Community

With the American Cancer Society pushing for more regional fundraising efforts, local organizers of the annual Relay For Life from Morgan Hill and Gilroy have combined their resources and developed the inaugural Relay For Life of South County.

An “influenza virus infection” claimed the life of a fifth Santa Clara County resident earlier this month. County officials are recommending those who haven’t already received the flu vaccination to do so, according to an announcement from the Public Health Department.

Morgan Hill school district brass are standing pat with their proposal to dramatically increase sports facility use rates to offset thousands in annual maintenance costs, while local youth leagues are boiling over the abrupt plan that could severely impact their membership fees.

In an effort to increase qualified teaching candidates, the Santa Clara County Office of Education will host a “Step into Teaching: Opportunities in Silicon Valley Public Schools” event 9am to 1pm Feb.10 at 1290 Ridder Park Drive in San Jose. During the Saturday event, attendees will learn what is needed to become a teacher, how to navigate the credentialing process and receive information about compensation, benefits and retirement.

Stratford School’s Morgan Hill campus will host a Family Benefit Game Night from 6:30pm to 8pm Jan. 19 to benefit the construction of a Magical Bridge Playground in Morgan Hill’s Community Park.

Local civil rights leader Lovell “KC” Adams, a Gilroy business owner and youth coach in Morgan Hill and Gilroy, as well as several South Valley students will be honored on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, Jan. 15 by Bethany Community Church at San Juan Oaks Golf Club in Hollister.Adams will receive the Martin Luther King Freedom award for his dedication and service to the community and schools.The students will receive certificates of completion of the Future Leaders with SWAG (Successful Winners Achieving Goals) taught by local attorney Elvira Zaragoza Robinson and Pastor Gerald E. Harris.“The reason why Lovell was selected was because we were looking for individuals that really serve the role model of being as we call freedom fighters,” Harris said. “Fighter is a harsh word, but a freedom fighter is someone out there trying to liberate people from their incarceration, whether that’s in education or finance or opportunities.”Adams, who was born and raised at an orphanage in Gilroy, works with at-risk youth in athletics. He’s coached sports at numerous institutions including Gavilan College and Anchorpoint Christian School in GIlroy. He is currently the president of the Gilroy and Morgan Hill chapter of the 28-team National Junior Basketball Association.“I think it’s an honor just to be selected by that group,” Adams said. “This summer I was in Atlanta, I did a march with Martin Luther King Jr.’s son,” he said. “Talking to him and understanding what his dad was about, it makes this award more important to me.”In addition to his sports mentorship, Adams is owner of Kutz and Colors Hair Salon that has operated in Gilroy for 20 years.“I feel like I’m a VIP, being given it on Martin Luther King Jr. Day,” Adams said. “Being a black man, I’ve struggled to get where I’ve gotten. Just getting here and overcoming obstacles, it’s a blessing.”Bethany Community Church has given the award for over a decade. The event started out at the Forest Park Inn in Gilroy, but moved to Gavilan College and is now hosted at San Juan Oaks Golf Club in Hollister. The commemoration will begin with a silent auction at 9am followed by breakfast and the award program at 10am.Harris said that because 2018 marks 50 years since the assassination of King, “Moving forward, we really wanted to keep that dream alive because the issue of freedom is still vital today. We have many people who are incarcerated economically, incarcerated in terms of lack of education.”Tickets to the event are $45 per person and can be purchased by calling Elvira at (831) 801-5530.

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors presented commendations to members of the San Martin Neighborhood Alliance, the San Martin Chamber of Commerce and Greenwaste Recovery, Inc. for their joint efforts in hosting the November 2017 Trash Bash event in San Martin.

Seven local organizations were awarded for their efforts to promote education and youth arts with grants from the Morgan Hill chapter of the American Association of University Women, according to a Jan. 10 announcement.

As Gavilan College prepares for its 100th birthday in 2019, historian Leah Halper is looking for interested parties who attended the college to contribute their memories to a Gavilan College Centennial archive and oral history project.

Retired educator and Morgan Hill’s “bookseller extraordinaire” Ellyn Gaich was one of 300 independent booksellers nationwide to win James Patterson’s coveted “Holiday Bonus,” according to the owners of BookSmart, where Gaich works.The honor was announced by international best-selling author and philanthropist of the arts James Patterson, who teamed up with the American Booksellers Association to award the prestigious honors, which came with holiday bonuses for the designated top booksellers.BookSmart co-owner Brad Jones said the Patterson Holiday Bonus is “given to only those booksellers who go above and beyond the call of duty.” BookSmart nominated Gaich for the award because of her longtime service to the reading community.Patterson’s prestigious honor came with a cash holiday bonus. Gaich didn’t disclose the amount of the bonus, but she told BookSmart co-owner Brad Jones it was “more than a couple tanks of gas, and less than a trip to Maui.” In total, Patterson and the ABA awarded the Holiday Bonus recipients nationwide a total of $350,000 in bonus money.Gaich, 62, has worked part-time at BookSmart, located at 1295 E. Dunne Ave., for about seven years. She is retired from Morgan Hill Unified School District, where she worked at Nordstrom Elementary School’s library.“I like being around books. It’s a comfort to me,” Gaich said. “The retail side was more of a learning curve. It’s a little bit different, but fun.”Gaich, a longtime Morgan Hill resident, has been a customer of BookSmart’s for much longer than she has worked there. She used to stop into the store at its former downtown location while walking through the neighborhood with her two children, who are now adults.“It’s such an institution in the community,” Gaich said of BookSmart. “Every town needs a bookstore.”She also likes how BookSmart is more than just a bookstore. She enjoys the “variety” of people and activities she gets to encounter at the store, which hosts art lessons, poetry readings, drama performances and other artistic programs. The front of the store doubles as a café, which is often a hive of family gatherings, business meetings and friendly socializing.Gaich and her co-workers, along with BookSmart owners Jones and his wife Cinda Meister, share a “team approach” to selling books. “Everybody here reads,” Gaich said.Currently, among Gaich’s favorite books for sale at BookSmart are those in the “Merle, the Freethinking Dog” series, as well as science-fiction novel “Ready Player One.”“We have several really top notch booksellers who always try very hard to find just the right book for each and every client and Ellyn is one of the best!” Jones said.Patterson is a prolific novelist who has donated more than $1.5 million to holiday bonuses and grants for independent booksellers and bookstore employees since 2014. Over the past decade, he has given away more than $1 million books to students, and visited hundreds of schools in an effort to promote youth literacy.