Instead of entertaining new taxes, entertain this idea: Much of the crime in Sacramento is being committed by juvenile delinquents who are not being nurtured and guided through the maturation process. What’s missing from the lives of most of these young people is simply an adult who will hold them accountable.
Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Fargo’s new tax, and the purported fifty new police officers it will bring to Sacramento, aren’t going to magically produce those adults, any more than us spending our spare time surfing the sports scores, shopping online, and watching the Dow crash are going to make our communities more safer.
You care about our community, right? Get off your duff people! I can hear you now, “I don’t have time.” If you don’t have spare time, maybe you’re doing better than a lot folks right now and you have some spare change? Better than handing it over to a burglar right? These ten organizations will gladly put you and/or your spare change to work immediately, no questions asked:
Boys and Girls Club of Sacramento- Serving 6500 youth from ages 6 to 19 from all over Sacramento. They know what they’re doing and they do it well. You can volunteer with kids, teach classes, help with fundraising and auction materials and more.
Stanford Settlement- Right in our own backyard! Stanford Settlement is dangerously close to missing their budget required to stay open. Save a few lattes and help out the kids. They work hard to promote positive relationships for teens, give them a safe place to “hang out” and also provide emergency assistance, senior support and more.
Sacramento Children’s Home- Looking to meet a special child one on one and change the world one life at a time? This is it! Kids at the children’s home are lacking serious adult role models who can show them a way out of the horrid things they’ve seen. If that’s too personal, look at the wish list and buy something or volunteer for a special event.
Project Birthday- A one-time or repeat feel good warm fuzzy here! Throw a birthday party for a homeless child or a whole group! For $400 you can sponsor an entire party for 30 kids or you can donate supplies left from your kid’s last party.
Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services- Not just a food bank, SFBS provides famiy support, mother-baby classes, parenting classes, computer classes, clothing and supplies and much more. With over 800 volunteers, you know they’ll put you to work and value your committment. Can’t do it? Organize a Run to Feed the Hungry team from your neighborhood.
Natomas HOSTS program- Work with an individual student and make school matter! If you can lift them up in the classroom, they can succeed in life.
Hands On Sacramento- So it’s Friday and you have a few hours free tomorrow with no plans. What should you do? Visit this website and see who needs you right now for a few hours! Projects are short or long term and easily searchable by neighborhood, time and skills. If they don’t have something that fits your schedule, try Volunteer Match.
Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA)- What happens when kids are caught in the middle? CASA steps in to find out what’s best for the child. You can be the first adult a child has ever experienced a positive relationship with. CASA provides the training, the materials and the support and you provide the loving heart to help.
Big Brothers Big Sisters- If you have a driver’s license, insured transportation and a big heart, you can be a big brother or big sister! Be the adult to hold an at-risk child accountable and you’ll see the rewards multiply.
Your child’s school- If none of these seem to make you excited, walk into your child’s school next week and talk to the secretary. Tell her that you have some time and ask what you can do to help. I guarantee she’ll put you to work or find someone who will.
No more excuses. No more whining. Get to work!
Ed note: I am in contact with the City of Sacramento’sYouth Development Director, Lyn Corbett. Lyn is committed to Natomas outreach. He is looking for people in NAtomas to assist with youth initiatives. Holler at him here: lcorbett@cityofsacramento.org. And Thank you TRACY!
Aw I am a sucker for the uplifting articles. Great job Tracy. And great job Joe for allowing other community members to use your highly visible web space to share their ideas. Shows great humility on your part and genuine commitment to improve the community. Bravo to you both. This web site truly rocks. Ok I will go donate a few dollars right now. You had me at online shopping
This is excellent. And look! It involves no new taxes! TRACY FOR MAYOR!
Tracy and Joe you guys are the only bright lights I can see in all of Natomas to downtown. Keep on rocking please and don’t stop. I swear the Joe Sac site is the only thing that keeps me from getting a city bus and… I’ll stop. Anyways, if I give money or time I am not going to give it to clean up the complete f$#%@ disaster that is North Natomas. No f%^$^% way. Joe when you started this site you had an abolutely f%$# YOU policy towards Fargo and Tretheway for screwing up Natomas and selling it down the river like a slave to mouth watering developers. That is what got me coming here. Your completely legitimate anger towards these asswipes that lounged around and took overseas trips whule N Natomas was as you said “filling up with low income housing like flood waters from a broken levee.” Now it seems you are going a little soft on us and turning it around to make it out so we the citizens are the ones that should do the police and fargo’s dirty work so they can sit around and eat croisants and donuts and design new high density honme parks. Joe I love you and support you all the way but f%## that. I am not helping them. They made this mess and damn it they need to clean it up. MAKE THEM DO THEIR JOBS ! Don;t go easy on them or take the blame! Keep pounding away at them Joe. Keep calling them out. Keep exposing Fargo for the fraud she is. She should be prosecuted!
Thank you for letting me rant
Hi Brian. I understand your pain. My wife and I feel a lot of the same frustrations every day. What’s even more frustrating is how deep a lot of Natomas residents’ heads are buried in the sand. I guess they stay locked in their homes all the time. There is no way they are seeing what I am seeing in Natomas. If they were, they would be banging down the door at city hall demanding Fargo and Tretheway lead the effort to REBUILD NORTH NATOMAS, the same way they lend their support to rebuild FORT Natomas.
