Gawad Kalinga USA invites everyone to join the Adobo Fiesta 2012 which features the 1st Adobo cooking competition at Payag Restaurant in Queens on Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012. Actual cooking starts at 10AM while food tasting and Adobo Fiesta lunch starts at 12NN. A fiesta party follows at 1PM with guests Consul General Mario De Leon, Kirby Asunto, and many more.
At the Adobo tasting, you get to vote for the best tasting Adobo through the People’s Choice Award. Professional international chefs from Manhattan and Queens are judging the competition and the winning Adobo makes it to Payag Restaurant’s regular menu. For every sale of the winning Adobo in Payag Restaurant for 12 months, $3 goes to Gawad Kalinga.
This event is organized to build a community center and support GK programs in flood-affected communities in Mindanao.
Hurry! Limited slots only! For tickets and reservations, please e-mail the following:
Zenya@gk-usa.org
Onnie@gk-usa.org or call (212) 594 8289 or text (347) 432 2171.
Maraming Salamat po at Mabuhay ang bayaning Pinoy!!
PRESS RELEASE
October 23, 2012
Payag Restaurant pledges $12,000 to Gawad Kalinga
New York City – In a visit to New York City on October 17, 2012, Gawad Kalinga father and founder,
Antonio “Tony” Meloto, witnessed the signing of a memorandum of agreement between Gawad Kalinga
(GK) USA and Payag Restaurant, a popular Filipino restaurant in Queens, for a multi-year commitment to
support programs of Gawad Kalinga. Payag Restaurant will raise funds in the next three years for Gawad
Kalinga and will initially build a community center in the flood-affected city of Iligan in the Philippines
worth $12,000 and will continue to support programs of Gawad Kalinga in the United States.
GK USA, with its mission of “inspiring heroic action while rising to the challenge of nation building,”
continues to move forward promoting partnerships and collaborations with Filipino and Filipino
American organizations, student associations, socio-civic organizations and private institutions to fulfill a
vision of “a world where the spirit of bayanihan lives.” Bayanihan, or heroic act, is an inherent trait
among Filipinos manifested through the values of caring and sharing. GK USA aims to reawaken this
spirit of communality which continues to build Filipinos as a strong and resilient race. Through its
programs, GK USA re-introduces bayanihan to second and third generation of Filipino Americans.
Sharing the same vision and objectives with GK USA, Payag Restaurant agreed to enter into a causerelated marketing campaign which features the popular Filipino dish “Adobo.” For every purchase of
the “Adobo” from Payag Restaurant’s menu starting November 2012, $3 goes to Gawad Kalinga.
Payag Restaurant had started its fundraising activities this fall for Gawad Kalinga. Its maiden project was
the Bulad Festival in early October and the first Adobo cooking competition on October 28, 2012, in
celebration of the Filipino-American History Month. The Adobo cooking competition is the main
highlight of the Adobo Fiesta 2012, the first of an annual event jointly organized by GK USA and Payag
Restaurant. The competition is open to professional and non-professional cooks. The winning Adobo
recipe will be featured in Payag Restaurant’s menu for at least twelve months and the winning Adobo
cook gets royalties.
GK USA, the official representative of Gawad Kalinga in the United States likewise supports a new
program, the “Bayani Campaign,” a program originally crafted through a consortium of Filipino American
organizations including the Fil-Am youth in California which primarily aims to awaken the Filipino
identity. GK USA will reach out to the Filipino community and collaborate with Filipino organizations in
the tri-State area and support the development and organization of the Bayani Campaign. With the
primary aim of raising awareness among Filipinos born and raised in the United States about the
essence of being a Filipino, the campaign highlights the bayanihan spirit. One of the activities of the
Bayani Campaign is the Bayani Tour, which aims to bring Filipino Americans to the Philippines not only
to see the beauty of the motherland but also to experience the beauty of the Filipino people in a fun
way.
Meloto is in the United States to open more partnerships in GK’s continued search for modern-day
bayanis (heroes). He attended a series of speaking engagements in Chicago and North Carolina to push for further collaborations for social entrepreneurship with school and community-based organizations at
the onset of the booming Asian economy. Gawad Kalinga, with its thrust of wealth creation among third
world economies, recently received the 2012 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford from
The Skoll Foundation, the world’s largest foundation for social entrepreneurship.
