Jackie O’Connor, president of the Friends of Del Cerro (FODC) announced some very good news for the foundation. Through an anonymous donation, we have been able to hire an executive director for FODC. Her name is Veronica “Roni” Kleinen. She will begin her duties in January. Roni has years of experience in the area of nonprofits. This will be a tremendous benefit as we move forward with our work.
The FODC has ordered two new backboards for the basketball court at the Princess del Cerro Park. Kelly Wood, the city’s Park and Recreation Department’s Area Manager for the Navajo community informed us the resurfacing of the basketball court and repainting the backboard poles for is scheduled for Dec. 22–23. Happy Holidays to all our basketball players.
In January, members of the FODC joined professors Dr. Eric Frost and John Love, staff from SDSU Planning Department and Rachel Gregg, the Government and Community Relations Manager for SDSU for an informational tour of Adobe Falls to learn firsthand the opportunities the 38 acres owned by SDSU presents to the university. Rob Hutsel, the Executive Director of the San Diego River Park Foundation and Jared Miller-Sclar from Councilmember Raul Campillo also joined the tour.
The land was donated to SDSU by the Waring Family in 1939 for the purpose of research. In relation to this, Jackie O’Connor announced FODC has received a follow-up Capstone project award from SDSU to again work with graduate students to gather data regarding water flow and pollution, native and evasive plants and how the land can be used for environmental and agricultural studies.
A friendly reminder from John Steffen, our Police Community Relations Officer for our area: Make certain you put packages in your trunk and not in the interior of your car following a holiday shopping trip. Do not give criminals the tempting opportunity to view all your purchases. Also, keep your front curtains so lots of presents are not easily visible to everyone waking by your home. Some of those people may not be your neighbors and they may be window shopping for another purpose. Our Fire Rescue Department cautions us to make certain we are not overloading circuits to power lots of decorations and not to run power cords under carpets.
FDOC is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit foundation. We invite you to learn more about our organization, the many community projects that we are involved in to better our community, and to become involved – either by joining the Friends of Del Cerro as a supporting member or becoming a partner through sponsorship or donation. Visit us at www.friendsofdelcerro.org.
— By Jay Wilson, FODC member