I agree North Natomas is a disaster. There is no denying it. How anyone could want to “celebrate” this commercial-developers-wet-dream-posing-as-a-community completely CONFOUNDS me.
We don’t post the volunteer articles to offer to do Fargo’s job or the police department’s job. We just fear if we don’t….
Thanks Brian and keep fighting the good fight
Sorry I am with Brian. I don’t do the mayor or law enforcement’s job. And screw them for suggesting I should. I pay my taxes so they can do their job and I can do mine. Lazy jacknobs
You all know I blame Fargo and Tretheway as much as the next guy for the disaster that is North Natomas. But my point of writing this and the previous article is that we have to move beyond the blame and get to the fix. Regardless of Fargo, the economy is in the tank and people are suffering, which means their kids are suffering. So what? Those kids are the ones causing all the trouble because they don’t think anyone is watching. I don’t want to pay MORE taxes because law enforcement is successful at their jobs and these kids all end up in jail. I’d rather give them a hand up and save a few misspent government dollars in the long run.
Are you going to do something about it or just keep on complaining? Paying taxes doesn’t absolve you of all moral and emotional connection to society….
“Those kids are the ones causing all the trouble because they don’t think anyone is watching.”
Soooooo true. Accountability is KEY. I *wish* this was a theme of Kevin’s campaign.. making KIDS accountable. Kevin talks a lot about making leaders accountable, but all the accountability in the world at city hall will not stop a kid from running up on you in Jamba Juice in broad daylight if he himself is not accountable to SOMEONE.
N Natomas is in trouble and WAY MORE trouble in on the way. See the article on Natomas Buzz today where Tretheway’s rep essentially says there is no connection between poverty and crime AND accuses people of being racist for suggesting there is?? Man it is US against THEM now and if we don’t get involved……. we have to get involved…. with 8% more low income housing on the way… and a city government that is in COMPLETE denial… we just HAVE to get involved.. or pull up the stakes and get out of here..
I vote for pulling up the stakes and getting out of here. Let the thugs have North Natomas. They’re going to get in anyways sooner or later.
Joe Joe you knoooooooooow. Ask Tretheway’s water boy why we don’t have the crime drama over in West lake EVER. West Natomas never even weighs in on any of this crap because we don’t have these problems. Why because we don’t have low income housing. Duh. How stoopid are these politicians? I agree with the person a ways back who said we need to have a boston tea party and do away with this entire crop of politicians. They suck.
-Joe, you know who
I am in law enforcement. I come to the site frequently. I learn a lot here. I also disagree with some things here. But that’s what makes opinions great: you can always disagree with them and form your own. That is why I love this country. Because we can disagree. That is why I serve this country. Because I love it and I love serving and protecting people. I have seen where sac residents say “the police are not paid to protect you.” That is a lie. To serve and protect. That is our job. We do our best. I think you realize and acknowledge that Joe. I personally thank you giving cops credit where it is due. More cops should be giving you credit. Thanks for the support and thanks for the thought provoking site.
Thanks Boi. Appreciate your support.
Also: Joe Sac received props from one of the organizations listed here via email this eve thanking us for giving them a shout-out. Good job Tracy!
I am in and will donate. Thanks. also the those who say they don’t want to help Fargo, etc. Don’t think of it as helping Fargo. Just thinking of it as helping kids. Fargo or no Fargo, these kids need all the help they can get and major ups to Joe and his contributors for recognizing that.
Tracy, I was involved in CASA up in Canada and nothing helps kids stay out of the delinquency cycle more than helping them walk through the abuse they’ve endured. Great endorsement. And of course HOSTS is my current favorite project. All these others sound great too.
Aquaman, don’t count your chickens yet. Both those apartment buildings they just built across the street from you are Section 8…oh, did they forget to tell you that?
I can fee your pain about the Section 8’s, but didn’t you look at what was going in next door when you bought your houses? I did, which is why I didn’t buy a house in Fort Natomas.
I was fine with SOME low income housing. I was low income myself at one point. I grew up low income. I don’t discriminate. But I had NO IDEA how much they were going to put here. 15% ? That is insane. They have a plethora of abandoned buildings downtown like the Biltmore Hotel they could open up for low income. Had we known 15% low income would be here, and that VERY LOW income housing would be built on top of our kids’ school, there is NO WAY we would have bought here. We feel bamboozled… on the low income housing and the flooding situation. We feel completely defrauded. And now people are actually blaming this situation on us, the residents, for voting incompetent leaders into office (see the Buzz web site guest column today). Now I’M to blame for this mess, right? LOL.
Sorry, been here 10 years and we did NOT know when we bought our house. We were told mixed use commercial and residential, well-planned communities and some low income mixed with high income housing so that it didn’t create pockets of crime. We were thinking suburban Portland. We were not thinking “hey sucka here have a big fat lie!”
Sheesh. Thanks for the collective heart attack yesterday, Joe.