Page 2 - Sonoma County Gazette 3-19

Dear Readers
It’s March again - Yay! Spring is everywhere in the green hills, yellow and pink blossoms, purple irises on the coast...soil is wet, getting warm - and it’s time for our annual Gardener’s Resource Guide. Please use the guide, inserted into this edition of the Gazette, as your map to locally-owned businesses
that sell plants, soil, rocks, services and more. Keeping our dollars at home
is important. You’ve heard the statistics, so please take them seriously. Purchase goods and services from local providers and you keep our home economy strong. Buy your plants from local nurseries that grow them in our environment and don’t import insects and diseases that don’t belong here.
This is also the season of film festivals, which is a good way to increase your social life before outdoor concert season begins. If you love to disappear from your personal reality onto a movie screen, there are plenty of opportunities.
I just came from my first MAC (Municipal Advisory Council) meeting and I love that, in this pouring rain, the room was packed with people who love and participate in our home. They volunteer their time and energy to make home the best it can be. Some times it’s frustrating. We run into walls of resistance and limitations. But the most persistent persevere.
That is why I sent Will Carruthers to interview people who keep at it even when the mountain seems too steep to climb. This month he visited with Catholic Charities Director Jennielynn Holmes (page 14). Here’s a woman who stays her course when those she is helping keep slipping out of her grasp, and people attack her work because it has the label Catholic.
I continue to be amazed and impressed with people who care. One of my favorites, Brenda Adelman, received an award for her decades
of commitment to clean water. Because of Brenda, and people
who follow her lead, we have cleaner water and regulations that
protect this resource. We have much to admire in these heroes.
2 - www.sonomacountygazette.com - 3/19