by: ramon dacawi

A 12-MEMBER goodwill mission from Vallejo, Baguio’s sister-city in Northern California, perked up the on-going “Panagbenga” Flower Festival they came to witness by delivering redwood seedlings and seed packets of 18 flower varieties for the city’s gardens.

Mayor Reinaldo Bautista Jr. received the donation coming from the Baguio Californians when the guests called on him and other city officials Friday morning at city hall.

Mission head Kenneth Zadwick, president of the Vallejo Sister City Association, and Danilo Buan of the Vallejo Sister Commission, handed to the mayor the seed gifts of California poppy, snap dragon, zinnia, alyssum, moss rose, four o’clock, sweet William holly hock, poppy perennial, annual cut flower and California ornamental grass.

In turn, the mayor presented to the visitors copies of the city’s centennial calendar and its symbolic key and later honored them with a welcome dinner at the Baguio Country Club.

The visit was in response to the city’s invitation last September when Rep. Mauricio Domogan and city councilor Betty Lourdes Tabanda, co-chair of the local chapter of the Phjilippine Sisterhood and Twinning Association, led a similar mission to Vallejo.

With the group are home-coming Baguio couple Pete and Velma Ferrer who arrived earlier to oversee the construction of a barangay school building in Naguilian, La Union which they funded.

The school project was realized after Velma turned her birthday last year into a fund drive party. She and her husband, a retired United States Navy man, grew up in the mines of Benguet and are active partners in the “Gawad Kalinga” program of helping the homeless build their houses.

Pete, vice president of the Baguio Californians, represented Dinah Villanueva, the president of the association of Baguio-Cordillera expatriates who have resettled in the state in the West Coast.

In her greetings to mayor Bautista, Villanueva, also the chair of Vallejo’s sister city commission, said another mission led by Baguio boy and Consul General Marciano Paynor Jr. will arrive in time for Baguio’s centennial celebrations this September. .

With the current mission are Zadwick’s wife Dolores, Buan’s wife Nelly, couples Alexander and Christina Castaneda, George and Thelma Devera, Baguio Colleges Foundation Alumna Rose Mercado and Zenaida Lomboy.

Villanueva said the redwood seedlings and flower seeds are primarily dedicated to the assigned Baguio Californians’ garden plot and the Baguio-Vallejo Friendship marker to be developed at the Baguio Botanical Garden. – Ramon Dacawi.