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June 2020 • ALAMO TODAY & DANVILLE TODAY NEWS • PAGE 1
& JUNE 2020
A PASSION BECOMES A PROFESSION: NINA SANDELIN, CALLIGRAPHER
By Fran Miller
Nina Sandelin’s childhood ambition was to become a professional artist or writer. The desire was amplified during her fourth grade year at Green Valley Elementary when her teacher Mrs. Endicott encouraged her students to pursue their creative passions. Sandelin, an Alamo native and Monte Vista graduate, achieved both ambitions by becoming a professional calligrapher. But initially, she followed a more analytical professional path. She attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon and then moved to Montreal for a graduate program in linguistics at McGill. While working as a data analyst, she studied and practiced calligraphy as a creative outlet. It was Sandelin’s mom who encouraged her to start her own business. Having started her own advertising agency in her late 20s (Danville’s EMC Creative), her mom urged Sandelin to see where she could take a creative career. “We joked that it would be a good time to start it, knowing that if I failed, I only had a cat to support,” says Sandelin. “Fortunately it has taken off, and I'm happy to say I'm able to help support my small family of my fiancé, our cat Henry, and our dog Stella.” See Calligrapher continued on page 18
THE BOUNTY GARDEN & UC MASTER GARDENERS OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY:
FOOD TO GO, FACTS TO GROW, FRIENDS TO KNOW By Jody Morgan
The Bounty Garden (TBG) grows food to go To all the kindergarten, elementary, junior high, school, and college grads, we wish you all the to area residents otherwise unable to afford fresh high best at this graduation time. The sky is the limit! organic produce. Working within a fenced area at Photo by Stanley Morales. Hap Magee Ranch Park, the non-profit encourages volunteers to exchange ideas and experiments with best practices in organic gardening, sharing facts discovered on what works best in Our Garden crew: Growing 12,000-14,000 pounds of food for Monument Danville. Fostering a community of friends who enlarge the TBG Crisis Center takes a crew of Master Gardeners. Photo courtesy of CCMG. family each year is an important aspect of the mission. UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County (CCMG), county chapter of the network of highly trained Master Gardeners throughout the state and nation, maintains a similar space at Our Garden in Walnut Creek. CCMG offers “Advice to Grow On” by email or phone. Forced by the pandemic to turn 2020’s Great Tomato Sale, CCMG's major annual fundraising event, into a Great Tomato Giveaway, CCMG has forged many new friendships throughout the area among residents and charitable organizations that have received fabulous free vegetable plants. Seeing TBG’s thirty-two raised beds filled with vibrant vegetables destined for distribution by White Pony Express, it’s hard to imagine why securing permission to launch the project took Heidi Abramson and her daughter Amelia two years. Government agencies worried that despite its well-researched design, the project would not succeed long-term. Because Hap Magee Park is jointly owned by the Town of Danville and Contra Costa County, and the small barn now restored for tool storage and meeting space has historical significance, multiple groups needed to be satisfied. Final approval from the Danville Town Council came on November 15, 2011. A young TBG volunteer proudly Mike McDonald and his wife Sandra are members of TBG’s volunteer management team known as the Hive. Their Garden Keeper displays his family's tomato harvest. Photo courtesy of TBG. duties involve caring for grounds inside the fence: weeding, repairing deer fences, keeping bird watering stations full, helping maintain the irrigation system, keeping 3000F Danville Blvd. #117
See Gardeners continued on page 15
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Volume XX Number 6
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