March MEETINGS
Posted by Sara Calkins
on Mar 15, 2016
This month I enjoyed hearing from Rich Thomas and Frances Negranza --both representing the Santa Clara County Fair and Fairgrounds.
It was great to hear from Rich that the County Fair is still a vital part of our culture; that 4-H members still show the animals they've raised; that creative people enter all manner of goods and art to be judged; that entertainment is top-notch; that corn dogs are still sold, and that the Fair grows with the culture -- there will be a robotics demonstration!
Rich also described that the Fairgrounds are rented by promoters for special shows and races and that several cultural festivals are booked yearly...truly a multi-use facility.
Frances' area of concentration is education - there's a great area in the fairground that teaches kids the cycle of growing food and she recently got the "go ahead" to present information in classrooms.
We had another kind of meeting as well. Eleanor Vogelsang, Community Relations Manager of CLOSE UP Washington DC came to introduce herself and, of course, we pressed her to stay for lunch. We learned that "Close Up Foundation is a non-profit, non-partisan civic education organization driven by a mission to inform, inspire, and empower youth to be actively engaged citizens in our democracy." Certainly we can all agree this is a greatly needed service.
Eleanor will be our speaker this week on the topic, Close Up Teaching Students about Life and Responsibilities of Individuals in a Democracy. In the current national political climate I'm looking forward to being inspired too!