consciousness deeply rooted in American philosophy that’s “innovative and practical, idealistic and active”.
Environmentalists push the agenda of the sustainable management of resources and stewardship of the environment through changes in public policy and individual behavior and “recognizes humanity as a participants in the ecosystem where the movement is centered on ecology, health and human rights”.
The present focus on green initiatives has been triggered further by “sobering international events, catastrophic weather, visible climate change, the 9/11 and war, gas shortages and the vigorous scientific consensus that legitimized environmental concerns”.
The new consciousness has made people more aware of the problems that now become obvious everywhere they look – the chemically treated and modified food, the water contaminated with toxic chemicals, the resources running out, the wasteful habits that fill the landfills fast and the soaring gas prices. Going Green has become everybody’s concern.
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Orange County Fi-Am Church Celebrates 22nd Year
Cornerstone Christian Fellowship of Orange County celebrated its 22 years as a spiritual home to more than 100 Filipino American Christians in Southern California. The church started as a Mission outreach of Cornerstone International Christian Church in La Puente where the first assembly of about 12 people was held at the garage of one of the members in Anaheim Hills. For the next five years since the first meeting , Sunday services had been held in at least five different venues. Since 1997, services are held in the City of Fullerton.
The late Pastor Tim de Fiesta served as the first Senior Pastor of CCF. Pastor Joam Martinez now serves as the Senior Pastor.