Page 14 - Mid Valley Times 1-28-21 E-edition

Thursday, January 28, 2021 | A14 | Mid Valley TiMes
DHS cheer team part of 'Dance Across America'
Angelica Quintana / Photos Contributed
ABOVE: Dinuba High School cheer squad members who participated in the "Dance Across America" video: Alena Garver (Front center), Apple Martinez, Ayerium Lopez, Briana Nava, Elaina Mecias, Ali- yah Subia, Sienna Gonzales, Monica Gonzalez, Yvonne Cortez, Emily Martinez and Dezi Garcia. Head coach for the team is Angelica Quintana while assistant coach is Sierra Gonzales (both not pictured).
UPPER RIGHT: The cheer squad is in the upper left corner of group videos in "Dance Across America." RIGHT: The DHS cheer squad completes a maneuver while shooting their submitted video on Jan. 8.
'DANCE' VIDEO Continued from page A1
by Kenny Ortega, most re- nowned for directing the Emmy Award-winning "High School Musical."So how did Dinuba High get involved? Credit sophomore cheerlead- er Alena Garver, an accom- plished celebrity dancer in her own right who has per- formed as a member of the LA SparKids dance crew.
Alena said she saw the re- quest for auditions for the vid- eo, which is set to the 1960's
Martha & The Vandellas re- cording of "Dancing In The Streets." While tempted to en- ter herself, she was inspired to get her fellow cheer squad team members involved as well.
"I really wanted to bring my friends and the team into this," she said of the audition, which took place nearly three weeks ago.
After meeting together and working out a routine to the song, the team went into the track area and stands sur- rounding Claud Hebert Field
in the Dinuba High stadium. They recorded their video in a short time on Jan. 8, and sent it off to the "Dance Across America" producers by 9 p.m. that night. The next day, Garver had heard back from the producers saying that they liked the video and were con- sidering using them.
When they saw their video in the final presentation, it was a thrill to all involved. The DHS squad can be seen at the 2:40 mark in the upper left cor- ner of nine performing team videos, and eventually blended
into a video image in the shape of a large American flag.
"It was crazy, especially to see how many videos were sent in from all over," Garver said.
Angelica Quintana, the cheer team's coach and ad- viser, said it was exciting to see the finished project and expressed pride for the squad standing tall and making an impact during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I'm so happy for them, especially because the girls haven't had the opportunity
to cheer and participate in school activities," she said.
Quintana said the team is allowed to have practices while doing temperature checks and following COVID guidelines. While the team can't do physical stunts in- volving interaction, they are able to do dance numbers.
"It worked out perfect," Quintana said. "It's just so good to have this, and it's so important for their fundamen- tal health."
The video can be accessed online at youtube.com.
Kings River Conservation District gets $300,000 grant
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The Kings River Conser- vation District (KRCD) last week was awarded $300,000 by the California Department of Conservation (DOC) to fund two part-time watershed coor- dinator positions. The funding will allow important work to be carried out related to long- term drinking water solutions and groundwater quality in the Kings River region covering portions of Fresno, Kings and Tulare counties.
KRCD's Watershed Coordi- nators will work to provide safe drinking water to residents, re- duce nitrate contamination into groundwater, and identify ways to restore groundwater quality where reasonable and feasible.
The California Department of Conservation (DOC) re- ceived 26 competitive grant ap- plications totaling $7.5 million with only $1.5 million of avail- able funding. KRCD was one of five watershed coordinator grants awarded by the DOC on Jan. 19 to organizations around
the state.
A watershed coordinator is
a position the state funds for a local government or non-profit to work with local stakeholders and downstream beneficiaries. Their work is centered around the ability to leverage local re- lationships and understandings, to build broad and trusting co- alitions across a watershed and to cultivate a shared vision of progress.
Established by legislation in 2014 and managed by the De- partment of Water Resources
(DWR), the Sustainable Ground- water Management Act is Cali- fornia’s framework for sustain- able groundwater management. SGMA requires governments and water agencies that over- lie high- and medium-priority basins to halt overdraft and bring pumping and recharge of groundwater basins into bal- ance.
Staff from the Department of Conservation’s Division of Land Resource Protection co- ordinated with DWR in devel- oping the grant program.
COUNCIL Continued from page A1
what we learned from the first round,” Chapa said.
“One of the things that we realized is that within the group of ap- proved applicants and maybe one or two of the approved grants, is that it appeared that the busi- ness was not a full time business.”
Chapa also added that the recent requirements were more of an appro- priate use of the funds that they felt would help the small business own-
ers in Sanger who rely on their business as their only income.
“Where really they are committed full time,” he said. “This is their bread and butter.”
Another change to the program Chapa said would be to exclude busi- nesses who have violated the state’s executive or- ders.
“The intent of the program is to deal with COVID-19 and to reward a business who is not in compliance is probably not appropriate,” he said. “Not to say that any of the original applicants or the awarded applicants were
in that category but that is just something that made us think.”
He also said that the city is trying to reach out and help as many busi- nesses and they can, and they would reach out to
the first round of grant recipients to see if they were still eligible.
“It really was a ran- dom lottery system once we had the list of eligible folks,” he said. “I think we facetimed live the
selection process so that everyone could see this to the best of our ability.”
Chapa concluded by saying they hoped to have funding out to the eligible businesses by the end of March.
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