Page 32 - Sonoma County Gazette Janaury 2019

KBBF Appreciation Party
Community recognition can be essential for organizations. However, Sonoma County’s elected officials tend to overlook KBBF’s contributions to local news coverage and culture. Thus, KBBF is hosting its own event to honor its hard work! January 19th is the date, and the public is invited. Thanks to the volunteers and listeners who make the station great. For more information, call KBBF at 545-8833.
Julio Lucas hosts a program celebrating world cultures and folklore every Tuesday from 5-6pm. Music, food, indigenous history, and a bit of mysticism form the conversation.
Refreshing Roseland in 2019
Invítame a Tu Tierra
for a few years now. This was announced at a Dec 11, 2018 community health training by Ms. Chelene Lopez, the manager of Health Promotion at the St. Joseph Health organization in Santa Rosa. The event was hosted at the Chop’s Teen Center by the Southwest Health Action Chapter. Facilitated by Vince Harper of the Community Action Partnership non-governmental organization the event reached out to over 70 people throughout Sonoma County interested in promoting better health in their communities in the coming year.
Lucas explained that the idea for his show began when he was taking night classes at SRJC. On the long drive back home to Tomales, he listened to the radio to keep him company. He tuned into KBBF and was inspired to give back to the community. As a volunteer, he began by cleaning the station and answering the phones. Gradually, people asked him to participate in various projects around the office. He wound up in a group that trained programmers and DJs.
St. Joseph Health, the operators of Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital has pumped millions of dollars into Community initiatives in Roseland for over 20 years now. Beginning in the 1990s the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, the Catholic religious order backing the Memorial Hospital efforts, have worked to empower the Hispanic and Latino residents in Roseland. Helping people to lead more healthy lives in Roseland is a primary concern for St. Joseph Health. It has been an excellent way for local Latinos to meet and talk of concerns for our Roseland Community. Now in 2019 the needs of the community will be a major concern as the Roseland Community Library will be either relocated, or closed, due to the beginning of construction at the Roseland Village Shopping Center. In late 2018 Ben Wickham, an employee of Sonoma County Community Development Commission, stated at a public meeting the site may have cleared the environmental permitting process by “mid 2019”. This would allow for construction to begin on a new housing project by Mid- Peninsula Housing Development Corporation on the seven acre site owned by taxpayers. He mentioned the county hopes the project may have some housing available for occupancy by mid-2020.
It only was a matter of time before someone asked him to propose a show. However, he realized, “I had no idea what I wanted to do!” Juan Ignacio Moreno, a radio journalist from Guadalajara who worked at KBBF, invited him to collaborate. At first, Lucas was too nervous to speak much on the air, despite researching and practicing his comments.
About two years ago, Moreno encouraged Lucas to take over and do the show on his own. He decided it was his mission to inform listeners. He began by picking places, researching their basic facts, and then exploring deeper themes. He shaped his content to intertwine folklore and oral history from Latin America and beyond. “I speak the truth of a place,” he explained.
See next month’s RadioLand column for the recounting of one of Lucas’ stories.
The Roseland Teen Center at the Library Branch will also be moving. There is a hope the Central Sonoma County Boys and Girls Club which now operates the Teen Center will be able to build a new site. At this time there is a building boom going on in Roseland with hundreds of new housing units under construction. With many thousands of new people moving into Roseland there will definitely be a need for more facilities for the youth of the community. New roads will need to be built also to accommodate all of the traffic now jamming up local roads such as Dutton Ave., Sebastopol Rd. and West Ave. Developmental impact fees once slated to help Roseland have been directed to be used city wide now that Roseland is a part of Santa Rosa.
Un Dia Más
Sunday mornings on KBBF, from 6-8am, belong to Porfirio Miranda. His show focuses on songs by trios. This means a lot of nostalgic, romantic songs about ex-loves and mistakes made that left hearts broken. There are also serenades and dedications. It is a style of music known well in Cuernavaca, where he is from. Guitars figure prominently in trios, and are a popular instrument in Cuernavaca.
Miranda also credits his wife with inspiring his show’s format. Her father was a member of Los Pecadores, a popular trio. Other groups that he enjoys highlighting on his program are Los Dandys, Los Tres Ases, Los Tres Reyes, Los Tecolines, and Las Marthas, a trio comprised of women.
On Thursday Dec. 13, 2018 at Roseland Community Library the Roseland Community Building Initiative group funded by Community Action Partnership hosted a short presentation by Lana Adlawn a Division Manager for Sonoma County Library. She spoke on the many issues facing the effort
La Fiesta de la Posada
What a fiesta! Last month, Comité VIDA and KBBF hosted the station’s annual posada and saw upward of 400 people in attendance. Santa gave out 270 gifts to the children.
Support KBBF
Alicia Sanchez, president of the board of directors, says, “The best kept secret of all Sonoma County is the KBBF radio station.” Start the New Year by showing your support of bilingual community radio! You can become a member at the KBBF.org website. There, opt for a monthly donation or a one- time gift. GRACIAS!
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to have a permanent Roseland Library Branch in Roseland. There are outside groups also working to try and find funding for a permanent branch site. Many in the community understand having a library branch in Roseland will help many local residents, young and old. The same day she spoke there was a Santa Rosa city road crew out fixing pot holes on McMinn Ave. and Sunset Ave. in central Roseland south of Sebastopol Rd. If there is a wet winter fixing potholes as soon as possible is very important to avoid serious road damage. Also avoiding stormwater pollution from potholes is very important for the health of Roseland Creek. Back when St. Joseph community organizers first came to Roseland in the 1990s the issue we locals successfully worked on was addressing stormwater pollution by wrecking yards in Roseland.
Happy New Year and Prospero Nuevo Ano for 2019 to everyone living in Roseland. Begin by doing something new and refreshing for you and your family. Taking on new approaches and doing new things can be an uplifting experience for to carry you into the New Year. Here is an example of a positive change occurring in Roseland. The Community Club of Roseland is a new name for the Roseland Parents Club which has been meeting in Roseland
Another event from Dec. was the Pearl Harbor Memorial event held Friday morning Dec. 7. It was to commemorate those men and women serving in the US Military in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941 when Japanese military forces attacked Pearl Harbor Naval Base. Of the over 2,000 Americans killed that morning one was a young man from Roseland named George Maybee. He had lived
on Davis St. near where Highway 101 was constructed cutting Roseland off from Santa Rosa. He died on the USS Arizona. As we near the eighty year anniversary of the “Day of Infamy” there are some Roseland residents now looking into how to honor this veteran and the other veterans from Roseland who have served our country. Roseland Review will let you know.