Small-town parade keeps growing and getting better thanks to the
love and dedication of community volunteers like Barbara
Kimmich
The following organizations and individuals deserve CHEERS this week:
CHEERS: To Barbara Kimmich, chairwoman of Morgan Hill’s Holiday Lights Parade for five years, who last Saturday showed the event keeps growing and getting better each year. It’s estimated about 2,000 people attended. Kimmich and the Morgan Hill Kiwanis Club deserve a big “Thank You” for volunteering their time to make this event happen. The parade brings some much-needed holiday cheer to our town. This year Kimmich was successful at getting 30 entries to participate, eight more than last year. Kimmich and other parade volunteers such as Jim Tarp, with Jet Electric, make sure Monterey Road is all decked out for the holidays with the wonderful Christmas decorations in the median aisle along Monterey Road.
CHEERS: To Geno and Cindy Acevedo’s El Toro Brewing Company finally opening its brewpub at the intersection of Monterey Road and Main Avenue. The restaurant’s immediate success couldn’t have happened to nicer people in town. The Acevedos have worked hard to make their dream of having a microbrewery and a restaurant for nearly 16 years.
CHEERS: To Morgan Hill Unified School District fifth, seventh and ninth-graders for having a high percentage passing rate in the latest physical fitness exam given by the California Department of Education. District students, surprisingly, did better than students in other districts where the failure rate was alarming. Inactive children grow up to be inactive adults, which costs taxpayers money due to poor health from lack of exercise. Kudos to district officials for having the foresight to require students to move their bodies longer than the minimum prescribed. We lead such sedentary lives and our obese children are learning by example. We need to use the district’s success as a steppingstone to implementing more fitness programs that require students to exercise even more. Our children are consuming a shocking amount of high-calorie foods and not eating enough vegetables, fruits, whole grains and drinking more water instead of sugary beverages such as sodas.
CHEERS: To San Martin residents who are leading efforts to incorporate. We admire their desire to take their rural town’s destiny by the horns and begin signature gathering to finally put the issue on the ballot and have an election next fall. They have a right to decide the quality of life they want to have. If their desire is to shun big-city influences, then they should. Let’s celebrate country living, just please get rid of the horse poop smell and do whatever is necessary to keep town parts looking nice and clean. Just because you don’t have sewers and few animal control restrictions, doesn’t mean you have to look dumpy. With a new law passed giving towns like San Martin the green light to incorporate, San Martinians goal of becoming a city could soon become a reality. Keep those signatures coming.
CHEERS: For everyone who shops local, and understands that a dollar spent in Morgan Hill is a dollar that supports the community. When in doubt, shop in town.
