The Puerto Rican Festival, Inc. (PRFI) has recently immersed its hand in the event planning arena. By this I mean we are starting to broaden our scope, still maintaining our brand and cultural integrity. Earlier this year, the PRFI hosted its first Parranda called “Trulla Navideña”. For those people reading my blog that are not familiar with a parranda, it has been described by some as Puerto Rican caroling. FUN!!! The event, which included Pedro Nuñez y su Conjunto band, was held last January at the Flat Iron Café and it was very successful. So successful we are looking for a larger venue for this year’s event. In addition, we conducted a similar event at the newly built Ryan Center at school #33. The event targeted kids and educated them on the traditions, music, and instruments used during parrandas. The turnout was great and we had kids of all ages and ethnic backgrounds participate.
In addition, we held our very fist wine tasting event at the Strathallan Hotel back in June. We paired different wines with Puerto Rican Cuisine and let me tell you folks, we sold out. We had limited availability (100 was the max we were allowed). We sold 100 tickets in 2 days. The event was extremely successful and we had a great time and learned a lot about what wines to pair with empanadas, carne frita and flan. Prior to the event, the networking hour offered the opportunity to begin tasting other wines available.
In conjunction with Executive Jibaritos we hosted a networking function at Tapas in July. We encouraged men to wear guayaberas and women to wear flowers in their hair. What a great way to network with our Latino professionals. We awarded weekend passes to the festival for the top 3 men with guayaberas and 3 females with the best flower.
It is our intention to develop unique and fun cultural events to share with our community. We have some ideas brewing that well for now I will keep to myself. But we want to hear what you have to say. Is there something you would like to see? Something fun and unique and not seen in Rochester? We are open to suggestions and welcome them anytime.
And stay tuned people; we have some fun stuff coming up soon…
