BREAKING NEWS: Daughters Save Mother’s Life After Learning CPR Through HeartSafe Program

UPDATE April 24, 2015: Petaluma360.com Two Petaluman’s use CPR to save lives, by Matt Brown.

We have been reporting on these amazing stories about our local youth stepping up and saving lives using skills they learned at school and from our local programs. In October 2014 we share with you “Save Lives Sonoma” helps 13-Year Old Lewis Save The Life Of His Father with CPR and in December 2014 we posted 10-Year Old Penngrove Boy Saves His Mother’s Life in #Petaluma (a post that went viral and is still gets a lot of traffic today).

We learned about another amazing story that took place on ‘tax day’ in April.

We thank Tami Bender of Petaluma Health Care District (PHCD) for providing this information from Jeff Schach, Petaluma’s Battalion Chief, along with info about PHCD’s HeartSafe Community.

Petaluma Fire Chief Jeff Schach (Photo by BETH SCHLANKER/ The Press Democrat) — Petaluma Fire Battalion Chief Jeff Schach (Photo by BETH SCHLANKER/ The Press Democrat)

Jeff Schach, Petaluma Battalion Chief says “We have linked several cardiac arrests saves to our efforts. the most recent occurred on April 15th, 2015.” A Petaluma 51-year-old woman suffered a cardiac arrest while making breakfast. Her daughters, a 7th grader at Petaluma Junior High School and the other a high school student at St. Vincent, called 911 and started CPR on their mother. When Petaluma Firefighters arrived they were able to get her heart beating normally again with a few shocks and rounds of CPR. She was transported to Santa Rosa Memorial and then transferred to Kaiser in San Francisco. She now has an internal defibrillator and no deficits. Her cardiac arrest was caused by an electrical dysrhythmia, not from blocked coronary arteries. She credits the quick action of her daughters with saving her life. Her 7th grade daughter learned how to do Hands-Only CPR this past January during PE class at school through the Save Lives Sonoma program, supported by PHCD’s HeartSafe Community.

CLICK PAGE 2 BELOW TO CONTINUE READING

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“Our Favorite River Town” – Petaluma

Petaluma In The Press Democrat — Karen Nau’s Google+ Post Where is “Petaluma”? #Petaluma #Peanuts In today’s PD

How many readers of the Press Democrat comics have noticed that Snoopy is asking about – “Petaluma?” because that is where the annual World’s Wrist Wrestling Contest is held. This competition was started in a Petaluma bar in 1953 and was publicized by a local reporter – Bill Soberanes. This series of cartoons by Charles Schultz was originally published years ago, and has helped put Our Favorite River Town on the world map. Snoopy is wondering where Petaluma is located. Why is the contest being held there? Can a blogger help Snoppy find the answer to these questions?

A new blog site titled, Our Favorite River Town, is being created for use on the Positively Petaluma website. Although there is another blog, Our River Town, published on the Argus-Courier’s Petaluma360.com site by the same blogger,; we will be experimenting with this new site in order to get maximum exposure to the largest audience. Readers of both sites will be encouraged to read both posts and to share their thoughts.

My Our River Town blog was initiated in the 1990s to share reflections about how the information and technology world of today was impacting Petaluma. To date, over 600 blogs have been posted in the following categories: Our Community. Then & Now, Web of Life, Remembering Bill Soberanes, Lest We Forget, Emergency Preparedness, Fred Wiseman, Our Cyberplace, Petaluma History, The Sages of Petaluma, and the Petalumans of Yesteryears.

About The Author:

Following a 40-year career as an educator, Bill Hammerman is currently a community volunteer who founded Petaluma Electronic Network (PEN) in 1996, the Petaluma CyberCity Roundtable (PCCR) and the Petalumans of Yesteryear in 1998, and the Petaluma Alliance for Local Emergency Response Teams (ALERT) in 2006. He was one of the original walking tour guides for the Petaluma History Museum and currently serves as the facilitator for the Sages of Petaluma and the Petalumans of Yesteryear.

Please feel free to share these blogs with your friends and colleagues and help put Our Favorite River Town on the world map.

http://www.positivelypetaluma.com/about/

http://bill-hammerman.blogs.petaluma360.com/

Positively Petaluma Welcomes Bill Hammerman To Our Contributor Staff

PHOTO: Bill Hammerman (Mr. Pepper) explains Petaluma's bell ringing tradition at the Annual 4th
of July Bell-Ringing Ceremony at The Petaluma Historical Museum on July 4, 2014 via Press Democrat

We are growing in leaps and bounds. We are the fastest growing website and social media outlet in Petaluma. To keep the momentum going we are adding more contributors. We are organic in that all our contributors are from Petaluma and are passionate about where we live.

