Valentine’s gifts for the true love of your life…

If you are like me, Valentine’s Day poses a bit of a dilemma: I love my husband and want to show it, but hope that I do so throughout the year. So when Valentine’s Day approaches, I want to acknowledge him, but usually with something red and meaningful. Flowers and chocolate are great, but safety is a gift that keeps on giving. Here are some things I’ve given him through the years. Maybe you’ll see something here that says, “I love you.”

Preparedness is a true buzz word this year and always in vogue in the Bay Area. A few years ago, I packed a pair of red backpacks with earthquake supplies and gave us each one for our cars. There are tons of great pre-packaged kits – even a red one! Read more about being prepared in Deborah Byrne’s great post about how to keep you and your loved ones safe. That’s a true Valentine’s gift.

Along those lines, how about a donation in your loved one’s name to the Red Cross – you never know when that gift will give back.

Sometimes a trip to the hardware store will uncover that perfect red gift – a pair of red gardening gloves, some red shears, or my personal favorite – a Swiss Army Knife All express your love – but with a bit of a twist. There’s even a pink one that supports breast cancer awareness.

A red flashlight for the car, a red umbrella for that unexpected rain, or how about a great bottle of red wine for that moment you’ll share together that truly says, “I love you!”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Posted by:Martha O’Hayer

One would think that having lived in “earthquake country” all my life, that I would long ago have established a disaster preparedness plan. Well, it’s only the recent earthquake disasters that have finally motivated me to action.

As I was researching the subject, I came across several comprehensive disaster preparedness brochures on the American Red Cross website, including an informative brochure on food, water and emergency supplies.

Via www.fuelforadventure.com

The site, www.RedCross.org, has more great information and downloadable brochures on family communication plans and evacuation plans. You can purchase disaster supply kits directly from the Red Cross online store or from a number of other sites – I purchased backpack emergency kits for all of our vehicles from www.fuelforadventure.com. If the unexpected happens when we are at home, on a road trip, or at work, it helps to know that we can stay hydrated, warm and prepared for several days. Since my husband works in San Francisco during the week, there’s a fair chance that he wouldn’t be able to come home for several days if there were an earthquake centered there. Having emergency supplies on either end would enable us both to cope until help arrives.

However you choose to protect yourself and your family, I hope this information is useful and timely. Take a look at a similar blogpost from Noreen Smith on our Marin blog for even more information. My wish is that we all have several days’ worth of supplies available, and that we never have to use them.

Posted by:Deborah Byrne

‘Tis that time of the year – where everyone is hitting you up for something – local charities are in great need, food pantries are empty, kitchen lines are long, and a great number of individuals and organizations are in need of assistance and resources. Want to know the easiest way to help? Go into your closet and find those old coats and jackets that you don’t need anymore and donate them to a good cause – PPSC (Petaluma People Service Center). Frank Howard Allen Realtors will be collecting the coats and jackets as part of our Annual Warm Coat and Food Drive. And to make it even easier, if you can’t drop your donations off at the office (905 E. Washington St in Petaluma), please call us (707.762.7766) and we will arrange for the items to be picked up. The weather is getting colder, even in our mild climate, and warm clothes are needed by many. So please help – both the community and the recipients.

As the charity season for Petaluma, California, draws to a close for the year 2009, one last, but most important event remains to be held. This event is the Make Miracles Happen Fundraising Breakfast and the funds are dedicated to breaking the cycle of homelessness in Sonoma County. This event is organized by the Committee on the Shelterless (COTS) and their unique model for a homeless shelter is designed to support homeless children, families and individuals that need guidance and direction to rekindle a productive and happy life. They offer not only safe shelter but services and programs to help people strengthen personal dignity and integrity, achieve financial independence, and find stable housing. They teach homeless parents to make their children’s needs their highest priority to ensure a fulfilling life. Just in the last year COTS assisted over 1,700 people, including 258 children. Over 102,000 meals were served and an additional 758 hungry people in the community received weekly groceries.

I first attended this event two years ago and was so stricken by the statistics that I couldn’t wait to get involved. Annually, over 50,000 hours of service are contributed by members of the community. When I made the commitment to become a Realtor, I made a commitment to myself to become involved in the community that I sell homes in. Frank Howard Allen has been a supporter of COTS through the Matching Grants program since 1999. For years I made that dollar commitment through commissions without truly comprehending the depth of the program.

Since I attended my first Miracle Breakfast, my goal is not only to give, but to participate. Once you meet the COTS clients you will see for yourself the miracle of unselfish dedication to fellow human beings in need. This will be my second year as Table Captain and I invite anyone that would like to witness this miracle firsthand to join me in meeting the clients and hearing how the program is evolving through the economic struggles of our country.

