ACYO Blog

Burbank Chapter's "Survivor's Walk"

Anna Arakelyan — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Burbank ACYO organized its first annual Silent Walk. The purpose of this walk was to provide a new perspective and deeper understanding of the suffering of genocide victims by walking 15 miles in a desert. Through the walk the youth was enriched with a better understanding of who they are as Armenian "survivors". The participants met at the Diocese at 7:00a.m on April 24, 2010.

There were 20 members including Fr. Avedis Abovyan. We also had Deacon Guj Khachikyan with us, driving the support car. When we reached the destination of the walk, Desert in Lancaster, Fr. Avedis began with a motivating speech that would help keep the youth focused on what they were really there for. He encouraged the youth to think about who they are as Armenian survivors while there were putting their each step. The participants were not talking and thus concentrating on the purpose of the walk. After walking for about approximately 7 miles continuously the youth stopped for a lunch break and a few minutes of relaxation.

Throughout the walk the cargo van was available about every mile or so for water. After continuing for another 7 or 8 miles the participants reached their destination at about 6:00 p.m. After struggling to put up the tents dinner arrived. Later, the youth huddled in a tent to have the discussion and reflections on how they felt about surviving the walk and how that paralleled to the people in deportation marches of genocide. They also reflected on how being a Christian meant that we need to have a "survivor" mentality and eliminate the "victim" mentality of hatred.

At proximately 7:30 a.m. the following morning the cars were loaded up once again and headed toward St. Peters Church in Glendale where during Badaraq the group was united with another group that was doing a 30 hour famine. After receiving Holy Communion everyone had a breakfast served by the church and the day was completed by taking pictures with Archbishop Hovnan Derderian. Though all of the participants were in pain they enjoyed the event and hoped to repeat it next year.

St. James, Los Angeles "Lock-In"

Ani Khatchadourian — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

On Saturday, April 17th at 7pm, under the spiritual leadership of His Eminence Archbishop Hovnan Derderian and Fr. Arshag Khatchadourian, the St. James Junior ACYO hosted its first annual "Lock-In", with participants from St. Gregory, Pasadena and Burbank chapters who enjoyed a night of fun, fellowship, and education.

Fr. Arshag Khatchadourian led an interactive translation of the 4 components of Badarak, where ACYO members learned about the priest's religious attire on the altar, a synopsis of Badarak, and enthusiastically participated in a question/answer session following the demonstration.

Following the educational portion of the evening, ACYO members enjoyed each other's company in Dulgarian Hall overnight and in the morning entered the church to light a candle and say a prayer. St. James Junior ACYO thanks the Burbank and St. Gregory, Pasadena chapter for their participation and look forward to hosting next year's 2nd Annual Southern Regional "Lock-In"!

Junior Retreat 2010

Liana Grigorians — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 00:00:00 -0700

On the weekend of March 19-21^st, ACYO youth from all three regions gathered at Hye Camp located in Dunlap, CA for our annual Junior Retreat. With about 35 junior participants and senior counselors in attendance, the group enjoyed beautiful scenery, fellowship, as well as educational lectures conducted by Der Avedis Abovian. The theme for the weekend, “Keeping our faith in a doubtful society,” focused on living our lives as Christians, discussed evolution, as well as answered questions from all ACYO members. During free time, members enjoyed great food, participated in a camp hike, and played games. Saturday evening all participants headed to the camp fire for a couple hours of storytelling, games, fellowship, and smores. In the end, all attendees had a great time and learned more about their faith. The ACYO Central Council was thrilled with the participation and turnout for this year’s Junior Retreat and can only hope for great memories in the years to follow.

2nd Annual ACYO Leadership Conference

Fri, 05 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0800

On February 19-20^th, ACYO members from all three regions gathered for our Annual ACYO Leadership Conference in Fresno, CA. With roughly 45 members in attendance, the main focus for the weekend were resource management and fundraising, which are two key objectives in all ACYO chapters. Some topics that these professionals from World Vision conducted during the lectures and workshops were:

- What motivates donors

Personal Investment Sheets
Social Networking
What makes fundraising fun
Creating budgets

During the course of the workshops, chapters broke down into groups and created advertisement collages and a special commercial with the tools they learned from the various lectures. With the educational information that was taught from these professional speakers, we are confident that these ACYO chapters will be able to successfully fundraise for future events, as well as create new, inventive ways for advertising. The ACYO-WD Central Council was very pleased with the turnout for the Leadership Conference, and hope that it will only get better in the future.

Respectfully submitted,

Liana Grigorians

St. Mary's Manti Night

Nora Barin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0800

On Saturday February 6^th, St Mary’s ACYO sponsored an evening of food and fun, Manti Night. Our very own members, along with some helpful parent volunteers prepared the manti the week before the event took place. Along with hand-made manti, guests enjoyed spending time with family and friends. With about 140 adults and youth that came out to support ACYO, the event was completely sold out, making Manti Night an amazing first fundraiser to start off the year. The first Manti night for St. Mary’s ACYO was a great success, and will hopefully be remembered and repeated for the years to come.

Burbank Christmas/New Year's Party

Anna Arakelyan — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The event began with an encouraging speech from Fr. Khajag. Through his speech we where reminded the true meaning and the significance of celebrating Christmas. Shortly after, we began to play games that where successful in making the atmosphere warmer and bringing the guests together. We played musical chairs but instead of sitting when the music stopped the contestants where told to retrieve a specific object, the last person to come back was disqualified. Some others games where the best dancing couple, mummy game, and bobbing for apples. The night was followed by dancing and more bonding. Some guests included members from St. Gregory's Pasadena chapter and St. Mary's Costa Mesa. The main purpose of this even was to strengthen the friendship between the members and motivate others to join ACYO. The event was a success and we are hoping for it to be even bigger and better next year. We are really thankful to the bakeries that donated food and everyone that came and helped us benefit from this event.

