Page 60 - Sonoma County Gazette April 2017

Out of Breath...
Immediate Need
We need help with our goal to engage people in Climate awareness & action in Sonoma Co. Communications website support. Volunteer outreach. Legislative action. Event organizing. Fund raising. Experience is great but not necessary. We work in teams for support and fun! choex@sbcglobal.net or 350sonomacounty@gmail.com 707 484- 9355
We're in dire need of a Meals on Wheels Driver in the Rio Nido Guerneville area on Wednesdays. Time frame would be from 10:45 12:30p Free background check required. Contact Michele Leonard at 525-0143 x 147
NEW opportunities for 12 and 13 year olds: Become a Junior Volunteer Charles M. Schulz Museum, Junior Volunteers complete an application process, attend a required training, and, if chosen, select 2 or more classes in which to help during the year. Junior Volunteers will receive training, mentoring, reviews and evaluations, and the chance to develop leadership skills while working with younger campers. Apply here. Application fee is $30 for members; $50 for non-members. Charles M. Schulz Museum, 2301 Hardies Ln, Santa Rosa, CAschulzmuseum. org 707-579-4452
By Date:
Mar 29 - Face 2 Face Speaker’s Bureau Training for Non-educators- We will be hosting a free training where you will become equipped with the tools to present the content of our free HIV prevention education series to students in Sonoma County middle and high schools. 2-4p, f2f.org/become-a- speakers-bureau-health-educator/
Apr 4 Face 2 Face Speaker’s Bureau Training for Educators- We will be hosting a free training where you will become equipped with the tools to present the content of our free HIV prevention education series to students in Sonoma County middle and high schools. 3-4:30p, f2f.org/become-a- speakers-bureau-health-educator/
thru - Apr 7 ~ Petaluma Rebuilding Together Needs 200 Volunteers for April 22 Workday Register to help rebuild Petaluma homes by April 7 - Workday is: 8:30 - 3:30pm All of the homes we will be improving are owned by very low income veterans, disabled people and/or seniors. We need a variety of skilled trades people for plumbing, electrical and carpentry but we also need at least 150 general volunteers who can haul, carry, rake, paint, clean and trim. Register online: www.rtpetaluma. org 707-765-3944. Jane@rtpetaluma.org
See one of our projects on NBC Nightly news Feb 13, 2017, www.nbcnews.com/ nightly-news/video/inspiring-america- wwii-vet-gets-home-makeover-thanks- to-kindness-of-strangers-876436035692
Apr 8 - Apr 10 ~ Volunteers needed for Bodega Bay Fisherman’s Festival Stewards will be participating in this wonderful event and needs volunteers to staff the Steward Ship. Shifts are 2 to 5 hours. This is yet another great way to support Stewards and State Parks! Update: Volunteers are needed for clean-up the Monday after Fish Fest! If you are available to help, please click on the link below to sign up. Westside Park, Bodega Bay, 707-869- 9177, Sarah Angulo, signupgenius.com/ go/20f054ba9ae2ba4fb6-fishermans1, sarah@stewardscr.org
Apr 20 - Apr 22 ~ For the Love of Birds! Sebastopol - Volunteers are urgently needed to help us care for injured and orphaned native songbirds and prepare them for release back to the wild. Attend a volunteer orientation to learn more. Orientations will beheld on Thur. Apr 20 at 6p and Sat. Apr 22 at 10 am. Pre- registration required. Native Songbird Care and Conservation, 8050 Elphick Road, Sebastopol, 707-484-6502, Veronica Bowers, Director, nativesongbirdcare. org, info@nativesongbirdcare.org
June 10 ~ Face to Face needs Volunteers at the Beerfest-The Good One. Annual beer tasting festival will be held on Saturday June 10th this year, and features more than 60 breweries from the North Bay and beyond. We need lots of dedicated folks to make the event run smoothly! Visit www.beerfestthegoodone.com for details on volunteer duties and to sign up! For questions, please call Face to Face at 707-544-1581.
