BY OPAL MORLAND Community contributor loha friends and commu- nity! I am a former foster child and current foster/adopt mom. I guess you could say my life has come full circle. I am writing this article to let you know how wonderful life can be. My husband, Gordon, and I have been blessed with five wonderful children — some bio and some adopted. We are also grandparents for the first time, so are family is growing. I am proud of my family and my children — and I am proud to be a part of an organization that is about helping families. This organ- ization is Caregivers of Kern Coun- ty. Members of “Caregivers” are par- ents of foster children, kinship caregivers and true advocates for needy families. Together we are sponsoring our first “Walk Me Home ... to the place I belong” 5K walk. This is the only nationwide walk for foster care. This 5k walk event will be held at Beach Park, Sept. 18 beginning at 9 a.m. We are inviting everyone to come and join us as a walk team, a spon- sor, as a vendor, or a donation of your time as a volunteer. This is just another fabulous way to help our community. Teams consist of walkers earning at least $30 per walker. Funding raised through walking will be dis- tributed with 30 percent to the National Foster Parent Assc., 35 percent to the CKC, and the other 35 percent back to the team for participation. The more sponsors your team gets, the more funding you raise for your charity or cause. Sponsors may donate any amount, of course, but we are requesting a minimum of $100 which will include your name on T- shirts and banners — and other bulletins and media attention we receive. This is great for positive aware- ness of foster care in Kern County and throughout California, as well as national recognition. Vendors may purchase a spot beginning at $25 for crafters, dis- tributors, and food vendors for just little more. (Must have proper food and health permits). Volunteers are the backbone of any event and we appreciate any help or time you can provide. We are sponsored by the Nation- al Foster Parent Association and supported by Kern County agen- cies and city departments, as well as private companies. Our goal is to bring positive awareness to foster care — and raise much needed funding for charity. You may not know that I teach hula. Our class is Jamm’n Island Hula, and we will be a team participant. My children and I, as well as my wonderful class, donate our time to help needy children and fami- lies. As a former foster child and a 14- year foster-adopt parent and kin- ship/guardian provider, I am endorsing this program. Please, won’t you join us and be a walker, vendor, sponsor, entertain- er or volunteer and help us be the difference in the life of a child! For more information visit: www.WalkMeHome.org and regis- ter under Bakersfield, CA or call Gayla at 332-5129. Thank you for your considera- tion. 2 The Bakersfield Voice Sunday, July 18, 2010 Share stories, photos, blogs www. bakersfieldvoice .com ■ Submitting your sto- ries for The Bakersfield Voice is simple and FREE! Just go to: www.bakers- fieldvoice.com and create a profile. ■ Choose what you’d like to contribute (an article, letter, picture or community event listing) and post it yourself. ■ For delivery issues, please email: voicedelivery@bakersfield.com ■ Still need help getting your contributions onto our Web site? E-mail Sandra Molen at smolen@bakersfield.com YOUR VOICE es, it’s that time of the year again, when The Bakersfield Californian asks the community to rally together on behalf of the home- less pets in our area and get some serious fundraising done. So dust off that digital camera, grab your iPhone or start scanning the Polaroids and get your pet(s) entered into the annual Tails of Bakersfield photo contest. Why should you participate in this year’s Tails contest? Easy — the homeless pets of Bakersfield need us. The economy has put an awful lot of peo- ple into some pretty difficult circumstances these days, and when long-term financial hardship happens as a result of layoffs or families breaking up, all too often it’s the family pet who pays the ultimate price. Our local shelters function on perpetual overload during the best of times; these past couple of years have only exacerbated an already dire situation, as families who have run out of options find themselves turning in companion animals. Your participation in Tails of Bakersfield will help provide much-needed funds for the organizations who take on the task of spaying, neutering and rehoming those pets still searching for a permanent place to lay their head. Even better, you get to choose which organization gets your donation; Alpha Canine, Bakersfield SPCA, The Cat People or Friends of the Kern County Animal Shel- ters Foundation. Although I am on the board of Friends, I can say , with great confidence, that any one of these organiza- tions are an excellent place to show your support — as we all have the common goal of reducing the number of homeless pets in Bakersfield. Plus, your donation will allow your beau- tiful fur-kids to be seen in the pages of The Bakersfield Californian. Who doesn’t want to show off their pets? I’m even planning to pop a couple of mine on the site. As in years’ past, the donation is just $10 per photo. If you want your pet entered in the Pet Idol competition, it’s an additional $5 donation through August 1. This year’s Pet Idol contest winners will be featured in Bakersfield Life magazine in full-on glossy color, perfect for showing off to your friends and family. Even if you’re not interested in seeing your pet in print, the Tails of Bakersfield site (www.tailsofbakersfield.org) features a handy button for straight-up donations. I know our community prides itself on coming together in support of a common cause. Let’s do something spectacular and make this the most successful Tails of Bak- ersfield fundraiser yet. You may enter the Tails of Bakersfield contest through any of the following means: * Go to www.tailsofbakersfield.org and submit your entry online. * Go to the Californian office at 1707 Eye St. Bring your photo and fill out an entry form. Photos will not be returned, so bring a copy if it’s a keeper. * Email your photo to tails@bakersfield.com. Include your con- tact information, pet’s name, age and breed. Include one sentence describing something interesting about your pet. Pho- to will be entered when your donation is received. * Mail your photo and above information with a $10 check ($15 if entering Pet Idol as well) to Shanan Mallard, P.O. Bin 440, Bak- ersfield, CA 93302. Photos will not be returned. Make