SAY Beat the Cold BBQ

The huge pile of socks

I attended Social Advocates for Youth Annual Beat the Cold BBQ on 12/9/11 to end teen homelessness. The admission was a pack of socks. It was cold outside. I mean really cold. SAY runs the only teen homeless shelter in Sonoma County, the Dr. James E. Coffee House. Matt Martin, Executive Director, had many facts to share when he spoke to the standing room only crowd. Among them that there are over 700 homeless teens on the streets of Sonoma County. But the fact that grabbed me by the lapel is that when asked, 100% said they were hungry.

So the next time you see a kid on the street, don’t assume they are up to no good. They may be safer on the streets than in their own home. That’s an absolutely horrible fact, but it’s true. Reach out to them. Show them you care. Help them on their way. Your interest and attention may be all that’s keeping them with us. You were once a troubled youth, right? Weren’t we all?

Want to know what you can do? Donate your time or your money. Visit SAY’s site to learn more.

A Thankful Meal at the SAY Tamayo House

If you’ve read my blog before, you’ve noticed I talk about Leadership Santa Rosa a lot. I love being involved (as you can probably tell) and even though this entry mentions LSR, it’s about much more. See the Flickr Photo Album.

Jill, Cat, J, Julie & Sean - coordinators

J Mullineaux, Julie Montgomery, Jill Sanford and myself got together to brainstorm ways to stay connected with the rest of our classmates. J had a great idea to have a dinner party for Social Advocates for Youth’s (SAY). I can’t express clearly enough how amazing they are! SAY is a youth advocacy organization that provides: shelter for homeless teens, a foster transition home, meals for the hungry, counseling, crisis intervention, youth employment, helping encourage graduation, mentoring, low cost tattoo removal for ex-gang members, and a sense of support and belonging.

We chose to make a pre-Thanksgiving dinner at the Mary and Jose Tamayo House. Tamayo House is transitional housing for teens that have aged out of the foster care system yet still need guidance in the form of shelter, safety, job training, life training, and provides them with a sense of family. With 50 kids aging out of foster care every year, the 25 beds at Tamayo house are desperately needed. Otherwise these kids hit the street. In the recession, they’ve seen that the kids are staying longer (they are eligible 18-24).

I can’t imagine not having a family. I don’t know what it’s like to have no one to turn to when you want to learn how to cook, open a checking account, get a job, find a place to live, apply for college, or need a place to stay. These kids pretty much have nothing the minute they turn 18 and are out of foster care. I do know what it’s like to need crisis intervention and have a safe place to go. I was 16 when my family and I called SAY for help. The Dr. James E. Coffee Emergency Teen Shelter had a different name and location when I stayed there but the focus is the same.

We knew that these kids may not get a Thanksgiving meal so we brought it to them. 14 out of our 28 classmates divided up the menu and got to cooking all the traditional fixings. The tables were set for a harvest celebration and the sparkling cider flowed. Several turkeys, mashed potatoes, yams, stuffing, green salad, green beans, bread, pumpkin pie, apple pie and pumpkin cheesecake (I have an awesome recipe, just ask me in the comments). These kids lined up with their plates and demolished the meal, some came back again and again. There were plenty of leftovers.

The Thank You

We didn’t know each other and they didn’t have to come out of their rooms to eat with us but it felt like a family dinner nonetheless. It was such a happy night and we laughed, joked, and ate with each other as if we’d done it every year. Not so secretly, I’d like to do it again and again.

In the theme of Thanksgiving, I am grateful for:

• SAY and the lifesaving work they perform
• Mary & Jose Tamayo for helping SAY to keep kids warm, safe, and off the streets
• my own family that keeps me warm
• my awesome LSR classmates, for we are all of the same heart, striving to help others and make a difference
• Jill, J, Julie, Vicky, Steve (for putting in so much time) and all the rest that made such amazing food
• the dishwashers!
• the kids that sat with us, trusted us, and let us in
• Cat Cvengros and Matt Martin, just two of the amazing angels at SAY
• and that pumpkin cheesecake recipe!

