Picnics

                           By Louise Sako        

Plans are presently being made for a tri-church (Watsonville, Monterey, and Salinas) picnic to be held on October 2 at Toro Park.

It was sometime ago that I remember the last Westview Church picnic I attended was held at the Royal Oaks Park in Monterey County. Many members from Salinas Presbyterian Church joined us then. In 1993, the last JACL Senior Center joint (Gods) picnic was held in Monterey with seniors from Monterey, Salinas, Gilroy-Morgan Hill and Watsonville. With many Isseis passing and aging, interest in this picnic declined and was discontinued.

The only one in existence now is the community picnic held yearly by the Watsonville-Santa Cruz JACL at the Aptos Village Park. Participated by everyone are the varied activities including races, bingo, raffle, etc. The seniors are treated royally on arrival with doughnuts and coffee, are first in line for lunch, have special parking privileges and many, many bingo prizes. Attendance by the seniors was down this year due to aging, too. Special attendance was by the Rev. Dan Hoffman and his family who actively enjoyed participating in the day’s festivities.

The community is indebted year after year to all the work performed by the Sanseis and Yonseis. In retrospect, the Issei tradition of picnics is faithfully carried on by these dedicated volunteers.

These photos were taken at the Watsonville-Santa Cruz JACL picnic June 26th, 2010 at the Aptos Village Park.