The Kiwanis Club goes quackers for the Great Sacramento Duck Race and provides a donation for the skate park, Murietans and county supervisors honor a woman who shared her love of reading with the community, and a cyclist’s prayers are answered when he wins a new bike. Read about your neighbors here.

Kiwanis Club members Neil Strain and Louise Gumbinger offered rubber ducks for adoption Saturday at the Plaza. The ducks will be part of the third annual Great Sacramento Duck Race Aug. 18. Proceeds benefit Special Olympics of Northern California and Kiwanis Family House.

Lucky ducks

By Bobbie Fite
 
On Saturday, Aug.18, up to 25,000 rubber duckies will be dropped into the Sacramento River at the I Street Bridge for the beginning of the Great Sacramento Duck Race.  They will splash, bump and bounce as fast as the current will carry them past Waterfront Park in Old Town to the Tower Bridge. 

The first 10 to cross the finish line will be scooped out of the water and their adoptive parents will win an awesome prize.  The prize could be the Hot Springs portable spa or an executive chef dinner for 12.  It could also be a three-night stay a Harrahs in Lake Tahoe or a River Cats game viewed from a luxury suite with 15of your friends.  The very last duck
to cross the finish line wins a prize, too: a one-year membership for California Family Fitness.  Adopt a duck and come cheer it to victory!

By adopting a duck, whether the duck wins or not, you support the Special Olympics and Kiwanis Family House.  Duck adoptions are available at the Rancho Murieta Business Center, from any Kiwanis member, or at tables in front of MarShaTes and Plaza Foods on Saturday.
 
Adoptions cost $5 for a single quacker.  A six-quack is available for $25. A quacker¹s dozen (that¹s thirteen little rubber ducks) can be adopted for only $50.  Hang on to your lucky-duck number and we¹ll see you in Old Town on the 18th of August, although you do not have to be present to win.

Rancho Murieta Kiwanis thanks you for your support of Kiwanis Family House at the UC Davis Medical Center, where families stay while their children receive medical care.

Cyclists get ready to explore Deer Creek Hills one recent evening.

Answered prayers

Jason Zenker is an ardent cyclist and the founder of the Murieta Cycling Group, but his need for a new bike took a back seat to building the Rancho Murieta Community Church and other things that are important to him and his family.

Just when it seemed he wouldn’t be able to nurse his "old-school, antique" 1993 bike along much longer, he attended the awards banquet for the Prairie City Race Series in July to celebrate placing third in his class for mountain bike racing and visit with racing friends.

The sponsors provided something for everyone, but the grand prize was a Ventana X-5 full suspension bike valued at $4,500.

After the names of two cyclists who had already left the barbeque were drawn, Zenker and his son Cole "said a little prayer, and sure enough it was answered, and they called my name. I was stunned to say the least," he wrote in a posting on the group’s web site.

Zenker is putting the bike to good use. The Murieta Cycling Group is working in partnership with the Sacramento Valley Conservancy to provide cycling tours of Deer Creek Hills, the nature preserve that adjoins Rancho Murieta.

Kiwanis Club makes skate park donation

The Kiwanis Club is making a donation of $10,279 from the 2006 Blues and Brews Festival to Rancho Murieta Youth Enrichment Advocacy Inc., for the skateboard park project planned for Stonehouse Park.

"We appreciate the Kiwanis and their support of the skate park," said RM YEA President Wendy Mazzoni. "It’s very appropriate that they initiate our fundraising efforts since they helped initiate the project in cooperation with the Rancho Murieta Association. With this donation, we’re one step closer to making the skate park a reality for our youth."

According to Kiwanis President Ron Ruff, the festival proceeds were tentatively set aside for a youth project. The decision to donate them for the skate park was made after RM YEA received approval from the RMA and the Parks Committee to raise funds for construction,

The donation will be used for site planning, completion of the final design, and other pre-construction and construction-related costs.

In 2005, the club jump-started the project by making a similar donation to the Parks Committee to cover most of the initial design phase cost of $10,000, and parks funds were used for the rest.

Ruff indicated that future Blues and Brews Festival donations will probably focus on other youth-related programs, projects and activities.

RM YEA is working with skate park designer Zach Wormhoudt and the RMA to finalize the site plan. The group is hopeful the skate park can be completed by next summer with community support.

The Blues and Brews Festival was initiated by the Sexton family, owners of Plaza Food Market, to raise funds for the benefit of community youth. Virtually all the costs of the event are borne by the Sexton family. The Kiwanis Club and RMA are co-sponsors.

The fourth annual Blues and Brews Festival is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 29, at Lake Clementia Amphitheater.

Honoring RM's longtime librarian

Bobbi Belton, left, presented retired Wanderer Bookmobile librarian Linda G. Howe with a resolution the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors passed in recognition of her 35-year career in the county library system and the contributions she made to Rancho Murieta as its librarian. The presentation took place at a luncheon in her honor held at the Country Club last month. Howe spent most of her career at the helm of the bookmobile that visits the community once a week.