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The Bakersfield Voice Sunday, December 11, 2011
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G A R D E N
Tips to keep your holiday garden merry & bright
C
hristmas, and the weather that accompanies it, adds some interesting challenges to our normal routine. Gardening is no exception to this “rule." Gift plants and decorating traditions add extra tasks to our lists. Here’s some tips for your holiday season: • Use those old-fashion Christmas lights to help warm up your frost tender plants. LED lights won't work — but lighting your ficus trees, bougainvilles, cactus and palms with a strand of lights may just keep them from freezing, along with adding more Christmas cheer. • Water with luke warm water for holiday gift plants like poinsettias, Christmas cactus and cyclamens. These plants don’t “like” cold tap water. Feed each time you water — and water as they begin to dry out. By using these tips your holiday plants will thrive long after your guests have gone. Start the routine again next Halloween and you just might get another massive bloom next year.
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• Although poinsettias are the traditional Christmas flowers a few others are just as lovely and take our outside temps better. Decorating with a topiary made from rosemary, ivy, boxwood or spruce can be quite beautiful and take our weather all year. The Yuletide camellia is one of my favorites, along with variegated holly or hydrangea — each adds quite a nice touch. Group them together and ... WOW! • Go ahead and prune your roses — this will help tidy up Garden columnist the yard and give you something to do when the yard doesn’t need mowing. Robby’s Nursery will be hosting its annual Rose Care & Pruning Seminar on December 17 at 1 p.m.
KATHY ROBINSON
Upcoming workshops at Robby’s Nursery Winter Break: Closed December 29, 30, 31, & Jan. 1 January 14 — Fruit Tree Care & Pruning Seminar (Citrus not included) This seminar can help give you the confidence to tackle the roses. You will get much better blooming next spring and summer if you take this time now. Even though the all new Robby’s Nursery & Calico Gardens is in a new “spot” we are trying to hold on to our holiday traditions. Come by and visit our Christmas Shop and pick up our 2012 Calendar of Events. Take this list and check it twice ... it just might help! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. And a special thanks to all our family, friends and especially our staff for helping us get through a trying 2011. The best is yet to come!
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S C H O O L S
CALIFORNIAN FILE
Poinsettias
V O I C E
PHOTO PROVIDED PHOTO PROVIDED
The Bakersfield High School Valkyries Club is helping support the needs of Optimal Hospice patients this holiday season by donating food baskets.
BHS Valkyries Club donates food to hospice patients BY RHONDA FRANKHOUSER Community contributor
K
aren Budnick from Optimal Hospice Care breathed a sign of relief when Ashley Morris — the standing president for the Valkyries Community Service Club at Bakersfield High School –– called to ask if there was anything she and her group of nearly 40 members could do to help during this holiday season. Oh — most definitely, she said. Most definitely. Each year, the volunteer department at Optimal holds a food drive to provide food and gifts for the less fortunate families under their hospice and bereavement care programs. “This tough economy has been
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hard on people in general, but it has been especially difficult for some of the patients and families on our service,” Budnick shares. Budnick said they were able to put together 30 food baskets that help provide nice Thanksgiving meals to some of the patients. “But we need more for the Christmas holiday season — and that is where Ashley and the Valkyries come in,” she said. The Valkyries are an all girl (and a few boys) club that do all types of community service, including working at the Homeless Shelter, helping out at charity walks and now a food drive and greeting card creation project for the families served by Optimal Hospice Care. Being a part of this club opens
up the opportunity for young people who might not know how to get involved. It encourages respect and care for the community, while still having fun. President Ashley Morris shares, "...we help at our school or the community in general.” The Valkyries group also bought a Thanksgiving dinner for one of the student’s family, she said. If you are interested in supporting the BHS Valkyries efforts to provide for the Optimal Hospice Care Food Drive, contact the volunteer department at 716-4000. If you are interested in learning more about volunteering at Optimal Hospice, contact KBudnick@optimalcares.com.
