Native Sons prepping for March 17 corned beef and cabbage feed

Rotary donates to watershed education program

Denise Fowler-Horsfall

Those Native Sons of the Golden West are at it again. They seem to be on a reverse feeding frenzy. Instead of devouring food they are providing it.
With just a few weeks passed since their sell-out surf and turf dinner, the guys are prepping for the annual corned beef and cabbage feed on St. Patrick’s Day, Saturday, March 17.
The annual dinner celebrates the Irish holiday and gives the Native Sons another opportunity to share a good time with the community. The Sonoma Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West has been hosting the corned beef and cabbage feed for longer than its members can remember. (Member Dean Zellers made a stab at guessing it had been “50 years or longer!”)
Tickets are $15 each and are available at Steiner’s Tavern.
If corned beef isn’t your thing, save the date for the upcoming chicken barbecue and third annual microbrewery tasting event on June 10 in the Plaza. The chicken barbecue is one event where the mouth-watering aroma of barbecue fills the air and draws people to the fundraiser like bees to nectar.
It always takes place the weekend closest to Flag Day as it is held in conjunction with the Native Sons Grand Parlor’s Bear Flag Celebration. This year marks 161 years since California was declared an independent republic right in our own plaza.

Rotary donates $2,500
Turning to a club that doesn’t kid around about kids, we give you Rotary. Rich Lee writes that the Sonoma Valley Rotary Club recently donated $2,500 to the Sonoma Ecology Center to help it purchase a scale model of the Sonoma Valley watershed.
The Ecology Center carries out a watershed educational program for more than 800 Sonoma Valley students and the addition of the scale model will “allow students to visualize the watershed and learn about the impacts of water pollution by showing roads, rivers, farms, construction sites and other areas of a watershed,” said Lee.
He goes on to report that the programs implemented by the Sonoma Ecology Center in a classroom setting help support the science curriculum in our local schools. Rotary has donated additional money to purchase water-quality tests and supplies so students can learn how water quality can be compromised by pollutants and run-off into local creeks.
“The Sonoma Ecology Center’s K-12 Watershed Education program has helped meet the critical need for hands-on science education,” Lee added.
The Sonoma Valley Rotary Club contributes to programs throughout the community, but its focus on youth earns it deserved accolades.

Recognizing those clubs and organizations that serve our community and acknowledging the things that they do is what this column in the Sonoma Sun is about. Spread the word of your organization’s activities and good works. Submit club news to the Sonoma Sun at clubnews@sonomasun.com