SA Life Festival Advance
San Antonians live, learn, laugh, and love at the first AARP Life Festival, May 15-16, 2009.
Source: AARP.org
Novelist Sandra Cisneros was the featured speaker in the session, "A Woman too Young to Be Old," during the San Antonio Life Festival. Photo © Ray Santisteban
A performance by the Grammy Award-winning band Los Lobos capped off the Life Festival on May 16.
Soccer commentator Jorge Ramos addressed the session, "Living a Better Life," on Saturday afternoon.
Three-time Grammy Award winners Los Lobos will highlight the AARP Life Festival in San Antonio this weekend, May 15 and 16. The band's appearance will serve as Saturday’s closing ceremony for the first in a series of “Life Festivals” events created by AARP to expand the organization's reach to African Americans and Hispanic Americans.
The Festival's workshops and clinics focus on health care and financial well being—areas of great concern to Hispanic Americans 50 and older. A job fair for older workers and free health screenings will accompany generous doses of celebrity appearances and top musical entertainment.
Featured speakers include Sandra Cisneros, the writer best known for her acclaimed novel, “The House on Mango Street”; Carmen Marc Valvo, a fashion designer, cancer survivor, and healthy living advocate; Jorge Ramos, ESPN Deportes sports commentator; Henry G. Cisneros, former mayor of San Antonio; and Dr. Ana Fuentevilla, medical director for the national support team of Evercare—one of the nation’s largest health-coordination programs for people with long-term or advanced illnesses, seniors and persons with disabilities.
Daytime festival activities will include an interactive “marketplace” on the exhibit floor, featuring a range of activities sponsored by approximately 100 national and local businesses and organizations. Among the activities: “Painting Across Generations,” cosponsored by the Museo Alameda, in which children 12 and younger paint a portrait of a grandparent for display in the “marketplace.”
Music will unite the generations on both nights. The Friday evening concert will include performances by Lush (headed by noted Tejano singer and Grammy Award-nominee, Stefani Montiel), Las Voces de Tejas (The Voices of Texas, an all-female, Grammy Award-nominated mariachi supergroup) and the Grammy Award-winning Tejano artists David Lee Garza and Los Musicales.
Some 5,000-7,500 people of all ages are expected to attend the event at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. UnitedHealth Group has signed on as the premier sponsor for the AARP Life Festival. The Festival is free to all AARP members and only $10 for non-members age 40+. Non-members’ admission includes a one-year AARP membership, a $16 value. Tickets for the evening concerts can be purchased for an additional fee; they are available on a first-come, first-served basis.
AARP will also host a Life Festival with Chicago’s African American community on June 5-6. Information and online preregistration for both events is available online here.
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