Foothills Sentry September 2021

Foothills Sentry Page 6 September 2021 oc gourmet gal Charcuterie for picnics, luncheons, business meetings, dance competitions, sports outings, concerts and more. Custom artful charcuterie for all kinds of cheese heads oc gourmet gal created the most beautiful charcuterie board for us. She went out of her way to ask about our preferences to make sure we were satis fi ed. The presentation was gorgeous and everything was delicious! Totally above and beyond our expectations. BBQ-TERIE SKEWERS for backyard BBQ’s & camping CHARCUTERIE BOUQUETS for birthdays & holidays CHILD-CUTE-ERY for kids birthday parties JAR-CUTERIE for baby showers & cocktail parties CHARCUTERIE GRAZER BOARDS for 6-100+ guests Serving Southern California (949) 929-8211 ocgourmetgal.com ocgourmetgal@gmail.com social: @ocgourmetgal “ ” It takes a village. Plus other people’s money. One drawback of living in the canyons, is that your job is typi- cally somewhere else. And with parents gone all day, someone else needs to keep the kids out of traffic, poison oak, and close en - counters of the rattlesnake kind. In the 1980s, canyon parents worried that the current kid crop might overwhelm local babysit- ters. “We need daycare,” said Re- nee LeClaire Brown to then-hus- band Dean Brown, who had been elected to the Silverado-Modjes- ka Recreation and Park District (SMRPD) governing board. By 1989, the park district was offering preschool and elementa- ry-age child care at the Silverado Community Center. While Sally Murphy and others worked on hiring qualified staff, Brown con - centrated on securing a dedicated site. The logical spot was near the Silverado Elementary School (now Library of the Canyons and an OC Parks outpost). Brown, a land planner by trade, negotiated an agreement with the Orange Unified School District to lease an unused portion of school prop- erty for one dollar a year, which Brown says was never collected. Brown also pursued funding, soliciting bids for manufactured buildings and lining up $300,000 to $400,000 from sources like California’s Community Devel- opment Block Grant program. To satisfy the school district’s demand for separate daycare ac- cess, Brown secured an easement “in perpetuity” over an adjacent parcel from The Irvine Company, also for a dollar a year and never collected. The county, though, decreed that the proposed access road on Santiago Canyon Road would require a left turn pocket, despite there being no such pocket for the elementary school. This would mean encroaching on school property as well as on property across the street, and would prob- ably cost about $150,000. Brown appealed to Third Dis- trict Supervisor Gaddi Vasquez, saying that the elementary school should also have a turn pock- et. Within two days, he says, Vasquez informed him that the necessary money had been ob- tained from the county’s general transportation fund. Brown told the neighbor across from the school, “We need one foot of your land. Would you take $5,000 for it? You would also get your own turn pocket.” The answer: “Yes.” As the scheduled June 1990 opening date approached, how- ever, the Children’s Center still had no occupancy permit. Brown gathered about five friends at the last minute to install an 18-inch- high barrier around the bottom of the facility’s fence to keep out snakes. Two days before the grand opening, the permit was fi - nally issued. In the years that followed, the Children’s Center often struggled financially. The SMRPD trea - surer told the Los Angeles Times in 2001 that the problem was that “only 40 kids” were enrolled. But the problem persisted into 2003 when there were 51 kids. In 2009, the elementary school closed. By September of 2011, there were only 18 preschoolers and nine school-age children in daycare. School-age daycare was eventually dropped altogether. By February of 2014, the center technically owed SMRPD over $120,000. After rejecting a pro- posal to shut the center down in December, the park board unani- mously agreed the next month to “allow SCC to continue op- erations but not require any more funding from SMRPD. If any funds are needed, SCC doors will permanently close.” Amazingly, cost-cutting, plus donations, enabled the center to squeak by. Enrollment started rebounding in 2016, but with a difference: The local kid count remained at around 11, but the number of children from outside the canyons rose from nine to 42 by July of 2021. The 2001 Times article had stated that “canyon folk bristle at the notion of outsiders inter- fering with their day-care center. But the close-knit canyon is cash- strapped.” In 2002, SMRPD au- thorized spending $3,388 to ad- vertise outside the canyons. In late 2020, Children’s Center parent Sarah Pizzaruso spear- headed creation of the nonprofit Friends of the Silverado Chil- dren’s Center, for raising funds and helping with family partici- pation. Pizzaruso lives in Irvine. She discovered the Children’s Center while riding her bike in Santiago Canyon. Fire preparations, etc. Bring yard trimmings, old elec- tronics, mattresses, and “anything but nuclear waste” to Silverado on Coastal Cleanup Day, Sep- tember 18, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Volunteer for roadside trash col- lecting. SCE continues to install insulated wires to avoid sparking wildfires, and IRWD will replace Silverado’s steel water tank with a bigger concrete model next year. Woodsy lore Small trees covered with white fuzz along Silverado Canyon Road and across from Tucker are mountain mahogany. The seeds grow long, curly, feather-like tails for catching the fall wind. Native Americans used the dense wood for tools and arrows, but unlike true mahogany, it does not make good furniture. That’s OK -- the Indians learned long ago that shooting a rabbit with an arrow was much easier than hurling a coffee table at it. Mountain mahogany Orange team wins International World Series Championship The U9 team from Orange took championship honors at the 2021 Mustang-9 International World Series, besting a team from Pla- centia, 16-6, in the final. The Pony League team had ad- vanced to the finals after trounc - ing Arizona, 17-2; Texas, 16-1; Placentia, 20-0; and Walnut, 15- 5, in the semi-finals. Andrew Waibel led the team with 6 RBI’s from five hits, in - cluding two triples. Waibel also led the way with three of the nine stolen bases for Orange. He was named the World Series tourna- ment Batting Champion, with a 0.800 average. The pitchers were Jacob Bar- ragan, Seth Windsor, and Talyx- Rush Sylva. The team’s defense did not commit a single error. The team coaches are David Waibel, Buddy Klovstad, Greg Cicero and Den- nis McCuistion. Coaches, left to right, are David Waibel, Buddy Klovstad Greg Ci- cero, Dennis McCuistion. Players, back row, are Andrew Waibel, Joe Velazquez; middle row, Seth Windsor, Matthew Soto, Gavin Klovstad, Talyx-Rush Sylva, Christian Cicero, Adam Churney, Luke McCuistion, Jacob Barragan; front row, Joshua Perez and Ryan Francisco. Orange Blossoms aim to inspire The Orange Blossoms Auxil- iary of Assistance League of Or- ange kicked off its 2021-22 year with a hybrid meeting, in-person and virtual, for its more than 50 members, Sept. 1. The members will work at their popular beer booth during the Orange Street Fair, fundrais- ing to support their community philanthropic programs, includ- ing Project G.I.R.L. and Building K.I.D.S. This group of professionals, stay-at-home moms and other young adults is led by 2021-22 Chairman Kennedy Schaal, who adopted “Be the Change” as the theme for her term. Together, the members take action in their community, identifying needs and ways to fulfill them, while supporting each other. Anyone passionate about making a differ- ence is welcome to join the next regular meeting on Oct. 6 at 6:30 p.m. For information, see orange- blossomsalo.org , email info@Or- angeBlossomsALO.org, or find them on social media. Orange Blossoms members turned out for a summer meeting to kick off their post-pandemic philanthropic plans.