May your Thanksgiving be full of warmth, love, and lots of wonderful food to eat.

Handcar Regatta: The Festival Santa Rosa was Lucky to Have

The Wonderment Machine

Sometimes a magical thing happens by accident. Sometimes by design.

Santa Rosa was lucky to have the Handcar Regatta for 4 years in Railroad Square.  It was an art festival, street fair, costume show, and creative event by Ty Jones and Spring Maxfield. A maker, steampunk event that asked it’s participants to create vehicles that could ride the rails under their own power. Timed trials and fun ensued. I was only able to attend 2010 and 2011 events, years 3 and 4. But it may happen never again. I expect that magic is over.

They used the train tracks for the timed trials and we have S.M.A.R.T. coming through bringing rail service with it. We desperately need a solution for mass transit but it is sad to see the end of a whimsical event. All I can say it that I know Ty will come up with more amazing events! I can’t wait.

See my photo albums from Handcar Regatta 2010 and Handcar Regatta 2011.

Summer Nights in Railroad Square

courtesy of Summer Nights at Railroad Square

Last year was the start of a wonderful neighborhood event here in Santa Rosa, Summer Nights in Railroad Square. On the first Friday evening of June, July, August and September you could expect to enjoy yourself with neighbors, food, wine tasting, art, music and the sunset. I only went to three of the four last year but I made sure I was at each and every one this year. For $20 you can get a wrist band and taste wines up and down Fourth Street in Railroad Square. You can enjoy food from one of several food truck vendors or patronize the great establishments up and down the street. The art, music, and people are entertainment that surrounds you. Every time I went, I saw lots of people I knew and had an unreasonably good time.

I wanted to say thank you to Ty Jones and Kernan Coleman and anyone else that had something to do with creating this lovely event. I am so pleased that it’s yet another great time, here in Sonoma County.

Hospitality and Tourism Day: A Demonstration of Sonoma County’s Awesomeness

Tom Schmidt, Josh Silvers, Duskie Estes, John Franchetti, Sheana Davis

Sonoma County is truly an amazing place. I think it’s a “body double for heaven”. Not only do we have exceptional cuisine, wonderful vistas, an abundance of art and entertainment but the people are pretty awesome too! Leadership Santa Rosa is the longest running Chamber of Commerce leadership program in the U.S. at 28 years. I’m president of the alumni association so you can bet I believe in the program and the knowledge it provides the participants.

We added a new day this year, Hospitality & Tourism Day. I wanted to thank Jeremy Little of Carle Mackie Power & Ross LLP as well as Adam Peacocke of City Life Fellowship for being co-chairs on what is sure to be a day that goes down in history as a top notch LSR day! It wouldn’t have happened without you (and the committee).

See Flickr photo album of the day.

The mission of this day was to capture “A day in the life of a Sonoma County tourist” (see the Hospitality and Tourism Day Agenda). Normally LSR days are about Santa Rosa (hence the name) but because this location is so rich with treasures, we extended it out geographically.

The day started at Relish Culinary Adventures with breakfast sponsored by Relish, Costeaux Bakery, and Carle Mackie Power & Ross LLP. I got there as the first panel was just getting started. We were honored to have Karl Bruno of the Kenwood Inn & Spa, Brad Calkins of Santa Rosa Convention & Visitor’s Bureau and Tim Zahner of Sonoma County Tourism Bureau to talk about the micro to macro view of tourism in Sonoma County. The Kenwood Inn is known far and wide as one of the most amazing spa locations on the planet. No exaggeration. If you have the chance, go! It happens to be directly across Highway 12 in the Valley of the Moon from my favorite place in the world, no joke, see my video of my favorite view. Brad and his team work very hard to help tourists and residents get the most out of Santa Rosa and they do a fine job. Tim Zahner has to be one of the funniest people I’ve ever met and he will charm your face off.