Bill Hammerman dressed as a Petaluma Historical figure addresses crowd at the Petaluma Whiskerino Contest Photo Argus Courier Fred Abecrombie

We are very happy that Bill Hammerman is joining our team. Bill is “THE” local historian and often blogs on Petaluma 360. He has a 40-year career as an educator and an avid community volunteer. He is founder Petaluma Electronic Network (PEN) in 1996, the Petaluma CyberCity Roundtable (PCCR) and the Petalumans of Yesteryear in 1998, and the Petaluma Alliance for Local Emergency Response Teams (ALERT) in 2006. He was one of the original walking tour guides for the Petaluma History Museum and currently serves as the facilitator for the Sages of Petaluma and the Petalumans of Yesteryear.

Please give a warm welcome to Bill and we look forward to seeing more posts from him in the near future. His column will be called “Our Favorite River Town”. Check out his first post “Our Favorite Rivertown – Petaluma” on how Charles Schultz used his Peanuts comics to promote Petaluma’s Wrist Wrestling Championships and shows up in Press Democratic comic strip yesterday.

VIDEO: Janelle Wang NBC Bay Area Announces #Petaluma’s Butter & Egg Days

Provided By NBC’s website along with this video is the below:

Honor and enjoy all things Petaluma at this year’s 34th annual Butter and Egg Days Parade and Festival in historic downtown Petaluma. This year’s parade theme, PETALUMA: FERTILE GROUND, celebrates Petaluma’s remarkable fertile ground and will share the success stories of Petaluma’s culture, businesses, schools, legends, and non-profits, past and present.

Look for NBC Bay Area’s very own Janelle Wang, joined by Giants alumni Jeffrey Pacman Leonard in the parade on NBC Bay Area’s float. The festival begins at 10:00 AM, kicking off fun and family-friendly activities and bringing local food, arts and crafts vendors, local businesses, non-profit booths, and more together for this grand event. The main parade begins at 12:00 PM. Petaluma Transit will also be hosting a free ride day during Butter and Egg Days.

For more information and for a schedule of events, click here

When: April 25, 2015

Where: Downtown Petaluma

Time: 10:00 AM

via The 34th Annual Butter and Egg Days Parade and Festival | NBC Bay Area.

CLICK PAGE 2 TO SEE JANELLE WANG ON A GIANTS DECORATED CABLE CAR IN LAST YEARS PARADE WITH LEGENDARY PITCHER VIDA BLUE

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#Petaluma’s Leo Laporte Revives ‘New’ Screen Savers on TWiT’s 10th Anniversary

Leo Laporte surprised everyone on Sunday when he turned TWiT’s 10-year anniversary into a revival launch of the show Screen Savers, the original show that pushed TWiT into stardom. According to the TWiT website yesterday:

We are thrilled to announce that we will launch The New Screen Savers on May 2, 2015. The New Screen Savers will be a weekly, tech-themed variety show that reinvents the format for the modern age. Each hour-long episode will feature help and how-to segments, insight on the latest tech innovations, products, and trends, plus lots of fun surprises.

Every week, Leo Laporte will be joined by an array of TWiT contributors, including original “Screen Saver” Megan Morrone (née Olesky), Mike Elgan, Jason Howell, Father Robert Ballecer, and Bryan Burnett. Some episodes will also feature guest co-hosts from the original show, including Patrick Norton, Kate Botello, Kevin Rose, and more.

The New Screen Savers will record live, every Saturday at 3PM Pacific onlive.twit.tv. It will be made available for download and streaming later that evening at twit.tv/tnss.

In and interview with ZDNet Leo said “This is not something I would have tried even a couple years ago,” and went on to say “But we’ve built this infrastructure over time to be able to do what is essentially a broadcast show over the internet.”

The show will be filmed at the TWiT Brickhouse studios in Petaluma, California with a set that was used for the original show. He plans to bring back guests from his original show who were on his 10th Anniversary show, but didn’t know about the launch – they too were all surprised and had no idea this was going to happen when they came out to Petaluma this week.

Also in the ZDNet interview TWiT CEO Lisa Laporte said, “Leo built TWiT because he wanted to capture the magic of ‘The Screen Savers,’ and after ten years of building his vision, we decided it was time to launch our very own variety show. We couldn’t resist naming it, ‘The New Screen Savers.'”

Here is a video they released on YouTube to announce the launch of the New Screen Savers.

via The New Screen Savers: TWiT resurrects the show that launched tech video into the stratosphere | ZDNet.

CLICK PAGE 2 BELOW TO SEE THE BEHIND THE SCENES VIDEO FOR THE VIDEO YOU JUST WATCHED

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Attention #Petaluma Non-Profits! Can an Extra $10,000 Help Your Cause?

Petaluma: Apply Today for Playmaker Grants!

