Special thanks to Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, for their generous donation of $5 M to help build the new Ravenswood Family Health Center in East Palo Alto! The Center recently was awarded a $7.3 M federal grant from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) in a competitive process – 3,000 applications were received and Ravenswood was one of 26 successful applicants. These two gifts will help leverage the funds needed to complete this amazing project.
Shutterfly is generously funding the redesign and rebuild of Friendship Park, one of the only parks in the North Fair Oaks Community. It is a very exciting project that will add needed greenspace and a recreational area for kids and adults. Shutterfly was honored for their commitment to this project at Design Day on January 15th.Kaboom, a nonprofit organization that helps develop parks in under-represented urban areas, helped facilitate the development of this park and introduced Shutterfly to the group and this project.
Amy Buckmaster is first woman in over 100 years to lead the Redwood City – San Mateo County Chamber of Commerce as its President.
Pacifica Teachers Awarded Stem Grants for Innovative School Projects
The Human Services Agency's Vocational Rehabilitation Services division held their 25th Anniversary Holiday Luncheon on December 18 for many County clients. Supervisor Don Horsley, County Manager John Maltbie, Director of HSA Beverly Beasley Johnson and I had the privilege of serving the turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing and gravy. My staff and the staff members of all my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors were on hand to serve the rest of the dinner - including pumpkin pie with whipped cream!
The Board of Supervisors attended a special thank you reception to honor the donors who helped make the new Fair Oaks Health Center a reality on Monday night. A special tribute was paid to the Sequoia Healthcare District for their generous capital gift of $4.3 M this year. This one-time gift represents 50% of their annual operating budget and indicates the level of commitment they have made to improve the quality of health care in the district.
The Redwood City Library was one of only three in the state to receive the coveted "Five Star Rating" from the Library Journal Index of Public Library Service, the premier public library national rating system instituted by the Library Journal. The rating makes the Redwood City Public Library not only the top-rated library in San Mateo County, it is one of the top-rated in California and the country.
My staff and I stopped by the soon-to-open Fair Oaks Health Center when we noticed that the door to the facility was propped open. The facility was full of staff who had gathered for a Thanksgiving potluck which is scheduled to open in a couple of weeks! It was a chance to gather the staff from the three clinics that will merge at the new Fair Oaks Health Center. It was a chance to see the new facility, participate in a safety training, and celebrate and give thanks. It was a joyous day! Can't wait for it to be open for our patients!
At the November 5th Board of Supervisors meeting, my colleagues and I recognized the amazing people that saved the lives of hundreds of Redwood City residents this year or helped these fire victims rebuild their lives. Chief Jim Skinner of the City of Redwood City did a masterful job of coordinating the responding fire departments. The recent fires were six-alarm fires requiring complicated rescues of injured and medically fragile individuals from multi-story buildings.
Congratulations to Patrick Tornes, a 16-year old junior at Woodside Priory, who earned his Eagle Scout badge for completing the Serenity Garden project for the Maple Street Shelter in Redwood City. The Maple Street Shelter serves single adult homeless people--about half of its residents are veterans. Patrick conceived of the idea for this beautiful garden, raised the money to build the project, and recruited the help of 24 of his scout mates and 10 adults to do much of the labor.
New Supervisorial Map Divides Menlo Park, The Almanac
Joshua Hugg, manager of the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County, donated the iPad mini that he won at the Connect13 conference to a CSM student who was a victim of the Terrace Apartment fire in Redwood City on Oct. 17. He contacted the College of San Mateo to find out if there were student victims from the recent fire that might need it. That's how he made the connection. So great!