Anna Arakelyan

Burbank Chairlady

St. Mary, Yettem "Lock-In"

Liana Grigorians — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

To start off the fiscal ACYO-WD year, Central Council held their first meeting/retreat up at Hye Camp in Dunlap, California. After a long, effective meeting we joined St. Mary Yettem ACYO for their first winter lock-in, co-hosted with St. Gregory Fowler and St. Paul Fresno. With about 30-40 members in attendance from various ACYO groups, we gathered and enjoyed fellowship the entire evening. The youth spent time watching Der Vartan's educational Etchmiadzin video, enjoying great food made by the parents, playing different games, such as Uno and Mafia, and watching movies throughout the night. The following morning, we participated in St. Mary Yettem's Badarak and fellowship following. With Der Vartan's blessing, St. Mary Yettem has decided to make this an annual Winter Lock-in event, open to all ACYO chapters to participate in. Let's all take the effort to participate next year and make it a successful event!

Liana Grigorians
Central Council Publicity Director

St. John SF Senior ACYO- Up and Coming

Carmen Kestekyan — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The Senior ACYO of St. John Armenian Church, San Francisco, has come a long way over the past decade. As juniors, we strived to plan activities and fundraisers to incorporate the church community in our mission. Our group was small in numbers, but strong in spirit. Eventually, some of our members went off to college outside the Bay Area while the rest of us continued to participate at St. John. Some members served on the Holy Altar while others sang in the choir, but no official ACYO group was organized for the seniors.

In the past couple of months, some members have come together to start up a Senior Chapter at our Church. With the leadership of Charles Cherezian, Steven Cherezian, Sossi Iacovides, Haig Sujohn, and myself, we were able to put some activities together even without being known at a Diocesan level. This past November and December, our members held an annual toy drive benefiting the UCSF Children’s Hospital. We asked parishioners to help us by donating new toys, games, or giving us monetary donations. With the monetary donations, we purchased toys and necessary items for infants, children, teens, and parents. Through our efforts, we collected over $800 in toys, games, and supplies. This was by far the most successful toy drive we have held at our Church. In mid December, we were able to continue our tradition from our junior years and get a group of us together to have our annual Pier 39 Christmas outing. This was followed by giant ice cream sundaes at Ghirardelli Square. We look forward to this event every year.

In the coming weeks, our newly founded Senior ACYO will be meeting with our parish priest, Fr. Diran Avagyan, to come up with a calendar of events for the upcoming year. We hope to continue making an impact both on the local level in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as the Diocesan level, as we grow and become leaders of the Armenian Church.

CYMA Applications Available Online

Tatiana Semerjian — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:00:00 -0800

The CYMA 2010 Application is now posted on the CYMA-WD website under "Important Links"!
http://apply.cyma-wd.org/pilgrimage.php

The deadline for all application materials (including the essay and the initial deposit) is March 1, 2010. The written part of the application can be submitted online and the initial deposit of $1000 and a copy of your passport must be mailed to Sarah Mergeanian at 26135 Tono Mission Viejo CA 92692 for the application to be considered complete.

The final deposit will be due on April 10, 2010. The final cost of the trip is not yet finalized, but through fundraising, CYMA hopes to keep it under $3500, as it has been in past years.

This year’s CYMA trip is a four-week pilgrimage held during the moth of July, where participants will spend three weeks living in a house in the heart of Yerevan and one week living with home-stay families while completing a service project in the city of Gyumri. Participants will not only travel to spiritually and culturally significant landmarks, but they will also have the opportunity to get acquainted with contemporary Armenian society.

There will be an informational meeting on January 23, 2010 at 11AM at the Western Diocese Headquarters (3325 Glenoaks Blvd, Burbank, CA 91504). At this meeting, the CYMA Executive Committee will provide more information on this year’s mission and will answer any questions potential participants and their family members may have about the trip. We strongly encourage ALL applicants to attend this meeting.

Because all participants will be living in a single house, spots for this year’s trip are limited. As a result, the committee will carefully evaluate each application. To secure placement, it is important that you submit your application no later than the posted deadline. Also, we strongly advise you to take the essay portion of the application seriously. The committee is looking for individuals who show a passion for experiencing Armenia and contributing to the spiritual dynamic of the trip.

If you have any more questions about the trip or if you are unable to attend the informational meeting, please contact any member of the committee.

Summary of Important Dates:
January 23, 2010—11:00 AM: CYMA Informational Meeting at the Diocese
March 1, 2010—CYMA Applications and Deposit Due to Sarah Mergeanian
April 10, 2010—Orientation and Final Payment Due at the Diocese
June 19, 2010—11:00 AM Final Orientation at the Diocese
July 1, 2010-July 30, 2010—Duration of the trip

Keep up with CYMA 2009 in Armenia

Sarah — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Hello to everyone out there in the Blogosphere! CYMA 2009 is in full effect and posting pictures and stories online. Blogs to come out soon, but in the mean time if you haven't already, check out our Flickr page with a 100s of photos from CYMA 2009:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cymawd

Here are two great group shots:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cymawd/3687604452/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cymawd/3687609432

Don't forget to check out our facebook page:
www.facebook.com/CYMAWD

And of course keep up with us on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/CYMAWD

Stay tuned for much more!