editor@yourmonthlypaper.com
June 2011
Serving the Lafayette Community The Gift Grows On
By Jody Morgan
Photo by Rita Bohling
Students Raise Money for Clean Safe Drinking Water
St. Perpetua School second graders raised over $550 for UNICEF’s Tap Project. Second grade students spoke to other classes, and the Student Council wrote articles for the weekly school bulletin and made posters to inform the school community about Tap Project and the need for clean safe water in developing countries. The message the students delivered was a reminder that $1 equals 40 days of clean water for a child in a developing country, $5 is worth 200 days with clean water, and $10 is worth 400 days of clean water. “It’s important to do a project that will help all kids have clean water because they need clean water to keep them healthy and make their lives better,” said Rita Bowling, 2nd grade teacher at St. Perpetua School. Since 1990, UNICEF has helped 1.6 billion people gain access to clean water and sanitation. Donations raised through the UNICEF Tap Project campaign have funded a variety of lifesaving projects including water access improvements in Cote d’Ivoire, sanitation improvement in Nicaragua, emergency response and water in Iraq, and school sanitation and clean water projects in Belize. Donations can be sent to UNICEF, Lauren Savage, 125 Maiden Lane, 11th floor, New York, NY 10038.
Diablo Valley Quilters By Fran Miller
In today’s society, where instant gratification is the desired norm and ‘faster is always better’ is the reigning philosophy, can a genteel activity requiring skill, patience, and artistic creativity survive? If that activity happens to be quilting, the answer appears to be ‘yes.’
“Besides being an artistic expression, quilting also answers the basic human need for comfort and warmth,” says Dianne Barnett, past president and current parliamentarian of Diablo Valley Quilters. “I don’t think quilting is merely a passing fad like macrame,
See Quilters continued on page 24 PRSRT STD U.S. Postage PAID Permit 21 Lafayette CA
Imagine a gift that’s growing across 2 ½ acres with living branches brushing the sky. Would you deed it to a stranger? Fortunately for the generations of visitors benefiting from her generosity, Ruth Bancroft’s aptitude for assessing an appropriate preservation opportunity matched her ability to envision harmonious horticultural compositions. Many visitors to the Ruth Bancroft Garden still ask: “Will this all be housing?” In 1988, Frank Cabot expressed a similar concern. Friends claiming Ruth’s th Ruth Bancroft celebrating her 100 birthday. Photo by Jane Rotermund. dry garden was a sight he shouldn’t miss dragged Frank to Walnut Creek. Arriving with no expectation that a collection of drought tolerant plants would interest him, Cabot was overwhelmed by Ruth’s ingenious combination of colorful succulent carpets with statuesque trees and flowering plants from around the world. Tactfully phrasing the question to his octogenarian hostess, Frank asked what would happen to the garden when she could no longer tend it. Having already addressed the issue with her offspring, Ruth replied, “When I go, the garden goes.” Appalled, Cabot promised he would not let that happen. Over the course of the next few years, he set up the Garden Conservancy. Giving her work of the past two decades to the public as the first property in Cabot’s non-profit organization permitted Ruth to preserve it. Ruth’s interest in succulents began in the early 1950’s when she set out to buy furniture at a yard sale and spotted a potted plant she craved. The lady of the house, Mrs. Glenn Davidson, happily sold Ruth an Aeonium that she’d
See Bancroft continued on page 17
Research Before Donating By Alisa Corstorphine
Friends of the Lafayette Library and Learning Center, entirely with the help of volunteers, manage and run the Friends Corner Book Shop which helps support the Lafayette Library and Learning Center with additional library hours, library materials, and special programs. The Friends are projecting to raise $100,000 this year to help support these projects and are dependent on the contributions of used books, DVDs, and CDs from the community to meet their goals. However, the Friends are facing a new challenge. A national corporation has started putting used book blue bins in many supermarket parking lots (the Safeway parking lot in Lafayette) Volume V - Number 6 as a convenient way for people to PO Box 1335 get rid of old media which in turn Lafayette, CA 94549 has diverted donations away from Telephone (925) 405-NEWS, 405-6397 Fax (925) 406-0547 local charities and libraries. editor@yourmonthlypaper.com The bins are marked for Reading Tree, a charity, but in Alisa Corstorphine ~ Publisher fact there appears to be a murky The opinions expressed herein belong to the writers, and do not necessarily reflect that of Lafayette Today. Lafayette Today is line between the nonprofit and not responsible for the content of any of the advertising herein,
See Donate cont. on page 13
nor does publication imply endorsement.