check payable to one of the following organizations: Alpha Canine Bakersfield SPCA The Cat People Friends Foundation (Friends of the Kern- County Animal Shelters Foundation) or FKCASF Have a pet-related question or comment? E-mail Vicky at: [email protected] or visit: www.pawprintcitytimes.com. YOUR PETS YOUR VOICE Y Tails are wagging for ‘Tails of Bakersfield’ fundraiser! COURTESY OF CAL STATE BAKERSFIELD much-anticipated solar energy project expected to provide 25 to 30 percent of CSUB’s total energy usage recently broke ground at CSUB. Upon completion at the end of summer, the 1 megawatt solar photovolta- ic collection system will also provide shade cover to 500 parking spaces on the south side of campus. The $9.5 million project is being paid for by SunEdi- son, part of a public-private partnership with 15 CSU campuses to fund and build solar power projects. The project leads to both a reduction in the universi- ty’s carbon footprint, and in its electrical costs. The solar power sold by SunEdison will cost about 5 percent less than what CSUB is now paying Pacific Gas & Electric. “We get 20 years of energy at a slightly lower rate and from a sustainable source,” said Pat Jacobs, Assistant Vice-President for Facilities Planning Development and Operations. “We’re doing something green for the environment, it helps the bottom line of the university, and I think people will enjoy having covered parking.” From June 14 to Sept. 5, parking lots E and I will be closed for the installation. The Facilities Department requested the construction take place during summer when the parking lots are least used. Jacobs said it will take about one more month after fall quarter starts to configure the system to go online. Underground conduits will carry the DC electricity created by the solar collectors to an inverter station next to the Facilities Department’s building, which is at the southern edge of Parking Lot E. The station will convert the electricity to AC, then send it underground to tie into the campus’ system. The solar project fits into CSUB’s overall strategy to reduce its carbon footprint, says Jacobs, who is one of two co-chairs of the university’s Sustainability Com- mittee. CSUB President Horace Mitchell pledged to curb emissions when he signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment in 2007. The eventual goal is to become carbon neutral — to not produce more carbon emissions than can be off- set. Already, students have studied the amount of carbon emissions created by campus activities to create a baseline. Now the committee is developing a plan to reduce that amount. For more details about the solar project, contact Pat Jacobs at 654-2211. A PHOTO BY LORI ROBERTS Opal Morland, pictured with two of her children, Cassie and Zachary Morland, both former foster children, is getting the word out about the “Walk Me Home” 5K walk, a fundraiser to benefit foster care, to be held Sept. 18. COURTESY PHOTO Darby, Vicky’s pup, is waiting to check out his competition for the Tails of Bakersfield contest! VICKY THRASHER Pet columnist Solar energy project gets underway at CSUB COURTESY OF CAL STATE BAKERSFIELD ocal educators and college students have been working with scientists to develop locally focused earth science curriculum for teachers to take back to their classrooms Funded by a $173,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, “San Joaquin Valley Rocks!: Inspiring Future Geoscientists” is hosted by the CSUB geology department. Two geology instructors from CSUB have teamed up with scientists from the Buena Vista Museum of Natural History and Kern County Museum, as well as geology students from CSUB and Bakersfield College, and teachers from the Bakersfield City School District, Rosedale School District, and Kern High School District. They’ve been studying such topics as how the Southern Sierra Nevada Mountains formed, evidence of the ancient ocean that covered Bakersfield 15 million years ago, and how oil formed in the earth beneath Kern County. They are creating lesson plans to teach these topics at both the sixth grade and high school levels. “We are preparing thorough instructions and back- ground materials so that a teacher with little or no earth science background can feel comfortable and hopefully excited about teaching these lessons,” said Staci Loewy, assistant professor of geology at CSUB. With the growing focus on language arts and math in schools, she says subjects such as science are not get- ting as much attention. “We are trying to provide teachers with better tools to get kids excited about earth science,” she said. During the upcoming school year, teacher partici- pants will test the new activities in the classroom, refine them, and then share them with area teachers in a workshop next summer at CSUB, with the goal of implementing the lessons throughout the participat- ing school districts. “San Joaquin Valley Rocks!: Inspiring Future Geosci- entists” is one of four science-related, grant-funded projects taking place at CSUB this summer: • REVS-UP (Research Experience Vitalizing Science- Campus Program), funded by Chevron Corp, hires local teachers and high school students to help CSUB with 14 different research projects, including geology, biology, chemistry, computer science, math and physics. Learn more at www.csub.edu/stem. • A grant from the Keck Geology Consortium will bring together college students from around the coun- try to study the geologic history of the Sierra Nevada in collaboration with CSUB’s Geology Department, Pomona College and the USGS-Stanford Geochronol- ogy Laboratory. Students will collect samples at Sequoia National Forest, process them at CSUB, then analyze them at Stanford, before returning home with assignments for the coming year. Learn more at http://keckgeology.org. • In another project funded by a $295,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, a team of CSUB sci- ence, math and education faculty is working with Kern High School District science and math teachers, administrators and community partners to develop a Math and Science Institute Partnership that would provide professional development for teachers. More info can be found here: http://gvmsp.mspnet.org. L A Happy birthday, Kylee Saffell! COURTESY PHOTO Help make the difference in the life of a child! COURTESY PHOTO Adam Herrera, an earth science teacher at North High School, participates in “San Joaquin Valley Rocks” hosted by the CSUB geology department. CSUB geologist instructors help teachers develop earth science lessons to take back to classrooms YOUR CELEBRATIONS