Then we heard from some business owners/managers; Douglas Keane of Cyrus, Shimo, and Healdsburg Bar & Grill; Will Seppi of Costeaux Bakery; and Percy Brandon of Vintner’s Inn and John Ash & Co. We learned a lot about the challenges and joys of owning a business here. Doug was honest and shared with us lessons learned with the new Shimo, adjustments he had to make, as well as how passionate he is about his businesses and how they are run. Will talked about updating a business with a long life to meet the needs and tastes of the customers. Percy is a tremendous long-time supporter of LSR and it was enlightening to hear how you keep a location with such a famous name fresh to the locals. (Happy Hour at the Front Room at John Ash is wicked awesome, go!)

The next panel is where things got really fun. We were thoroughly pleased to have: Sheana Davis, Chef/Cheese Maker/Owner of Epicurean Connection Shop; Duskie Estes, Chef/Owner of Bovolo, Zazu, and Black Pig Meat Co. also of Food Network’s The Next Iron Chef; John Franchetti, Chef/Owner of Rosso’s Pizzeria & Wine Bar;  Tom Schmidt, Executive Chef at John Ash & Co.; and Josh Silvers, Chef/Owner of Petite Syrah and Jackson’s Bar and Oven. Whew! We learned a lot about the Farm to Table movement, keeping your sources for ingredients local, knowing the farmer and the land where the food comes from and what makes Sonoma County so special when it comes to cuisine. The energy in the air was electric and when the chefs went into the kitchen to put the final touches on the food they brought with them, the attendees were practically clapping with excitement. It’s not every day that you get a line up like this to bring you food from their own kitchens! (Video of the chefs in the kitchen) After we served ourselves, everyone sat down at a table with a chef so we could eat and talk. The food was absolutely amazing and you shoulda been there!

Anyone that’s ever sat through an all day seminar knows how important it is to get up and stretch after lunch so we sent them on a walking tour and treasure hunt in Healdsburg’s downtown. Then it was to Vintner’s Inn.

I moderated the Vine to Market: Wine and the Business Side panel featuring: Beth Costa, Wine Road; Gerry Forth of Forth Vineyards and board member of Sonoma County Vintners; and Hardy Wallace of The NPA and the winner of Murphy Goode’s “A Really Goode Job” (Ranked #5 of the World’s Best Jobs by Oddee). What I thought was going to be about wine, business, and tourism ended up being more about how social media has changed the way they market their product and reach their customers. Since I am a social media consultant, I was excited to hear how heavily it effected them (though I kept trying to steer them to other subjects) and I was stoked to finally meet Hardy after he’d become an ambassador for wine and social media marketing. We’d “run into” each other a lot digitally but we finally got the chance to shake hands.

And there’s more!!! The next panel was Sonoma County Happenings: Greg Fisher of Levi Leipheimer’s King Ridge GranFondo, Bike Monkey, and Cycle City; Ty Jones of Regatta Arts/Handcar Regatta; Steve Page of Infineon Raceway; and Jennifer Sloan of ARTrails. They talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly of having a great idea or service, the challenges of delivering and the unexpected occurrences they encounter. Again and again, I was blown away by the sheer volume of quality events we enjoy here in Sonoma County on a daily basis.

We got some tastings of lovely vintages by the Vintner’s Inn’s sommelier and relaxed and enjoyed ourselves in the Front Room for happy hour.

This day was full of unbelievable people, information, ideas, conversation, food, wine and camaraderie. I personally want to thank everyone that spent time with us, shared with us, and left a little piece of themselves with those listening. I wouldn’t trade the experience of this day for anything. Leadership Santa Rosa, here’s to another 28 years!

