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Petaluma Perspective by Houston Porter - August 2018

Brewsters Beer Garden will host “For the Children” pasta dinner on Monday, August 6, starting at 5 p.m. This is being put on by Petaluma’s Rotary Clubs, which include Petaluma Rotary, Petaluma Sunrise Rotary and Petaluma Valley Rotary, all of which will donate baskets for raffle and the silent auction.

“Admission includes a full pasta dinner with salad, bread and dessert, and the option to purchase refreshments from Brewester’s. Entertainment for the evening will be provided entirely by young people—on behalf of the young people of the world” and will include the San Francisco Scottish Fiddlers, the Keeney Triplets performing music of the Shetland Isles along with Irish dancing. The O’Brien Center for the Arts will also present dancers, and Chris Newton and Sonwill be playing the ukulele.

“All proceeds will be used by each of the participating Rotary clubs to fund a variety of global service projects aimed at benefiting children. All proceeds will be used by each of the participating Rotary clubs to fund a variety of global service projects aimed at benefiting children. Some examples of past and present Rotary club’s projects benefitting children include: Third Grade Dictionary Project (Sonoma County),Teacher Micro Grants(Sonoma County),Funded Shelter for Abused Children in Nepal, Clean Water Project in Uganda, provided text books, computers, and supplies for schools in Uganda, Sponsoring children in Uganda so they can attend secondary school and college, Built School in Dominican Republic, Installing solar power systems in Guatemala so students can study at night,More Hear More-Quito in Ecuador, detection and training to navigate hearing problems, NewGen Peacbuilders-Tandil, Argentina, youth peace education, and Agroecological Farm-La Esperanza Parish, Ecuador. Tickets are available at EventBrite.com.

Petaluma Friends of the Library puts on a quarterly book sale, and is looking for volunteers, although obviously, customers are more than welcome too. The sale itself runs over two weekends, with the kid’s book sale running from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, August 10, and a follow-up half-price sale on Saturday, August 11, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The following week/weekend is the “adult” sale, although there are also plenty of kids books for sale then too. Starting Wednesday, August 15 at 4 p.m., the doors open to one of the best book sales you’ll find around. It runs on Thursday and Friday too, then wrapping up on Saturday with a clearance sale. New books are added daily through Friday. On Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 1:50 p.m., all books are half-priced, and from 2 to 5 p.m., you get to fill an entire shopping bag with books, for just $2! While I was back in school, I used to volunteer both for set-up and to help at the sale, and always enjoyed it a lot. They have plenty of volunteer opportunities petalumalibraryfriends.org/signmeup or call Anita Greene at (707) 762-5003 if you have time to help. Shifts are short, fulfilling, and you get to preview all the books so you can find a few things for yourself. Personally, I find it cheaper to buy books at the sale, read them, and then donate them back than to check out books from the library, which inevitably get returned late, which means late fees.

Petaluma Historic Library and Museumis running their “Saturday Walking Tours”, with costumed docents, through downtown Petaluma, through October. The tours start at 10:30 a.m. each Saturday on the steps of the Museum at 4th & B streets, and although free, I highly encourage you to make a donation. Better yet, join the museum. It’s inexpensive and will help preserve this gem for generations to come. Additionally, it will give you special perks, like discounts to concerts, as well as premium lawn seating for the Butter & Egg Day’s Parade.

And for just a little more than the standard membership, you can get the reciprocity membership. This gives you access to hundreds of museums around the U.S., included most in Sonoma County, like the Pacific Coast Air Museum, Snoopy, Museum of Sonoma County,Sonoma Valley Museum of Art,Napa Valley Museum, the Petaluma Art Center, and even the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art. Also included in this membership are others of our favorites, including S.F.’s Walt Disney, USS Pampanito, Asian Art, de Young, Legion of Honor, Sacramento’s Rail, Automobile, andCrocker museums, andRenoux’s Nevada Museum of Art. And because our museum’s membership is cheaper than most of the big guys, this means you’ll get a screamin’ deal on getting into all those other museums too. (visit narmassociation.org to see all the museums included in the reciprocity membership.)

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