The 50 Fund was developed to make Super Bowl 50 the most philanthropic ever. San Francisco Bay Area non-profits will recieve 50 Playmaker grants – all you have to do is apply for them.

What is a Playmaker grant? the program provides $10,000 grants to community-based organizations with a passionate advocate and a specific, compelling need for funds to provide an immediate community impact. How many Petaluma grantees would you like to see chosen? Even if we got a few that’s $20,000 infused into our area’s programs. If you are a larger non-profit there are also Game Changer grants for $500,000.

The next round of applications will open May 5, 2015

Here is the information from their website:

The opportunity

Projects must help close the opportunity gap for low-income children, youth, and young adults (birth-24) and will be considered from any of the three of 50 Fund’s focus areas —Youth Development, Community Investment, and Sustainable Environment. In addition, each applicant must nominate an individual, affiliated with the organization, whose passion and service makes them a “playmaker” in their community. A video showcasing both the organization and advocate will be produced for each grantee. A total of 50 Playmaker grants will be awarded. Grantees will be announced, one grantee per week, every Tuesday, beginning March 3, 2015.

Click here for a list of non-profits on the Petaluma Downtown Association Website.

Click here to view the non-profits from the City of Petaluma’s website (unfortunately it appears that has not been updated for 3 years).

Category Definitions (Does your non-profit or someone you know that has a non-profit fit into these categories?):

Youth Development – Providing children, youth and young adults (ages 0-24) living in low-income communities with the educational, recreational and social-emotional supports they need to put them on the path to success.

Community Investment – Nurturing the health, well-being and livelihoods of young people and their families through investments in the economic, social and physical infrastructure of their communities.

Sustainable Environments – Building the resiliency of communities by enhancing the connectivity between residents and the natural environment that surrounds them.

CLICK ON PAGE 2 TO LEARN WHO IS ELIGIBLE AND WHEN AND HOW TO APPLY FOR THE GRANT

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Find That Perfect Something at #Petaluma’s Spring Antique Faire

“Antique” is of a latin origin “Ante” meaning before, and “Anticus” or “Antiquus” meaning former or ancient. “Antiquing” is action verb for the word Antique and means the process of making something old OR someone who “shops ’til they drop for cool old stuff”, and must find that unique piece that no other store has (not even Amazon or eBay) and must have it for your hutch, nook, porch, garden, entry way or favorite antique collection. As you are aware the high-tech revolution has born with it new words like SoLoMo or De-dupe. We decided to come up a new retro word of our own. It’s “Lumantiquing”. The word “Luma” is the latin word for the coolest historic down town on the west coast, and – – well you know the rest. So Lumantiquing is the process of getting out your sunscreen and tape measure and heading to PetaLUMA for the Spring Antique Faire where thousands will come together on April 26 to shop for antiques in our quaint historic downtown. Why do we call it a ‘Faire’ and not a ‘Fair’? Faire is simply the old fashioned spelling for Fair and pairs well with the word ‘antique’.

The Antique Faire happens twice a year – this year 2015 the Spring Faire is just a day following the Butter & Egg Days parade on Sunday April 26 (See our recent post Which Came First—the Butter or the Egg?), and the Fall Faire will be Sunday September 27th (Mark Your Calendar). In past years this event has exceeded 10,000 visitors and shoppers. Marie McCusker, Executive Director of the Petaluma Downtown Association, said this week that the Petaluma’s faire is ranked in the top 100 in the United States for antique faires.

CLICK TO PAGE TWO TO FIND OUT WHAT PROMINENT VISITORS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT THE PETALUMA ANTIQUE FAIRE , SEE PHOTOS, AND WHAT TO WEAR

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What’s Going On In Petaluma This Week? Through April 25th

Butter & Egg Days Opening Ceremonies – Sat., April 18, Noon: Applaud and thank this year’s Grand Marshall and Good Egg as we celebrate our Fertile Ground! Takes place at the Petaluma Historical Library & Museum, 20 Fourth St.

Commemorative Flight of the last USAF Mustang –Sat., April 18, 11am: At the Petaluma Municipal Airport,
601 Sky Ranch Drive. www.EarthquakeTitus.com.

“Reflections: A Look at how we see Petaluma” – Sat.,April 18, 1:30pm: This event will be a video to document Petaluma’s history as told by those who lived it. Petaluma Historical Library & Museum, 20 Fourth St. 778-4398.

“The Art of Rock ‘n Roll” Opening Reception – Sat., April 18, 6-11pm: including “The Deadlies” surf rock band from 8-11pm. Dual reception at IceHouse Gallery with “Two of Us”, acoustic Beatles music. Petaluma Arts Center, 230 Lakeville St.

11th Annual Petaluma Footrace – Sun., April 19, 8:30am: Family friendly 3 & 5 mile footrace starts and finishes at the Petaluma Marina.

