Please come tomorrow to support The Discovery Center!!
The Discovery Center‘s new 40yr lease will be voted on tomorrow at City Hall during the City Council open session….sometime between 9 and 10am…and we would like a lot of grownups and kiddos there to hoot and holler and give loud thunderous applause when the vote is APPROVED!! (Assuming all goes well, of course.) That way the City can be encouraged that they are doing the RIGHT THING by allowing us to continue to rent the 6acres of city park that The Discovery Center occupies.
And because of this final happy ending of a VERY LONG drawn out story that I won’t go into…As a result of this vote tomorrow to allow TDC to continue to occupy Reedy Park, TDC is finally going to be able to REBUILD ITS MUSEUM!!! YAAAAAAAAAY!!!
So please arrive at City Hall with as many people (children included!) as you can gather…tomorrow (Thursday June 16) at 9am and if you would like to hold up signs saying things like “We HEART The Discovery Center” or something similar, that would be great!
The Discovery Center is a very important local organization for the children of the Fresno area and I hope lots of people will come out to show their support for its continued existence and future contributions to the hands-on science and nature education of so many local children!
Tina Smith
The Discovery Center Boardmember
Webmama of www.fresnofamily.com
Founder/President of www.fresnolearningvillage.com
So what do YOU think about the Met situation??
I have my own opinions on the current situation with the Fresno Met. But I want to know what YOU think.
Please leave a comment by clicking on the title of this entry to take you to the blog and there you can leave a comment. Or email me privately at webmama_tina(at)fresnofamily(dot)com. (replacing the words in parenthesis with the symbols.)
I am very curious as to what the people of Fresno are thinking about this whole deal. Particularly families with children.
Let's help out Storyland!!
Storyland is a really wonderful resource here in the Central Valley, where we really don’t have a lot of things for our children…Really, if you look at the list of places created for children in Fresno specifically, the list is pathetically small, in comparison to other cities in California similar in size.
I mean, why is it that we don’t yet have a children’s museum?
How come we have to drive to Oakhurst or Visalia to take our children to a children’s museum??? Boggles the mind.
Fresno is definitely in dire need of some help in the child-friendly department, that’s for sure! I hope to see lots of changes in the coming years…
But since I’m not one to sit around and wait for someone, hopefully, to make changes…I’ve decided to do what I can to create some of those changes I would like to see happen. Starting with Storyland, which I see as having great potential and obviously once was a very fabulous place for children (and in many ways, still is!!)…and this is a place that is actually doing a LOT right now to improve its facility and make itself better.
But they need OUR help! There are a LOT of repairs and improvements that are needed at Storyland right now. They do have things happening…but I want to help by taking on a small project. One project that Fresno Family can take on for Fresno’s children.
I’ve been in touch with Barry Falke, the executive director at Storyland and Playland…and I’ve decided that Fresno Family (yes, the website, and the community that enjoys it) will take on the Hansel and Gretel exhibit.
This is one of my family’s favorite parts of Storyland…especially since its the only place in the area you can still play on a playground merry-go-round!!
I wanted to get some local businesses to donate materials but I am horrid at getting around to making the calls…and I struck out everywhere I tried so far.
So I’m going to try something different…I’m going to go to you, the families of Fresno!
I want to collect supplies (or money to purchase the supplies) to repair the Hansel and Gretel exhibit.
What we need:
- Exterior paint: 2-4 gallons of white, 1 gallon of every color of the rainbow (for repainting the house, the characters, the fence, the merry-go-round, the sign, and anything else that needs painting in Hansel and Gretel).
- Sand to fill about 25ftX25ftX6in deep (its ok if we get more than needed, there’s other places around Storyland that needs sand as well.)
- Wood slats for fence to repair/replace–we may need to redo the whole fence, to make it look consistant.
- Some concrete (a few bags maybe? for setting the fence posts again)
Please contact me at webmama_tina AT fresnofamily DOT com (taking out the spaces and making an @ and a . ) if you have any of these to donate to this project, or if you would like to donate money to purchase the supplies. I would like to get working on this project ASAP…my goal being to get the exhibit revamped before they open again in the spring. (Of course, weather is going to be a factor, but I can at least gather supplies and get things done when the weather cooperates and coordinates with my schedule and that of my helpers.)
If a business donates materials to the project, I would be happy to include their business name on the “Sponsored by” sign.
