WEPA starting year strong with Three Kings Day celebration and plans for complete remodel

After being canceled for two years due to the pandemic, Rafael and Maribel Torres have finally been able to host the Three Kings Celebration the way they had always wanted to — surrounded by the community in their new building.

What is the Three Kings celebration?

Three Kings Day, which marks the 12th day of Christmas and is sometimes known as Epiphany, is a holiday that celebrates the three wise men who traveled through the desert bearing gifts for baby Jesus.

The holiday is celebrated widely in South America, Spain and other parts of Europe. Rafael Torres said to think of it as Christmas before it became the dominantly celebrated holiday.

Now, he said, it denotes for many the time when families begin putting away their Christmas decorations.

"We want to make sure that people here that have not had the chance to celebrate it in our home countries or home islands at least get an aspect of it here in the U.S.," Torres said. "It just makes for a chance to be able to have a sit-down dinner, to just enjoy family activities and not just about receiving a gift but giving each other the time and opportunities to learn about each other."

For the two years that WEPA wasn’t permitted to host the event, they had continued to take donated presents from groups and individuals from the Lebanon area.

The event was held on Saturday, Jan. 7; doors opened at 5 p.m.

Torres said that enough people had RVSP’d this year that the building was at capacity.

For the event, the Torres’ transformed their building. A room was set up for children to receive presents, another was set up for children to decorate shoe boxes intended to represent food for the camels, and others were set up to display depictions of the nativity.

The social hall was set up for a large catered dinner and a band from Reading played traditional Puerto Rican music.

What's next for WEPA?

In a way, Torres explained, this event represented more than just the holiday itself. Part of hosting it was to let community members in Lebanon know that WEPA was here for them, and to kick off a big year for the organization, which includes totally remaking their building and opening up their education programs.

Currently, WEPA is meeting with architects, making plans on how the building at 9 South 9th St. should be remodeled to better fit their needs.

The building was acquired by WEPA last year.

In their current vision, several rooms will be turned into classrooms and one as a community support group area. The social hall, the biggest space in the building that's being used by local community organizations to stage events, will be divided up into six classrooms.

They will also be remodeling the bathrooms to meet ADA requirements and installing an elevator.

Torres said that he hopes to begin the construction sometime around spring.

The intended purpose for all of these classrooms spaces is to help Lebanon City residents with all kinds of training and to connect them with the resources that they need.

Torres intends to hold ESL classes for the Spanish-speaking population to include highly technical English training to help those that have skilled labor or technical experience but lack the language skills to work in those fields.

"So a lot of skilled laborers that are already here, already have the training, already have the education, but it doesn't transfer over," Torres said. "It transfers over to New York, easily, Texas and Florida."

Torres said that WEPA is working to remove some of the barriers that hinder the growing Spanish-speaking community, which will allow them to use the skills that they already have. Part of this vision is making Pennsylvania comparable with states with similarly growing populations in terms of support and outreach.

Those spaces will also be used for GED classes, job placement programs and community navigation support.

Once the building is remodeled and the social room is split up, WEPA will no longer be able to host large events in the building, but intends to hold events like Three Kings Day at larger locations like the Eagles Banquet Hall on 8th Street.

Daniel Larlham Jr. is a reporter for the Lebanon Daily News. Reach him at DLarlham@LDNews.com or on Twitter @djlarlham

This article originally appeared on Lebanon Daily News: WEPA hosts three kings day celebration