Grinds Vines & Automobilia Cafe has
become a mainstay for coffee drinkers
and those
looking for a
quick meal
on the go
- Page 9
Volume 1, Issue 11
Your Quality-of-Life News Source
FREE
Nov. 13 - Nov. 26, 2013
10th annual film festival a blockbuster hit
Local movies bring in
huge crowds Friday night
4 - Local short films shown
By Marty Cheek
9 - Foreign films
Morgan Hill’s Poppy Jasper International Short Film Festival celebrated its 10th year in style last weekend,
showing three-days worth of films in
the downtown Granada Theater and
providing movie fans with a venue in
local restaurants and cafes to hobnob
with filmmakers.
The festival, held Nov. 8 to 10, had
its biggest crowd Friday night when
film fans nearly filled all the seats of the
Granada theater showing two documentaries made my local filmmakers. The film
“The Pirates of Morgans Cove” by Gilroy director Robert Krueger highlighted
Morgan Hill’s well-known pirate-themed
home owned by Rich and Julie Firato.
And filmmaker Rale Sidebottom’s film
brought in many hardcore punk rock fans
to view the lives of musicians performing
in the band Sad Boy Sinister.
“People enjoyed themselves and had a
By the numbers
23 - Total juried movies
shown
180 - Attendance Friday
night
Photo by Marty Cheek
Projectionist Larry Talbot, left, and Bill Leaman, a Poppy Jasper Film
Festival founder, in the projection room of the Granada Theater.
great time,” said Bob Snow, chair of this
year’s festival. “There were at least 180
people who watched the films. It was local people and so that’s something we’ll
consider in the future, bringing in local
filmmakers.”
Other local films shown included a
look at the annual Christmas display at
the home of Morgan Hill residents Michael and Claudia Bonfante, the founders of Gilroy Gardens, and a short film
on Henry W. Coe State Park made as an
Eagle Scout project by 2013 Live Oak
High School graduate Mark Holmstrom.
Students learn choices can
have life-long consequences
Inaugural ‘Unknown Hearts’
conference sends message that
impressions aren’t always true
By Marty Cheek
Getting middle school and high school students to wake up early on a Saturday morning and spend the day discussing the perils of
gang affiliation, cyber-bulling, cyber-porn and
illegal drug use might seem like a near impossible task. But Nov. 2, nearly 50 Morgan Hill
students and their parents attended the first
Unknown Hearts Youth and Parents Outreach
Conference at Live Oak High School where
they learned about how criminal activities can
have life-long consequences.
“By inviting students and inviting parents,
I believe we were giving families opportunities to have conversations about very serious issues,” said Claudia Rossi, a member of
Downtown
trick-or-treat
shows off
Morgan Hill
Page 2
... someone’s outward
“appearance and what
they show on the outside
doesn’t necessarily reflect
the true emotions that are
inside their heart.
”
- Claudia Rossi,
school board member and event organizer
the Morgan Hill School Board and a Project
Cornerstone advocate with the YMCA. Rossi
organized the conference along with Jennifer
Gonzalez, a 2013 graduate of Sobrato High
Mark
‘Fenny’
Fenichel
talks music
Page 6
See UNKNOWN HEARTS, Page 14
Learn about
Martin
Ranch
Winery
Page 8
admission
& parking
S u n d a y , N o v e m b e r 2 4t h
CRAFT SHOW
See PJFF, Page 14
Give where you live:
Local philanthropy thrives
MHCF has handed
out $440K in grants
the past 10 years
By Amy Whelan
The Morgan Hill Community Foundation is a philanthropic nonprofit organization
deeply rooted
in our community – but I’d
bet our name
and logo are
unfamiliar to
Amy Whelan
many of you.
That’s because our team
works behind the scenes
connecting generous donors
with local needs to make a
long-lasting impact on the
day-to-day lives of our res-
Check out
our calendar
for fun stuff
to do
Page 13
idents. Our record of about
$440,000 in local grants over
the past 10-plus years speaks
for itself and is something of
which we are very proud.
To that end, we focus on a
variety of philanthropic activities throughout the year. For
example, starting in February
of each year, local organizations are invited to apply for
grants totaling $5,000 that are
awarded at an invitation-only
ceremony held in May. For a
firsthand look at this year’s
grant recipients, visit www.
morganhillcf.org.
We also support more than
a dozen community partners
who operate under our non-
******ECRWSSEDDM****
Postal Customer
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
See MHCF, Page 14
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Of the 23 short films shown, nine
were from outside the United States. The
winning films were the romantic “Broken Up” for Best Comedy, “Do-Si-Do”
(about U.S. Army helicopters “square
dancing” in the sky) for Best Documentary, the Australian film “Goldfield”
for Best Drama, the English film “Rose,
Mary and Time” for Best Science Fiction, and the animated short “Light Me
Up” for Best Overall Film.
Festival organizer Kim Bush called
this year’s Poppy Jasper “a huge suc-
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