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Community Corner

Things To Know: Super Bowl Party, Free Dentist For Kids, etc.

Events for your consideration in the upcoming days: Chamber mixer and San Bruno Education Foundation Fundraiser.

Friday, Feb. 1 - GIVE KIDS A SMILE DAY - Free Dental Care for uninsured and under-insured children, ages 1-18 at dental offices throughout San Mateo County. For information and appointments call the San Mateo County Health Coverage Unit at (650) 616-2002.

Friday, Feb. 1 - Marahall Realty – Chamber Mixer – Tailgate Party – 4-7 p.m.  Marshall Realty is cheering on the San Francisco 49ers and YOU are invited to attend a FREE Tailgate Party. Bring your appetite and wear your red and gold.  Community invited. QUEST for Six.  683 Jenevein. Info 873-6844  Flier attached

Deadline - Friday, Feb. 1 - Make your nomination for the Community Recognition Award. Do you know a volunteer in the San Bruno community who is deserving of recognition for all the hard work and dedication he/she has demonstrated? If your answer is yes, please nominate him/her for a Community Recognition Award. The San Bruno Parks and Recreation Commission will review applications, and the award will be publicly presented to the deserving recipient at a tele­vised Parks and Recreation Commission Meeting. Nominations: San Bruno Recreation Division Attn: Community Recognition Award - E-Mail dbrewer@sanbruno.ca.gov

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Monday, Feb. 4 - 3-6 p.m. – Library Homework Center continues at the San Bruno Library info: sbpl@plsinfo.org or 650-616-7078. Continues same time on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

Monday, Feb. 4 – Street Sweeping time changes effective Monday Feb. 4. 

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Residential street sweeping will begin at 9:00 a.m.

Parking-Restricted areas will be cleaned one (1) hour later. The street sweeping day will not change.

Areas previously restricted from 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m. will move to 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

Areas previously restricted from 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. will move to 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Commercial and industrial areas will be swept between 6:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m.

If you have any questions about the new times, please contact San Bruno Public Services at (650) 616-7160.

Monday, Feb. 4 – 6:30 p.m. - Year of the Snake - Join San Bruno residents for the Family Chinese New Year Tradition: Bilingual Chinese (Mandarin)/English story time, festive crafts and lucky snacks to start the year right! In the Library Children’s room for stories from 6:30-7 and in the Downstairs Community Room for crafts and treats from 7-7:40.

Tuesday, Feb. 5 – 7 p.m. – San Bruno City Council Study Session for Not-For-Profit Entity at San Bruno Senior Center, 1555 Crystal Springs Road to discuss formation of the Not-For-Profit Entity called for in the Restitution Settlement Agreement between the City and PG&E. The City Council’s study session will not be discussing specific ideas for future use of the funds at the Study Session on Feb. 5. After it is established, the entity will solicit public comments and ideas about uses of the funds.

Wednesday, Feb. 6 – 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. – Traffic Safety & Parking Committee meets at City Hall in Conference Room 115. For more info contact Jennifer Shapona at 650-616-7049 or jshapona@sanbruno.ca.gov. Public welcome.

Wednesday, Feb. 6  - 6-10 p.m.  San Bruno Education Foundation Fundraiser at Araujo’s Restaurant, 404 West San Bruno Ave (588-4257) will donate 50% of your purchase to the San Bruno Education Foundation.  Dine-in and take out only.  www.sanbrunoedfoundation.org Flier attached.

Thursday, Feb. 7 – 5:15 p.m. – Beautification Task Force meets in City Hall Conference Room 115. Info: Irene O’Connell ioconnell@sanbruno.ca.gov.  Public welcome.

Friday, Feb. 8 – 5-6 p.m. – Chinese News Year Party – Tanforan Shopping Center

Saturday, Feb. 9 – Snow trip to Squaw - Teens must be 13-18 yrs. Cost includes: transportation, breakfast, lift ticket & supervision. Participants must bring their own equipment (or rent prior to trip) and should bring money for lunch & dinner.  Info: 650-616-7183 or dkranitz@sanbruno.ca.gov Flier attached.

Saturday, Feb. 9 – 5:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. Father/Daughter Dinner Dance – San Bruno Senior Center – Tickets and info at Recreation Center – Jennie 650-616-784

Saturday, Feb. 9 2013, 10 a.m.-3p.m. Friends of the San Bruno Library Book Sale. Info: (650) 359-7917

Saturday, Feb. 9 - Starting today and running through Feb. 14 – Prom Dress Donation Drive at The Shops at Tanforan lower level by AT&T. Help high school girls in need. Donate new/gently worn formal dresses and/or formal accessories and receive a FREE $10 Gift Card for select stores, while supplies last. See attached info.  Donated items benefit the Princess Project: www.PrincessProject.org..

