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Whats Up in Windsor by Lorene Romero and Gayle Walz — February 2020

This month’s “What’s Up in Windsor” is going to be a little different from a typical February Valentine’s Day theme and it’s not going to be about hearts and flowers, but it is going to be about love. It is going to be about the deep love for the little town we call home.

As we all know, in October, Windsor, along with other surrounding towns, was on mandatory evacuation due to the Kincade fire danger. This was no easy feat to require nearly 200,000 people to willingly leave their homes, however it was done with great success.

I want to give a huge shout out to the people who had the foresight and courage to make the hard decision to make all of us leave our homes. It was their love for Windsor that saved our town.

What many people did not realize, rightfully so since they were busy packing up their belongings and heading out of town, is that there were a bunch of people who remained behind to fight the fires, safeguard our homes and keep Windsor running.

When a city or town is evacuated, things still need to happen in the background to keep a town functional. The water and sewage systems needed to be maintained, which took a special process. We also had over 60 law enforcement officers on every shift patrolling to keep people from coming into Windsor and stealing from us.

One area that had never crossed my mind, until it affected us directly, was animal control. One of our cats (her name is Molly and she is a Feline Rescue kitty) refused to come near me so I could put her in a cat cage. This meant that I was forced to leave her behind to fend for herself. When I was repopulated, I came home to find little bowls on my front porch because someone put out dry food for her while I was gone.

At the January 21st Windsor Chamber of Commerce luncheon, members of the Windsor Police and Fire Departments, Bell Ambulance, Pet Reunification Program, Animal Control, Town of Windsor and the Public Works Department were all presented with gift certificates from SoCo Reflexology.

After the Kincade fires, funds were collected at different events through word of mouth, and local residents and business owners made donations to the 1st Responders “Massage” fund. Amazingly, over $4300 was collected and 136 one-hour massage certificates were given out. We want to give a special thank you to Michael and Helen, the owners of SoCo Reflexology, for making this possible.

Since I know that caretakers are not the best at accepting “self-care”, I will request of them that if they do not want to have the massages themselves, to give them to the person who was waiting for them to return home safely after the Kincade fire.

How is that for a February love story? Want one more?

On February 26th, from 9-12, a special Tourism Cares project is coming to Windsor. Windsor Chamber of Commerce, Town of Windsor, Sonoma County Tourism and the Sonoma County Regional Parks department will be doing volunteer work at Foothill Regional Park helping repair the damage caused by the Kincade fire.

Would you like to volunteer to help be part of this event? Then email me at Lorene@mac.com for more a link to sign up.

-Lorene and Gayle (who always proofreads what I write so I don’t embarrass myself too much)

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