Ongoing ~ Sonoma Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District Lend a Hand. As a District volunteer you will play an important role in preserving and stewarding the open space lands in Sonoma County – while enjoying many other great benefits for you and your family, such as: Experiencing Sonoma County’s diverse natural and working lands Gaining new skills and understanding of the outdoors Exercising your mind and body Meeting interesting people with a shared passion. 707-565-7366, Receptionist, sonomaopenspace.org/get-involved/ volunteer/
Ongoing ~ Volunteer for Healdsburg Center for the Arts. Want to Help Art Thrive? Looking for volunteers who are art-minded, energetic people for retail, show installation, special event help, publicity, strategic planning & organization, and more! We would love to have you on our team of dedicated, interesting, fun volunteers. Healdsburg Center for the Arts, 130 Plaza St., Healdsburg, , 707-431-1970, healdsburgcenterforthearts.org/ info@ healdsburgcenterforthearts.org
...and running hard. Spring announces “Hope!” all around, and I first try to get on that bandwagon; then, next, try not to fall off...
350Sonoma- Local climate activists.
My garden and my mini orchard are sending messages that beg me to see the new life bursting all around me! My Daffodils by the gate are shouting look at me! They are outrageously bright this year, or maybe other dullness just makes them seem so?
I truly cannot remember a Springtime when I had to try so hard to see the light and excitement that Primavera always inspired. I know it’s not that nature is falling down on the job, not that. It’s just that hope and joy and new beginnings and all of that, for me, has always been all wrapped up in my love for country, for my unique America!
Ignoring our governmental chaos and becoming lost in all the beauty might – I fear – feel a bit like becoming a traitor to everything my America has always been to me, and that now gets gleefully and regularly splashed with mud. What have we done? It’s like watching a demented child pull the legs off frogs just to see them squirm and struggle and slowly die.
I struggle to find words for the calamity and the amazing dark phenomenon – that, daily, assaults, trashes and lunges viciously at all I hold dear. It feels like some craven entity has taken over territory usually held by well-meaning souls – not always in my camp – but almost always (Democrat or Republican) well meaning, intelligent, informed, disciplined and cognizant of the Office and all it requires!
(I even resent that the title “President of the United States” has been tacked onto a cretin whose perturbed pettiness holds him in whining campaign mode, and who cannot refrain from pouting assaults on predecessors so far above him in integrity that it is pathetic.)
My cynicism fights for priority, and sometimes wins. I want to sing the praises of all the typical miracles of Spring; I really do. It is always so uplifting to go on and on about the excitement of my plan to place four more Italian Cypress, to watch the Walnut trees send out their buds, to weave in the arbor Ivy strands that went wild with all the rain and to see the wildlife emerge from their Winter dens. And so on.
But, just this morning, the ‘news’ was again filled with more exotic revelations of bizarre and self-serving persuasions, accusations, demands and behaviors from a questionable mentality. A recent panelist I thought put it brilliantly: “...campaign promises in search of strategic rationales.” (P. J. Crowley, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs)
I may be the only one struggling with this particular Spring dilemma in this particular way... It’s my problem; I know that. If there are others, then we must find ways to outrun its power, effect change and recapture White House authenticity. 2018? 2020? (Will I even be around!)
Nevertheless... Spring is here, and I do have a plan. Despite the blatant assault on even Spring itself (as avaricious warriors attack and threaten to abolish the EPA), I have found ways out in my garden, to get my tools in hand and fight away the frustration. The huge blackberry stand has gone nutz; its wild shoots resemble a crazed demon with wild hair whipping in the wind! With every slice from my loppers, I imagine those spikey whips to be the DC condition! The flourishing weeds meet my wrath as if they were counterfeit Cabinet members needing extraction and disposal. (All the while hoping I live long enough for at least two more rounds of voting!)
Yes. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; so is ugly.
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