Farmer’s Market

Strange Fruit

I absolutely LOVE going to farmer’s markets. My favorite is Saturday mornings at the Santa Rosa Vet’s Building, Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Saturdays are like a street fair with music, prepared food, and lots of little kids. There are so many different markets, last season when the Press Democrat printed a list of where and when each was happening, I printed it and color coded it by day. It was really useful when I wanted to remember where I could shop depending on what city I was in. I found a list of the surrounding area markets for you if you want it.

Does anyone know what this fruit is? It was beautiful but I have no idea.

The Salsa Bike Made Nature Even More Fun

Particulars:

Saturday October 23, 2010

LandPaths‘ Bayer Farm Neighborhood Park & Gardens

1550 West Ave., Santa Rosa

This event was supposed to be beautiful. The weather was supposed to cooperate and show off the lush grounds of Bayer Farm, a great community garden. Guess what? I’ve never gotten so wet in my whole life. It absolutely poured.

My club, Rotary Club of Santa Rosa West, and LandPaths have partnered to plant a Rotary Grove of Trees to supplement the wonderful vegetation already being grown in this urban garden. This event was for awareness raising in the community. Boy, it rained. But you know what? We still had a great time! (See the photo album here.)

There were youth volunteers, LandPaths staff, Rotary Club members and community members. The kids chopped fresh veggies, Rotary members cooked and prepped, we had an art table, a pumpkin carving section, an art show, a raffle, a health education booth, and a salsa bike. The salsa bike was my favorite part of the day. I learned how to make salsa from scratch and I will never forget how much fun those kids (and our Rotary President Bill Dodson took a turn!) had making salsa from their own foot power.

Who says nature has to be dry to be fun?

Bike Expo in the Park

Particulars:

Sunday August 22, 2010

Julliard Park, Santa Rosa

Northern California Bike Expo

I like festivals. Let me tell you why. They are outdoors. There’s lots of free ones. You get some exercise while walking around. You people watch and you might see some weird stuff. Or score a root beer float. All of these things happened at the Bike Expo.

The Imaginists Doing Their Thing

The Imaginists Theater Company put on a really weird play that I don’t know if I could describe it. It was about the loss of imagination. My kid was  a little off put by it but the message was there even if it was over her head. (It’s the Imaginists! Of course it was deep!)

Youth Band from local School of Rock

There was a school of rock band. I had to ask their name but could barely understand the kid when he shouted it over the mike. It was fun to see them having a good time. We ate peanut butter and jelly in the shade while they rocked out.

Beautiful Day at the Bike Expo in Julliard Park

All in all it was a beautiful day. I enjoyed myself a root beer float. Saw some excellent bikes and good people. I even bought some great unicorn postcards for really cheap from the FBUC or the Fun Bike Unicorn Club.

Unicorn Postcard

Check out this great photo album from @BikeSonoma taken by NickGaetano.

Broadway in my Backyard

Particulars:

Saturday 6/12/10, 8pm showing

“Rent” at the Sixth Street Playhouse, Santa Rosa

So I’m a little biased. I’ll admit it upfront. My sister and Stephanie St. James were best friends in junior high and high school. They went through the same EXCEPTIONAL music program at Santa Rosa High and were taught by Dan Earl. Being some of the few “mixed” kids in town, Stephanie is like a cousin to me.

Stephanie has been touring and traveling the world doing what she does best, wailing and rocking the mic, but spends much of her life far away from us in New York and Los Angeles. We saw her last year (I believe) in San Francisco when “Oprah Winfrey’s: The Color Purple” came to town. Stephanie had the role of Squeak but I wanted to hear more. (You can imagine with a name like Squeak, her character’s voice didn’t feature the full rich sound I know she inhabits) When we heard that she’d be performing here in Santa Rosa, my sister and I jumped all over it.

Stephanie St. James Lighting it Up

Thank you, my dear sister Colleen, for treating us all to a wonderful Mother’s Day gift by taking us to the Sixth Street Playhouse. I am embarrassed to admit I had never attended a show there. For someone that spent her whole life in theater as a child, you think I’d go more!