Tuesday, Feb. 12 – 7:00 p.m. – Council Meeting – Senior Center 1555 Crystal Springs Road. Info: City Clerk Carol Bonner at 650-616-7058 or cbonner@sanbruno.ca.gov  Public Welcome. After an exhaustive planning process, the San Bruno Transit Corridors Plan is finally scheduled to be considered for approval by the City Council on February 12, 2013. As you know, the Plan lays out the important vision and foundation for achieving revitalization and sustainable economic growth in the Transit Corridors Area. This has been a long process and we are excited that the Plan is being considered for final approval.

Saturday, Feb. 16 - 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. – FREE E-Waste Recycling – The Shops at Tanforan in the rear parking lot near Sears.

Saturday, Feb. 16 - Family Resources Fair, Hillsdale Shopping Center, San Mateo 11 am - 5 pm Flier attached Info: Kerry McArdle, Daily Journal Event Coordinator, Kerry@smdailyjournal.com

SAVE THE DATE:  Saturday, Feb. 23, 5:30 p.m. – 11:30 p.m. Parkside PTO 80’s Themed Crab Feed Dinner Dance Fundraiser at the Senior Center.

SAVE THE DATE:  Saturday Mar. 2, – Lion’s Crab Feast & Dance Fundraiser. San Bruno Senior Center 5:30 p.m. to midnight. Tickets sold out the last two years. Contact Lion Giannaulis 650-952-4021 or Lion Ken Ibarra 650-589-4613 or lionkenibarra@yahoo.com. RSVP by February 25th. No tickets will be sold at the door.

SAVE THE DATE:  Saturday Mar. 16 – Ski trip to Heavenly – deadline to registrar two weeks before trip. Info: 650-616-7183 kranitz@sanbruno.ca.gov  Flier attached

SAVE THE DATE:  Wednesday, Mar. 27th – 11:30 – 1:30 State of the County Address & Luncheon with State Senator Jerry Hill at South San Francisco Conference Center.  $25.00 per person.  Tickets: San Bruno Chamber of Commerce 588-0180

CONTINUING EVENT NEEDING YOUR SUPPORT: Relay For Life: San Bruno Councilman Ken Ibarra kenibarra@yahoo.com and American Cancer Society’s Julie Pierce Julie.Pierce@cancer.org are building the Relay For Life of San Bruno event for Saturday April 27th & Sunday April 28th 2013. Form YOUR own Team. Be a part of a committee.  Volunteer for the event. GO TO www.relayforlife.org/sanbrunoca and there you can sign up to form your own team or join an existing team OR just make a donation to an individual team member or to a team. Your friends and relatives from all over the WORLD can go to the San Bruno Relay For Life team web page www.relayforlife.org/sanbrunoca and at least make a small donation.  Join and FIGHT FOR THE CURE!

In Case You Missed This:

Tuesday, Jan. 29 -  San Bruno Relay For Life held their KickOff Event at 5:30 pm at the San Bruno Recreation Center. Numerous state and local legislators attended and the KeyNote address was provided by Natalie McQueen. Natalie McQueen became involved with Relay for Life after being diagnosed with cancer in 2006. Her first Relay was such a powerful experience she continued attending every year and has volunteered for several planning committee positions including survivor chair and event chair. "Relay is such a wonderful, positive experience that I wouldn't dream of missing it," she said. In 2012 Natalie became a Hero of Hope with the American Cancer Society in order to speak to groups in the community and tell her cancer story to inspire as well as to give hope to other cancer survivors.

Summit Survivor speaker (the video is online at www.relayforlife.org/california
 
From Natalie’s ACS page:

"I don’t look at life the same way; never on the sidelines."

My introduction to cancer came about when I was in elementary school. I
walked in the house one day to find my mom sobbing and when I asked her what was wrong she dried her tears and told me that my grandmother was just diagnosed with cancer. I was shocked but my mom, through her red, puffy eyes somehow convinced me that Grandma was going to be okay. When I was in middle school my mom and dad called me into the living room and sat me down to tell me that my mom had just been diagnosed with the same kind of cancer that Grandma had. Again, they made an effort to make me believe that everything was going to be alright.

