Community

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.

Wanting to avoid any chance of repeating last winter’s catastrophic flooding when Anderson Reservoir spilled over for the first time since 2006 due to heavy rains, water officials have kept the county’s largest water reserve at lower levels than what is mandated by the state.

Any pressure of being the son of two decorated Olympic champions has not fazed Morgan Hill’s Anthony Ponomarenko—who together with ice dancing partner Christina Carreira won the junior national title at last weekend’s 2018 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose.

Sister Cities of Morgan Hill has expanded its programs to allow local families and teens age 14-17 to participate in a cultural exchange with sister city San Casciano, Tuscany, Italy.

About an inch or more of rain is expected to fall over the next two days, with heavy downpour at times Monday evening, before clearing up by Wednesday and through the weekend, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Steve Anderson.

Child Advocates of Silicon Valley is in need of more Morgan Hill and Gilroy community volunteers to serve as friends, mentors and advocates for children in foster care.