Forever Forestville - January 2012

Community Champions

The Forestville Chamber of Commerce has announced their choices for recognizing the volunteer efforts of outstanding community members who give their time to making our home a wonderful place to live and raise families. The Chamber Annual Dinner and Awards Ceremony will be held on March 24^th at Cork’s Restaurant at Russian River Vineyards. 

Citizen of the Year – Doug Wood. The entire Wood family has been a major reason why our hometown functions well. Their volunteering helps maintain life in Forestville. If I’m correct, this is the third time a member of the Wood family has received a Citizen of the Year Award, so that’s a good indicator of how much they have devoted to our community. Doug Wood is a general engineering contractor who owns DW Enterprises. His tools of the trade are trucks and tractors for excavating, hauling, building, etc. He uses these skills and tools to donate time and energy to projects that are especially beneficial to children, from projects at our schools to our youth park. Over the last several decades, Doug has been building and maintaining our home from one end of town to the other. He’s a prime example of how dependent we are on the generosity of people who give their time so that our unincorporated community stays strong.  Thank You Doug!

Volunteer of the Year – Richard Naegle, former president of the Forestville Planning Association.  The F.P.A. began less than ten years ago as a way for our unincorporated community to have representation when the Sonoma County Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors were making decisions about the future of our town. Until the F.P.A. existed, the best we could do was show up in numbers at meetings so that these entities could see that there we care about our town. Decisions about development were being made without our input, and we wanted to be heard.  By the time Richard took over as leader, many people were at odds with each other about the future of Forestville. It took a peace-maker to bring people back into focus to see that the original goal of the F.P.A. was to inform people about plans being made so that they could form educated decisions. Town Meetings became an essential element of that education process and the F.P.A. has been the objective entity to bring information to our citizens.  Thank You Richard for your ability to bring people together for our mutual benefit.

Business Person of the Year – Holly Robinson.  For the last 17 years, Holly has run The Package Store at the corner of Covey & 116 in downtown Forestville. Serving both our cottage businesses and general public, she has provided a convenient location for packing and shipping packages, selling office supplies and notarizing documents right here in town. She also serves clients as a bookkeeping service.  2011 is her last year in town, and her shipping business will be turned over to Mark at the beginning of 2012. Holly will continue her bookkeeping service at a new office in Guerneville. We are grateful that she chose Forestville to serve West County with the convenience of a local shipper so we don't have to travel far for this service. She has also contributed many hours of her time and skills, as well as materials to support local causes and projects, and for that we are grateful because she has served our community personally as well as professionally. Thank you for all the years you gave to our hometown.