Space is limited so please email rcelli@fhallen.com and let me know if you are interested by October 16, 2009.

Posted By: Rebecca Celli

This week marked the official changing of the season and as each day of fall brings us closer to Thanksgiving, it has me thinking about the wonderful bounty Sonoma County has to offer, and the generous nature of my friends and neighbors. My husband and I live in Petaluma and each year we shoot to have a productive garden, as do most of our friends. It’s late September and all of the gardens I have seen in the past few weeks are producing amazing crops and everyone seems eager to share in the bounty.

On a recent Saturday morning, Cody, my neighbor’s dog and I, were out for a walk and stopped by a friend’s home. She was busy with a huge batch of tomatoes that had just been dropped off by another friend and was in the midst of whipping up a monster batch of gazpacho that she would take to two different feasts to be enjoyed by 50 or more people. Way to share the bounty.

Shortly afterward, on the same walkabout, I stopped by David’s, another friend and neighbor. He was making a white bean salad he’d seen in Gourmet Magazine and needed some colorful tomatoes. Though not quite done with my walk, I went right home, picked all of the ripe sun gold cherry tomatoes I had in my garden, returned to David’s, and a short time later was savoring a most amazing and delicious salad.

Around town, I have also spotted several other examples of the giving spirit of our delightful community. These neighbors just put out their excess and invite you to help yourself!

        

This generous nature is just one of the many qualities I relish about the area. I see it firsthand so often and I recently learned of an organized group that epitomizes this spirit, Petaluma Bounty. This community-based nonprofit operates on a 5-acre parcel within a mile of downtown. I spoke to the farm manager last week and she told me that an elderly neighbor whose home abuts the property donated the land for the purpose of a farm.

The work they do there is truly incredible and they offer several programs, including: Bounty Hunters – a food-gleaning program that collects fresh, surplus food from backyard gardens, farms and businesses and distributes it to food pantries and senior centers; Bounty Box Food Club – weekly boxes of organic fruits and vegetables are sold at wholesale prices to low-income families; and the Bounty Mobile Market – organic fruits and vegetables sold at wholesale prices for those on limited budgets, and at retail prices to those who can afford it. A new location, at the Mail Depot at 4th and C streets each Wednesday from 9-noon, is just one of many dispensaries. A full schedule can be found here.

The Petaluma Bounty has an active volunteer program including ‘the food posse’, a group that will harvest fruit from local backyards or farms to sell from their mobile markets or at the farm stand. The Petaluma Bounty would like you to join them to help spread the word about how to bring healthy food to everyone—become a ‘vigilante’ and share the bounty!

Let me know if you have an innovative community group you’d like more folks to hear about. Contact me at mohayer@fhallen.com.

Posted by:Martha O’Hayer

Last Saturday, I spent some of my day standing in the rain at the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts at the Finish of the Wine Country Century, a showcase ride of northwest Sonoma County put on each year by the Santa Rosa Cycling Club. My fellow cycling aficionado and I were promoting the return of the Amgen Tour of California (ATOC) (premier professional cycling race in USA) to the City of Santa Rosa. Anyone who has lived in Sonoma County in the past 4 years has had the awesome and amazing opportunity to see the best cyclists in the world, both men and women, race to the Finish line in downtown Santa Rosa one day in February – it’s an honor, a privilege and a heck of a good time!

Each year, in preparation for the ATOC, the City of Santa Rosa “bids” to hold a Stage Start, Finish or both, committing approximately $175,000 to the event. Because City coffers are stretched beyond their limits this year providing essential services, a group of us under the direction of Mo McElroy (Visitors and Convention Bureau) have committed to raising the $175,000 needed to bring the Tour back in 2010! Visit www.keepthetour.com to donate and stay informed. We’ve just learned that in 2010, the Tour of California will be held May 16 – 23!

Cycling enthusiasts have long recognized Sonoma County as a premier destination – it’s hard to beat the combination of spectacular scenery, back roads, variable terrain, and a public that is becoming more conscious and respectful. The cycling community is a dynamic one attracting people, businesses, low-impact use of the environment, creating a health-conscious and highly social subculture.

There is a superb article in the Press Democrat, Section B, Sunday, May 3, 2009, about “joys of riding in Sonoma County.” Whether you’re out for a ride with the kids on the Prince Greenway (Santa Rosa), challenging yourself to reach the top of Pine Flat (Healdsburg), taking a quick hour of exercise in a loop around Oakmont, riding from home to work and back each day, here for “spring training” with your team, or cheering for your favorite hometown elite cycling hero, Levi Leipheimer, at the TOC Finish or, Yes!, raising money in the rain, cycling is one more spectacular reason I treasure living in Sonoma County.

Call me (707-481-3390) for suggestions about riding in Sonoma County.

Posted By: Carolyn Metz