October 2016 | sunflowerhill.org
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October 20, 2016 
Livermore Review Process Now Underway!
Thank you to the city of Livermore's Planning Commission and Historic Preservation Committee for their review and solid approval of our proposed residential community! Sunflower Hill Livermore was reviewed by both commissions earlier this month and the next step in the process is City Council - with a planned late November meeting. We're planning to hold a special neighbor and community meeting in early November. This will be an opportunity for SFH, along with partners MidPen Housing and Dahlin Architects to answer questions and to share more about our proposed residential community for 45 individuals. If you have a question you'd like answered on our project, please send an email to  info@sunflowerhill.org . We are working on updating our FAQ's as well! A very special thank you to all SFH families and community leaders who wrote letters and spoke in favor of our project. We're very grateful for your support and we are excited about the opportunity to bring this unique project to the city of Livermore.  

Pumpkin Festival this Saturday!


Note - If this is your first visit to the garden, please download these forms , sign them and bring to the gardens. If you have already volunteered and signed these, no need to do it again.
See you Saturday!
Emily's Story


Our next installment in our series of stories comes from Penelope Wong about her daughter, Emily. 

Emily graduated from Amador Valley High School and is currently enrolled in Futures Explored's Film and Media Workshop. 

You can read Emily's Story here. Thank you to the Wong family for sharing a special piece of their life with us!



Keeping Busy at Sunflower Hill Gardens at Hagemann Ranch
We have had another very fruitful summer in the Sunflower Hill Gardens! We have been harvesting tremendous amounts of produce and donating regularly to local Tri-Valley food banks including Open Heart Kitchen, Tri-Valley Haven and Shepherd's Gate, and starting this month St. Raymond's Food Pantry in Dublin! The remainder of our produce has been sold to the local community and some wonderful local restaurants.

We are harvesting the last of the summer produce and have begun to plant fall/winter produce and cover crop in the fields. The school year has begun and we now have seven High School and Transition special needs programs from Livermore, Dublin, and Pleasanton, as well as the Danville Adult special needs Day Program that are all regularly attending, and having a great time coming to the garden weekly/bi-weekly.

We have had many more individual volunteers coming on the weekends and had several wonderful volunteer groups helping us in the garden.

Dave and Carol Espinosa
We would like to send out a special thank you to Carol and Dave Espinosa for volunteering in our garden
weekly and to Dave for all his hard work on building the shelves and racks inside our toolshed!

We can use more regular volunteers, especially during
the weekdays with the special needs programs. If you are interested in volunteering please email us at gardens@sunflowerhill.org

We continue to be incredibly grateful to the City of Livermore for this opportunity to use one acre of the Hagemann Ranch for our SFH Gardens. 

Lastly, for the second year in a row, we have a scarecrow entered into Alden Lane's scarecrow contest! Our amazing garden interns, Audrey, Teresa, and Devan made our scarecrow and they did an incredible job! Scarecrows are on display at  Alden Lane Nursery now, located at 981 Alden Lane in Livermore, until Sunday, October 30th. Vote from Monday, October 10th - Saturday, Oct. 29th.

Have You Seen our Latest Video?
Our latest Sunflower Hill video was first premiered at Moonlight in the Vines last July, and focuses on all the great work that is happening in our Gardens at Hagemann Ranch. If you haven't seen it yet, you can view it here. Thank you's go out to Lynn Monica, Board Member and Garden Director for producing this, to Graham Richards for the music and sound mix, and to Futures Films for filming it. We are very proud of this video and our garden produce and programs!


Congratulations to Tanya Ludden on Receiving the Pleasanton Mayor's Award!
Tanya and Mayor Thorne

Huge congratulations to our board member extraordinaire, Tanya Ludden, who received this year's Mayor's Award from Pleasanton Mayor Jerry Thorne! 

Tanya has been a constant volunteer, leader and has served on various boards in the community for decades and we are so thrilled that she was recognized in this way! You can read the full story here from the Pleasanton Weekly.

Foothill High School's Falcon Royale

Special thanks to Foothill High School for having Sunflower Hill as their community partner for this year's Falcon Royale! This annual event will take place on Saturday, November 5 at Castlewood Country Club. If you'd like to purchase tickets and join us, you can buy them here. It's a really fun night and we'd love to see you there! Thank you, Foothill High School!

A Special Thanksgiving Dinner
  


Sunflower Hill is a proud sponsor of this year's Tri-Valley Community Outreach Thanksgiving Dinner, serving people in need on Thanksgiving Day.

For more details on the dinner, or to volunteer, please go to their website










Sunflower Hill | | info@sunflowerhill.org | P.O. Box 11436
Pleasanton, CA 94588