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Help spread holiday cheer to people living with MS BY CHRISTINE GRONTKOWSKI Community contributor
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re you looking for a rewarding way to give back to the community this holiday season? The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Southern California & Nevada Chapter is looking for volunteers and/or donations to make gift baskets for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) involved in the Caring Connection program. Every week, through the Caring Connection program, volunteers visit people with MS who are living in a licensed care facility, or are homebound and unable to go
out into the community. This friendly visitor program helps provide a connection to the outside world, emotional support, companionship and social interaction. During the holiday season, the National MS Society tries to do even more, by delivering gift baskets to this group. One 30-yearold living in a skilled nursing facility is asking for gifts or trinkets she can give to her two young daughters. Another man has asked for a radio. Other items on wish lists: • DVDs • Books
• Holiday decorations • Personal hygiene products. “I think the baskets are very important because so many people living with MS are isolated. Many do not have any Christmas at all,” explains Board of Trustee Lisa Karpe. “No gift is too small.” If you or someone you know would like to sponsor a person with MS by creating or assembling a gift basket, or if you would like to donate any products, please contact the Kern County office of the National MS Society at 321-9512, or email:christine.grontkowski@nms s.org.
Bakersfield volunteers helped pack and distribute more than 13,000 gift-filled shoeboxes for needy children around the world. Pictured at one of the seven local Operation Christmas Child Collection Centers are: Jennifer Coley, Judy Garden, Janet Peters, John Reed, Ethan Lockman, Lisa Lockman, Lily Lockman, Dalton Lockman, Steve Ramirez, and Elijah Ramirez.
Bakersfield volunteers pack more than 13,000 gift boxes for needy children BY KELSEY HENG Community contributor
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olunteers have been working tirelessly at the seven Bakersfield-area collection sites where thousands of shoe boxes packed with school supplies, toys and necessity items were dropped off by caring residents. National Collection Week is wrapping up for the world’s largest Christmas project of its kind — Operation Christmas Child — where participants fill empty shoe boxes with items for kids suffering from natural disaster, war, terrorism, famine and poverty. Soon, these shoe boxes will be delivered to 8.5 million kids worldwide. For families that haven’t yet packed their gift of hope, it’s not too late. Many local families are choosing to pack shoe box gifts virtually through “Build a Box”— an online giving tool. It’s a simple, quick, yet meaningful way to impact a child in need. Volunteers can visit the project’s website at www.samaritanspurse.org/occ, select a child’s age and gender, shop through an online selection of gifts, “pack” them in an empty shoe box, and finish it off with a note of encouragement. Then through tracking technology, donors can "follow” the box to the
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It’s not too late for YOU to help: • Go to website www.samaritanspurse.org/occ • Select a child’s age and gender • Shop through an online selection of gifts • Pack items in an empty (virtual) shoe box • Add a note of encouragement. Then “follow” your gift-filled box (through the web site’s tracking technology) to its destination country where it will be handdelivered.
destination country where it will be hand-delivered. “We think ‘Building a Box Online’ is a great way to still help out if you missed packing a shoe box for National Collection Week,” said Dalton & Lisa Lockman, Operation Christmas Child Area Coordinators for Kern County. “During the third week of November, National Collection Week, Bakersfield and the surrounding areas collected 13,024 gift-filled shoe boxes that are currently making their way to children in seven countries from the Orange County Processing center.
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The seven countries that will receive shoe boxes are Mongolia, China, Nepal, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines and Peru. The boxes packed using “Build a Box Online” will be assembled in North Carolina and will be shipped from the east coast and headed to other countries on the continents of Africa, and South America. “These children probably have never received a gift in their life. These will certainly bless these children who have so little and show them the love of God through us,” the Lockmans said. Operation Christmas Child, a project of international Christian relief and evangelism organization Samaritan’s Purse, uses simple gift-filled shoe boxes to let hurting children know they are loved and not forgotten. For many of these children, the simple shoe box will be the first gift they have ever received. Since 1993, Operation Christmas Child has hand delivered more than 86 million giftfilled shoe boxes to needy children in more than 130 countries. For more information on how to participate in Operation Christmas Child, call 714-432-7030 or visit www.samaritanspurse.org/occ.
G A R D E N I N G
T I P
Still time to get spring annual flowers planted
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here’s still time to get in your spring annual flowers. Plant pansies, snaps, stocks, calendulas, Iceland poppies & (in the shade) primroses. By planting now, you will have nice strong plants that are more likely to survive well into
the heat. This week’s gardening tip is from Kathy Robinson of Robby’s Nursery. Do YOU have a gardening tip you’d like to share with our readers? Post your gardening tips and photos of your garden on our web site at: www. bakersfieldvoice.com.
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SUNDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2011
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