Spring is a time of rebirth, reinvention and rejuvenation. We associate this season with new life in the form of Easter eggs, planting in the yard and cleaning a messy garage/closet/life to make a fresh start. The name of the season comes from the idea of a seed germinating and “springing forth”.
As I write these words, it is not yet the first day of spring (March 19). Yet the fact that we live in one of the best climates in the world makes it feel as if spring arrived ages ago. Several weeks of rain gave way to high winds which have wiped the smog from our skies and grime from our streets. Even my old truck, which I never wash, looks shiny, if not new.
One organization which knows a lot about rejuvenation is the Orange County Sanitation District. Its nearly 700 employees have the arduous job of cleaning the waste the rest of us create. Every day, they treat almost 200 million gallons of wastewater to create energy, drinking water and fertilizer. When their work is finished, the water OC San rejuvenates is pumped into the ground to replenish our aquifers or to the ocean where it’s recycled by nature.
The Huntington Beach Assistance League takes items from those garages/closets/ lives and finds new use for them. Their efforts support community programs throughout Fountain Valley, Hunting Beach and Westminster. The ski pants you no longer use are transformed into funds which help a teacher decorate her classroom, provide a teddy bear for a child in the hospital or help veterans afford college.
Let’s not forget the tenth annual Community Service Day on April 20th. Hundreds of volunteers will join forces to help with projects throughout Fountain Valley and Huntington Beach. For example, in 2023 dozens of bags of trash were removed from the Huntington Beach Wetlands, adult bibs were sewed for the Alzheimer’s Center and the house at Fountain Valley’s Heritage Park was repainted. Efforts like these make our community better for all. We hope you enjoy these and other articles in this month’s issue. The content we provide in this ‘free’ magazine is expensive to create, print and mail to readers. Please consider becoming a Patron (page 27) to support the community news we deliver. Thanks for reading.
Scott and Anne
Publishers
SCOTT & ANNE ROGERS