Boating at the Barn – Sundays, 10am-1pm: Pick a rowboat, canoe, kayak or sailboat. River Heritage Center in Steamer Landing Park. Call 769-0910 for information.

Red Hot Chachkas – Sun. April 19, 7:30pm: New world klezmer band performs at Cinnabar Theater, 3333 Petaluma Blvd. North. For more info & tickets, call 763-8920 or visit .

East-Side Farmers’ Market – Tuesdays, 10am-1:30pm: Year-round, rain or shine! Petaluma Community Center Parking Lot, 320 N. McDowell Blvd. 415-999-5635.

Screening of “The Celebration” – Wed., April 22: Petaluma Film Alliance’s Cinema Series. Pre-film lecture 6pm; Film 7pm; Held at the Carole Ellis Auditorium, SRJC Pet. Campus, 680 Sonoma Mtn. Pkwy.

Butter & Egg Days Parade – Sat., April 25, Noon: Cow Chip Contest 10am; Cutest Chick 10:15am; Kids Parade 11:30am; Main Parade at 12pm; Kid’s area, music, booths & more!

Shedding Light On The Wine Industry: An Interview with #Petaluma Native Hoby Wedler

UPDATE: April 23, 2015 – I guess our article inspired the Press Democrat to shine the light on Hoby in Popular blind wine tasting an inspiration BY PEG MELNIK THE PRESS DEMOCRAT.

Petaluma native Hoby Wedler has always been blind. Born with microphthalmia, a rare eye abnormality, Wedler lives in a world not dominated by sight, allowing him to explore the world through his other senses.

Always curious about the world around him, Wedler enjoys and has become an expert at identifying and categorizing things by their scents and tastes. “I’ve always paid attention to my nose and what I smell around me,” said Wedler. “Whenever I come to Petaluma from anywhere that I’ve been … Petaluma always smells fresh and incredible. And I love the smell of grass. Of fresh blooming grass mixed with manure and mixed with the smell of farm and also the smell of fresh coastal influences … another aroma that I love is Petaluma just after the rain when you really get those fresh green smells, those almost wooded smells, it’s absolutely stellar. Can’t get enough of it.”

As a child, Wedler loved growing up in Petaluma, which always had a sense of truly being home for him. “There’s so much going on in the world around us, but we can always come back to this town and feel secure,” said Wedler. “I love the sense of ownership that everybody gets who’s grown up here. We own a little piece of this … you feel a sense of this town is mine.”

Wedler graduated from Petaluma High School in 2005 and now goes to UC Davis, where he is working on a Ph.D. in computational organic chemistry. His love for chemistry stems from his time at Petaluma High, where he took chemistry from Lee Boyes. Wedler recalls, “It was her constant love of chemistry that she brought to the class, talking about how amazing it was, how cool it was to work in the chemical field. Another thing about Ms. Boyes is that she just had an infectious desire to teach.”

CLICK ON PAGE 2 TO LEARN MORE ON WEDLER’S “TASTING IN THE DARK” CLASS AT COPPOLA WINERY

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#Petaluma’s Tolay Creek Watershed Getting Help From AmeriCorps

An AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) team, known as Blue One, is in town assisting with local watershed protection and restoration. The team, consisting of seven members ages 18-24, is lending a hand to Point Blue Conservation Science from April 1st until May 22nd.

Point Blue Conservation Science is a local nonprofit which serves the community through ecologically friendly and socially conscious wildlife and habitat conservation. The organization’s STRAW program – Students & Teachers Restoring a Watershed- gives participants a hands-on learning experience with ecosystem restoration, while also promoting environmental stewardship amongst its members.

Blue One is assisting Point Blue with the planting of native vegetation – over 1,700 plants in total – as well as installing an in-ground irrigation system at the Tolay Creek watershed. This work is helping to restore the natural ecosystem and encourage native birds and wildlife to repopulate to historical averages.

Kara Peterson, member of Blue One, reflects upon STRAW and its mission: “It is amazing to know that the STRAW program started from one child’s curiosity about helping the environment, and a teacher’s response was to step up and take action.” Furthermore, Peterson stated, “Now, over 35,000 students, 400 teachers and 12 years later, a number of ecosystems have been positively impacted from STRAW’s work and it is an honor to be a part of that legacy.”

The AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) and its FEMA Corps units engage 2,800 young Americans in a full-time, 10-month commitment to service each year. AmeriCorps NCCC members address critical needs related to natural and other disasters, infrastructure improvement, environmental stewardship and conservation, and urban and rural development; FEMA Corps members are solely dedicated to disaster preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery work. The programs are administered by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). CNCS is the federal agency that engages more than five million Americans in service through its AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, Social Innovation Fund, and Volunteer Generation Fund programs, and leads President’s national call to service initiative, United We Serve. For more information, visit NationalService.gov.