Thank you for reading this far and I hope to hear from many of you soon! 
UPDATE ON MALL SECURITY ISSUE
I got a call today from someone from Fashion Fair Mall security and was assured that the store clerks were NOT correct in saying that security “won’t come”…he suggested that they may be confusing the issue with the fact that they are responsible for their own property and while security will assist them, they do not solve the issues for them…I took this to mean things like shoplifters, maybe?
Anyway I made sure that he understood that I am VERY concerned about the children in the play area and that it seems that they need extra security to be regularly posted at that spot to ensure the children’s safety. He told me they would be beefing up their security and that when I return to shopping there I will notice a difference. Since I’m not at the mall very often, I would appreciate anyone that visits there let me know by commenting here if you notice security (or not). Please let us know what you see.
He said the incident that my mom was a part of was handled and the juveniles in question (he said one was 17 and one was 18) had their parents called and they’ve been banned from visiting the mall for 6months. I don’t know how much of this coincides with what my mom witnessed…I do realize interpretation has a lot to do with things…and my mom’s saying it was a “gang fight” could very well have been a misinterpretation. Everything does tend to seem bigger when you’re in the middle of it, I think. This person I talked to made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal, but would he even if it was? I don’t know. So I really don’t know anything first-hand…just what I’m hearing.
I can say that I felt much better after talking to him. Maybe I’m naive but I tend to trust what people tell me…So if he says that security will be improving, then I assume it will be happening. It remains to be seen still, so please do give your feedback here if you notice anything noteworthy on this.
CALLS ARE BEING MADE
Myself and some of my fellow local mommies are making calls to the mall and to local media to bring attention to this matter. I haven’t yet gathered the info tidily in one place, but when I do I’ll post here for others to use if they would like to also join us. For now, just use the phone book…That’s what i’m doing.
Let me make sure that I’m very clear that I am not trying to demonize the mall or security at Fashion Fair…I’m sure they have a tough job to do and Fresno has plenty of problems for them to contend with, particularly with juvenile (and not so juvenile) delinquents and gang issues and such.
I think the mall has done amazing things as far as the atmosphere and the beauty of the place these days…I think its great that they have upgraded so much and more stores are going in! Unfortunately, the riff-raff apparently also seem to enjoy the changes.
It’s a concern to me that violent incidents like this happen at all…But of course that’s the reality of life in fresno (in america, well, the world!) what concerns me the most is the comments from the store clerks (2 of them at 2 separate stores, on 2 separate days) that security doesn’t come. And that their comments make it sound like this is a regular occurence.
It is incomprehensible to me that security isn’t super strict, particularly since there WAS a knife fight incident in 2005 (right next to the children)…If nothing else that should have made it very clear that there is a great potential for a major incident. Thank goodness no one was actually hurt. But if they are truly lax with their security (which I still am gathering info on, so I don’t really know for sure), then they are bound to eventually have an actual injury, or worse, of a innocent bystander. And apparently the riff-raff do not care about the safety, physical OR emotional, of children…Since both incidents that I know about happened right next to the children’s play area.
This is NOT acceptable. and I hope that those of you reading this feel the same way. It is unacceptable to have a public place where parents cannot count on security to do all they can to keep the riff-raff OUT in the first place, and to keep our children safe (along with us, of course).
There should be some sort of prevention happening…Shadowing of the gangs of kids that like to hang out at the mall…(Incidentally, this week’s incident did not appear to be teens…My mom says they looked in their 20s.)…And particularly keeping a very close eye on the kids play area.
I know that after the 2005 incident that there WAS a great showing of security at the play area…Even to having someone keeping the big kids out (since they don’t belong there and can hurt the littles that the play area was designed for)…But somehow that seems to have faded away. I was told yesterday by someone that there is new management at the mall. I’m guessing she meant since the 2005 incident. I don’t know if this is true or not, but perhaps old management didn’t share with new management about the knife incident? I don’t know.
And another aside…I realize I’m making a big deal out of TWO incidents…but those are just the ones I KNOW about! I imagine many more have probably happened…Particularly since the store clerks seem so disillusioned with security’s response.
I welcome input on this situation and hope that we can continue to have a discussion on this and get something done. I like fashion fair mall. I do not want to feel I cannot shop there because its unsafe for my children.
