Roses to Selma gravesite volunteer, thorns to adults selling booze to kids
Thumbs up to Darin Roam for his labor of love and grief, spending most of his waking hours in Floral Memorial Park in Selma, removing dirt from about 30 headstones with a paintbrush and meticulously clipping grass with kitchen scissors.
The Bee’s Carmen George reports that his volunteer work began when his wife, April, died in 2014, followed by his father, Charles, two years ago. He started cleaning headstones because he didn’t like seeing the markers riddled with grass spewed from lawnmowers. We are sure the families whose loved ones are buried in Floral Memorial are indebted to Roam for his kindness.
Thumbs up to the 80 Kaiser Permanente Fresno employees for joining with HandsOn Central California and spending their Martin Luther King Jr. holiday distributing hygiene kits, helping with meals, landscaping and sorting donations at Poverello House. The 1,000 hygiene kits were donated by KP.
Thumbs down to the eight Tulare county business owners and eight adults cited on allegations they sold alcohol to children during a Tulare County Sheriff’s Department decoy operation. For two nights, minors working with deputies went into 28 local business in an attempt to buy alcohol.
Tulare County sheriff’s deputies cited these eight stores: Village and Totem markets in Three Rivers; Ivanhoe Speedy Mart; Goshen Super Market, Goshen Shell gas station on Avenue 308, and GTP Gas on Highway 99 in Goshen; Traver Market; and People’s Food Market in Dinuba.
Businesses busted for selling alcohol to minors face a minimum fine of $250 and 32 hours of community service for the first violation. Alcoholic Beverage Control officials will take administrative action against the business which could include an alcohol license suspension or permanent revocation of the license for repeat offenders.
The detail is part of the ABC’s Education and Teen Alcohol Enforcement program and is funded by the California Office of Traffic Safety. Let’s hope the business owners and adults cited get a wake-up call that they need to grow up. Lives – and businesses – are at stake.
Thumbs up to California Secretary of State Alex Padilla for making it possible for Californians who speak Punjabi, Hmong, Syriac, Armenian, Persian and Arabic to have the option of requesting a facsimile ballot in their language when they go to vote. A facsimile ballot is a laminated copy that voters can refer to as they fill out an English ballot, reports KQED News.
Punjabi Sikh and Hmong communities are delighted with the change. “We have over 40,000 Hmong people that live here,” Fresno Center for New Americans Executive Director Pao Yang told reporter Katrina Schwartz. “So to us, it’s a big win. It’s an acknowledgment that we exist.”
Thumbs down to the new phone scammer weasels popping up in the Central Valley. The scam confuses people, according to the Visalia Times-Delta, because when you look at caller ID, your own number is calling you. Criminals are using this tactic to get personal information, according to the Better Business Bureau.
Hundreds of Valley residents have reported receiving this scam phone call, with the robocaller on the other end asking them for personal information, like the last four digits of their Social Security number. Robocallers threaten their victims, telling them that their AT&T accounts are insecure and to keep it from being closed, they must enter the last four digits of the account holder’s Social Security number.
Thumbs up to Gastro Grill in Clovis for celebrating its first anniversary Wednesday by giving back to the community. Ten percent of diners’ purchases will go toward the Coach Q Scholarship and there were free desserts with each entree, according to ABC30.
Coach Q is the affectionate term for the late Gary Quintana, a wrestling star at Selma High School and Fresno State who went on to coach in the sport. He died in October at age 45. Quintana coached at Clovis West, Clovis North and Bullard high schools and Granite Ridge Middle School.
Thumbs up to Fresno Rotary Club for awarding these grants: $6,245.60 to Link Care for two servers; $5,000 to Dress for Success for office startup costs; $5,400 to Central California Adaptive Sports Center for a utility vehicle for transportation to program sites; $7,800 to Breaking the Chains and $1,340 to Central Valley Justice Coalition for a laptop and tablet.
Thumbs up to Save Mart Companies CARES Foundation for feeding the piggy banks of two food charities. FoodLink for Tulare County will receive a $7,528 grant and Community Food Bank of Fresno will receive $5,000.
Thumbs up to California Water Service’s Visalia District for donating $45,140 to local charitable organizations and investing $8,805,925 in infrastructure improvement projects, including new water mains, generators, services, treatment plants and fire hydrants. Four wells were also rehabilitated.
This story was originally published January 19, 2018 at 1:03 PM with the headline "Roses to Selma gravesite volunteer, thorns to adults selling booze to kids."