Jerri Patchett: Volunteering

Jerri Patchett, escorted by her husband, Frank, serves as Grand Marshal of the Fallbrook Christmas Parade, Dec. 3, 2011. Frank Patchett died in 2015.

Tom Stinson, representative of Assemblymember Marie Waldron, left, and Chamber past president Jon Frandell, right, present Jerri Patchett, with the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce’s Lifetime Achievement Award at its annual luncheon and awards event May 1, 2015.

Don McDougal, Grand Tradition CEO, left, and Jerri Patchett, Fallbrook Beautification Alliance president, stand with a check from the Grand Tradition to the alliance representing a $20,000 donation from the proceeds of the 2015 Fourth of July celebration.

Jerri Patchett, left, and her stepdaughter, Ann Patchett, both strong supporters of libraries, team up to collect pledges from the audience to go toward new furniture for the reading patios at Fallbrook Library during the 2017 Community Read event.

Jerri Patchett

Volunteering Provides a Sense of Purpose

by Lucette Moramarco

Fallbrook is full of volunteers who devote their time to community service by participating in the many nonprofit organizations in town. One resident who has dedicated years of her time and talents is Jerri Patchett.

Patchett moved to Fallbrook in 2000, along with her husband and mother. The construction of their house wasn’t finished yet, so their belongings were shipped back to Los Angeles and she was without her computer for a time. She went to the local library, wanting to use a computer there, but found seven people already waiting in line for the computers.

“I felt bad; a lot of us don’t have computers. I knew I was going to work with whoever I needed to get a new library,” she said.

Being new to the community, she also went to the library to find friends.

“One reason we moved here was for open space and to have a garden,” she said.

So, she joined the Fallbrook Garden Club. Her favorite part of gardening is having plants that support nature, like birds and bees and other pollinators. She also likes to grow food, so she has a vegetable garden too.

Besides getting involved with the garden club and the Friends of the Fallbrook Library, she was asked to join the board of the Fallbrook Village Association in 2005. In 2010, when the arts were separated from parks and redevelopment under the FVA, Fallbrook Arts Inc. was formed and Patchett became its first president.

She also served as chair of the Library Building Task Force as part of a “great team effort,” she said, which included architect Ron Miller, and oversaw the building of Fallbrook’s current library.

Patchett said she has always been interested in the arts.

“I wanted to be an architect, not an artist, and appreciate design,” she said.

She studied landscape and interior design at University of California Los Angeles.

“Art is an important part of everyone’s life, or it should be. As a child, my parents took us to museums, so I was exposed to art and had the opportunity to be around art,” Patchett explained, adding that she always entered art competitions and dabbled in acting and dance. She enjoys all forms of art, ballet and theater.

She grew up in the San Gabriel Valley where her parents had built a house on a big property which was the only house on the street. They were avid gardeners, she said. They also had books but not a lot of them, so they used the local library which she loved.

When she was 12 years old, she joined an organization of young women which would go to an orphanage to read to the children.

“It was a pivotal point in my life; I was never happier than when I was there. Volunteering gives people a sense of purpose and brings joy,” Patchett said.

Volunteering became the most important thing in her life, and since then she has made friends and learned new things through volunteering.

Patchett is the current president of the Fallbrook Beautification Alliance as well as its co-founder, along with Don McDougal in 2004. She is also past president of Friends of the Fallbrook Library; a board member of the Fallbrook Village Association and past president of the Fallbrook Garden Club, the first club she joined in Fallbrook.

Her community service has been recognized with honors including Fallbrook Citizen of the Year from the Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce in 2008, Grand Marshal of the 2011 Christmas Parade, Film Festival Patron of the Arts 2013, the chamber’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015 and the San Diego Legend designation, 2016.

Patchett said she is always looking for volunteers, as are all of the local nonprofits.

“There is something here for everyone, the Angel Shop, REINS, FBA, Fallbrook Arts Inc., FVA,” she said.

See the nonprofit guide starting on page 122 for contact information.

After moving here, “I felt so lost suddenly, but I joined the garden club and within six months, I was fine,” she said.

Joining the garden club and friends of the library, helped her find a new purpose and allowed her to connect with the community, she said, adding that she feels fortunate to live here and is still making new friends.

“How fortunate I was at 12 to have that experience that shaped my life,” she said.