A few years after that my grandmother died from her cancer. And six months later, my own mother was killed by her cancer. The last picture ever taken of my mother was a small Polaroid that my dad took of her while she was laughing.  I have that picture, now framed, sitting on my bedside table. Of course, I didn’t know it was going to be the last picture of her and when I look at it now, I see the swollen lymph nodes in her neck and know what they portend.

Twenty-five years later I was sitting on my couch and brushed my hand across my neck and felt a lump. Instantly I know what it meant. So in June of 2006 I was diagnosed with Follicular Lymphoma, a very similar type of cancer to what my mom and grandmother had. I knew that I was going to die, even though I presumed that a lot of research had been done in the intervening years. But between you and me, deep down, I didn’t have much hope.

The first thing you learn about Follicular Lymphoma when you Google it is that it is slow growing (yeah!) but incurable (ugh). I quickly learned to stop Googling it and appointed a friend to be Chief Googler. She was the one who did all of my research for me and then told me what she learned without putting in all of the scary statistics.

I ended up having chemo for six months and that stuff didn’t agree with me very well. I became sicker than expected and spent a lot of time in bed. The only highlight from that entire time, that I can remember, is when the Chief Googler came and picked me up and took me to a Look Good...Feel Better program. I walked into the room, pretty nervous, not sure what I was going to find. What I discovered was a room full of bald women who were there to learn scalp care and make-up tips and who knew how to laugh. I don’t specifically remember what we laughed about, I just remember laughing a lot that day, I think because I could feel comfortable and be myself.

According to the Chief Googler, the average remission for Follicular Lymphoma is two years. Imagine my horror when they found a tumor growing in my left groin at my three month scan. This terrified me so much that I had a hard time thinking about it. I ended up sinking into a depression mixed with extreme anxiety that made me unpleasant to live with.

About this time I saw an blurb in the local paper inviting all cancer survivors to come to something called Relay For Life, and if you came, you got a free t-shirt. Well, you didn’t have to ask me twice. I showed up, put my purple shirt on, and milled about waiting for the survivor lap to start. I didn’t feel much like a survivor but I figured that this lap was something I had to participate in in order to get the shirt. While I was waiting, my husband ran into a woman who he used to work with. The last time he had seen her she was going through chemo and he was pleased to see her again. He introduced me to her and I noticed that she looked completely normal. It was so nice to see someone bounce back after treatment. Meeting her that day did give me a glimmer of hope - that maybe there could be life after cancer.

My doctors kept an eye on that tumor in my groin and eventually decided that it was starting to grow faster and that made them nervous so they took it out to biopsy it. My oncologist pointed her skinny finger at me and stressed that this was not going to cure me of my cancer. They were taking it out just to see if my lymphoma had transformed - a bad thing. The results from that biopsy showed that it was the same old kind of lymphoma that I had been dealing with all along so that was the good news.

I kept having scans after that but they didn’t show any tumors anywhere. I was terrified before each scan but the results were always the same - clear. My scans became less and less frequent and eventually my oncologist told me that she was surprised that I still appeared cancer-free.

I was invited to a breakfast given to honor doctors who have received money from the American Cancer Society to do research and like all American Cancer Society events, one of those doctors got up to give a speech. She was from Stanford and she studied lymphoma. She said that day, as I ate my rubber eggs and drank the tepid coffee, that they now believe that lymphoma has stem cells and if you can kill the stem cells then you can cure the lymphoma. Everything stopped. I’d never heard the c-word used with my kind of cancer. “Cure.” I didn’t know how to even think about this. I now believe that the tumor that started growing in my groin contained the stem cells for my cancer and they removed them when they took that node out to biopsy it. I believe that I am cured of my cancer. The fear, terror, depression, and anxiety that lived with me for all of those years is gone.

I know that the American Cancer Society didn’t cure my cancer but they played a huge role in saving my life.”

Natalie explained a little about the Cancer Society's CPS3 Study

If you've ever known someone with cancer, you know that birthdays are a very significant milestone. There are nearly 13.7 million people in America who have survived cancer - and countless more who have avoided it - who will be celebrating birthdays this year. You can join the movement for more birthdays and fight back against cancer by enrolling in a new research study called the Cancer Prevention Study - 3 (CPS-3). The American Cancer Society's Epidemiology Research Program is inviting men and women between the ages of 30 and 65 years who have no personal history of cancer to join this historic research study.  The ultimate goal is to enroll at least 300,000 adults from various racial/ethnic backgrounds from across the U.S. By joining CPS-3, you can help us understand how to prevent cancer, which will save lives and give people more of their most precious resource: time. More time with their families and friends, more memories, more celebrations . . . and more birthdays.

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