About twenty classes graduating in 1989 are preparing to celebrate a collective ‘senior prom’ with the purpose of remembering the good times and embracing those they have not seen for more than three decades.
The long-awaited meeting will take place on Saturday, June 15 at Vivo Beach Club starting at 9:00 p.m., as part of the Junte Boricua initiative, when the lights go out to give way to the tremendous party with the music that They enjoyed their high school years.
The call includes hundreds of graduates from the public and private system who made their lives on the island, and will receive former students who went to the United States to study, work and raise their respective families outside the Puerto Rican archipelago.
According to the creator of this special meeting, Pedro Zorrilla, main Executive Officer of GFR Media and graduate of Colegio San Ignacio de Loyola, to date about 17 schools have joined that were interested in participating in this event.
“I believe that the Junte Boricua project is promoting meetings among people. This is a project that each one can adopt, a group of friends who graduated from different schools 35 years ago, we have been able to get together, become seniors again, be 18 years old again and celebrate our ‘senior prom 1989’”, revealed.
“It is 35 years later, but we are still young and we like to share, because many of our fellow alumni live outside of Puerto Rico and plan to travel to the island, thanks to the invitation that Junte Boricua makes so that we can connect. “We are going to celebrate that great night of high school graduation celebration, all together once again,” he confessed.
To set the mood for the evening, “we are going to celebrate with music that we enjoyed in ’89.”
“Juan Luis Guerra and his group 4:40 started when we were seniors and we are going to have the tribute that night. We all like salsa at the ‘seniors prom’ and there we are going to have the tribute to Marc Anthony and we are going to have DJ music from the 80’s,” he highlighted.
Zorrilla commented that, to date, 17 schools have joined, including Academia San José, Puerto Rican Girls’ School, María Reina Academy, Perpetual Help Academy, Marist School, San José School and San Ignacio de Loyola School.
Likewise, graduates from Saint John’s School, Baldwin School of Puerto Rico, Robinson School, Colegio Rosa-Bell, American Military Academy, Colegio La Piedad, Colegio Nuestra Señora del Pilar and Colegio San Felipe de Arecibo, among others, would participate.
“Our expectation is that the event will have between 2,500 and 2,600 people. We plan to have 20 to 25 schools participating; about 50 or 60 couples per class, in a comfortable environment in Isla Verde, facing the sea, outdoors, a large platform, good music and many people of the same age that we shared when we were young,” he said.
“We want to get together, share and celebrate together this summer of Junte Boricua. We have so many things in common in life and we long to live it again. “This is about friends inviting friends, which is the beauty of Junte Boricua,” she expressed.
For Diana Batlle Barasorda, a graduate of the Puerto Rican Girls’ School (CPN) in Guaynabo, “it is a very good opportunity because in the case of my class, more than 50% of the people live outside of Puerto Rico, due to different situations.”
“This opportunity gives them that space to meet with people they haven’t seen in decades. But it also gives the opportunity to those who are away most of their time because they made their life there, to come and meet everyone who was part of their high school years and the people with whom we shared,” mentioned the 52 year old lawyer.
“In our case, I am hopeful that the response will be good. I am very excited to be able to meet many people that I do not see as regularly as I would like. “I am very excited,” she outlined.
For his part, the merchant Cándido Alfonso, a graduate of the Marist College, admitted that, “the idea has been cool, and so far a success with the selection of all those we have summoned to come.”
“Our generation has seen many people from different classes who have left Puerto Rico; some who went to study abroad and stayed, or who later left when they had a family. The Junte, more than anything, is opening the door for many of them to return and catch up,” said the 52-year-old man.
“We want to know how everyone is doing, how things have gone with the family, those of us who have families, how things have gone professionally, but, above all, we want them to come back and hear more stories from those of us who haven’t seen each other for 20 or 30 years.” years, in many cases, and how things have gone for us here on the island and perhaps, to a certain extent, that they consider returning and evaluating the options of coming to Puerto Rico again,” he expressed.
While Lilly Oronoz Rodríguez from the San José Academy in Villa Caparra, agreed with the other interviewees that a large part of her former classmates reside in the United States.
“The reality is that this is an effort that is included in the larger effort that GFR Media is making with Junte Boricua, to bring the diaspora community living in the United States. But in terms of the ‘prom’ I think it is a super nice opportunity to remember our experiences,” said the lawyer by profession.
“It is a great opportunity for those people who live abroad to reconnect with their roots, to rediscover Puerto Rico and to share with those who have been far from their homeland and who were so important in our formative years,” he argued.
For details: 787-648-5655.
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