We got to hear from Kevin Ross about Music in the Mountains' upcoming plans for spring and summer at our social on April 3 at Round Table Pizza in Grass Valley. Kevin grew up in Grass Valley and sang with the choir at Bell Hill, Lyman Gilmore, and Nevada Union under Don Baggett. Through their “Music for Young Minds” program, MIM reaches over 700 students each week in our local schools. The students get to sing, dance and listen to Mozart and “all the dead Germans.” Students may have a chance to learn an instrument and progress into the Youth Orchestra. We learned about the upcoming concert April concert on April 26 with Mezzo Soprano Sarah Saturnino. In May, Maestro Ryan Murray will be conducting the Auburn Symphony along with the MIM choir at the Mondovi Center in Davis. As always there is a full slate of wonderful music for SummerFest and more to come in the fall and winter. Music in the Mountains is planning the 2026-27 season already and it will continue to be awesome!

Since April is “Child and Maternal Health Month” for Rotary International, I want to shout out our team from Nevada City Rotary who is in Los Barriles, Mexico this week assisting with health screenings for students, and indeed entire communities, in the small rural towns in the area. In addition to the health screenings, last summer a wonderful thing happened that just goes to show what the power of Rotary Intention can do. In the small town of El Cardinal, they had just completed construction of a small new 3 classroom high school. Previously, students would drop out because the bus ride to town for high school was just too long. When our team came back, Cathy asked me if I could work my school network to see if we could get a donation of 3 sets of student furniture. Long story short, I was connected with the Reuse Network who takes school furniture from schools that have bought new and donates it where needed. They connected with Char who facilitated the border crossing with enough furniture for 6 schools! I look forward to seeing lots of pictures of the health screenings and the schools we helped when the team gets back from this journey in Rotary Service. Here are some photos from last year's trip to Los Barriles:

On April 10 we’ll be back at Bodhi-Hive for a "bring your own brown bag” lunch meeting at 12:15. Our speaker will be Christine McCormick from the Nevada County Office or Education telling us all about Artificial Intelligence and how we can use it to make our lives easier.  Then on April 17, we’ll be visiting the Crystal Hermitage Tulips at Ananda. All are welcome, please click the reservation button below to let us know you are coming.