Valley Center spreads out over some 175 or more square miles and is one of the largest farming areas in California. Most of the homes here are usually built on two-acre or larger parcels. People who live in this community like their space, but they are also a sociable lot. In fact, it is a community with plenty of heart, and it comes as no real surprise that Dos Valles members actively participate in supporting community needs and activities.
Working at Adams Park in our flower and Blue Star Memory Garden as well as our new Native Plant Garden is our way of contributing to our town's beauty.
Each year, the club encourages pride in the beauty of our community by presenting two Civic Beautification Awards (one to a local homeowner and one to a business firm) to those judged by a special committee to have the most outstanding new or enhanced landscaping.
Future gardeners are important to us. Members lend helping hands to teach various youth groups (e.g., Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boys' Ranch) gardening techniques and horticulture and floral design. They enter floral designs in our annual flower show.
We celebrate Arbor Day by holding a ceremony at Adams Park, where we plant a rose or tree in memory of departed members.
In our Garden Therapy Program, we provide companionship, gardening supplies and instruction to the youth at Boys' Ranch, a local foster home. We also have a "Grandma" Reading Program there to help the youngsters. More "Grandma" and "Grandpa" readers are always needed.
Each week, a member volunteers to bring a Floral Arrangement or Potted Plant for the Valley Center Library. In December, some of our more creative members hustle on down to the library and have a "Holiday Decoration Party" to transform it with beautiful floral designs and decorations for the holiday season.
Dos Valles is an enthusiastic participant in the Valley Center Western Days Parade. Cheers from the crowds hail the coming of the March of the Tines, or in other words, members dressed in gardening clothes and hats doing some silly little routines with rakes in their hands. We usually put together a parade float. Past masterpieces include a worm, a turtle, a giant grizzly bear with bees buzzing around its head, and our latest Sweepstakes winner--an outdoor shower house complete with running water and bathing beauties delivering a message to bathe together and save water.
Our award winning Annual Flower Show and Plant Sale is our gift to the community. Admission is free. Rain or shine, members gather their impressive crop of blossoms, fruits, and plants (the results of their pampering, encouraging and manicuring tasks) and display them in the horticulture section of the show for visitors to appreciate. The floral design section is where the club's floral arrangers put together some of the most creative, exciting, beautiful displays ever, and it's right here in Valley Center.
Through members' efforts put forth on various fund-raising projects, including plant sales, calendar sales, and opportunity drawings, our nonprofit club's Donations have been allotted for (1) college scholarships to students majoring in horticultural, agricultural or related fields, (2) to help support various local school agricultural departments, the VC Community Center, VC Library, Penny Pines, etc., and (3) to present an award-winning Annual Flower Show, free of charge, to the community.
Operation Interdependence (OI) is a program to send care packages (called C-RATS) to our service men and women in the Army, Navy and Marines who have just come off military duty in a battle region and who are stationed for R&R on carriers in the Gulf. Dos Valles Garden Club got involved in OI because of one member, Shirley Skinner.
Dos Valles Garden Club
P.O. Box 123, Valley Center, CA 92082
(North County Region of San Diego County)
To find out more about our club
or to contact the web mistress,
please e-mail us at: DosVallesGC@vcweb.org