I had only seen the movie version of Rent and knew that I was in for a treat to see it live. If you aren’t familiar, the story covers a year in the life of a group of friends that have no money, lots of dreams and problems, and many have AIDS. It’s a snapshot of love and pain, loss and joy.

The whole cast really did a great job but the two standouts for me were Stephanie as Mimi and Shannon Rider as Maureen. Maureen is talked about through the whole play and finally arrives (on a motorcycle, no less) just before intermission. She’s all rock and roll atop a table calling for a boycott against “the man” (my words) and fighting for artists to exist in a space they have claimed for themselves. It’s was a really funny protest including “Moo’ing at The Man” but what I’m really trying to get at is she is all fire and sex on a stick. I won’t mention that her voice is stage perfect. You know when you go to a show and the singers are “meh”? She is the opposite of “meh”. I was told that she is also the lead singer of Miss Kitty and The Big Dogs, a group I’ve heard plays locally. I absolutely MUST check them out now.

You know my feelings for Stephanie as a person but her voice is the opposite of “meh”. I should’ve brought tissue because I was struggling to keep it together throughout the whole second act. Flirty, fun, sexy, tragic, sad and loving are what she brought to the stage. We are so lucky that the stars lined up so she could come back and perform at home. I will miss her when she gets back on the train out of town but I’m so glad I was able to show my support and get my socks knocked off at the same time.

If you want to see Rent, it’s playing until June 27. Get going!

Colleen, Jennie & Kerry beaming at Rent!

For the Love of Books

The bedside table of a person that reads too much.

I am a bibliophile, a person who loves or collects books. I love the paper, I love the kinetic sense that I am educating myself.

One of my first memories of “being big” was on a trip to the library. My dad would bring me to the downtown Santa Rosa Library and lead me to the children’s section. Safely esconced among the kid stacks and watched over by a librarian, he would head over to the magazine section. He was such an avid reader that going to the library was a smart way to read as many of them as possible without having to pay the astronomical subscription price should they have been mailed to our house. After doing this many times, I finally decided to go find him when I was ready rather than wait for him to fetch me. I ventured into the cavernous main library room and took the long walk to the other side of the building. Since I couldn’t have been more than 6, that’s like hiking multiple football fields. As an adult, it only takes me 2 minutes to cross from corner to corner but it was the longest trek of my life up until that point. The pride I felt in overcoming my fear of that journey will forever stay with me. As well as the relief that my dad really was at the other end of that scary walk.

I’m passionate about books and I feel the same for the library. I love to get excited about a random subject, be it quantum physics, photography, organization or science fiction, and being able to read to my heart’s content. Try to do that at a bookstore or even Amazon.com. Would you be willing to completely go out on a limb and research how to shoe a horse if it would cost you a lot of money to do so? I think not. I want to absorb information like oxygen, I’m greedy about it. I have visions of entering the Library of Congress and seeing endless stacks of knowledge spread before me. I have to remind myself that I can’t read them all and that they are constantly being written. I will simply not get to them all. Call me obsessive.

When I had a baby, my daughter seems to relish the open air space. She would tune up her little lungs and let loose just to hear the echo. No wandering stacks for me with a newborn. I learned that you could reserve books and have an alert email sent to you when it was ready. My daugher is almost 5 yet I still use this feature all the time. I regularly get recommendations for books from many sources and I can simply drop them into my queue. Whether I am number 1 on the list or 453 (as was the case with the “Twilight” books), I don’t have to do anything but pick them up when they tell me they are ready.

Join me at the Friends of the Library Book Faire at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds April 16-19.

Friday from 3 – 7:30 p.m. – Preview sale – $5 admission
Saturday from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. – Half Price day
Monday from 2 – 7 p.m. – Bag Day – all books $4 a bag

Help support your local library. Research subjects you are passionate about.
Learn and never stop.