Story and photos

By Cat Robertson – Staff Writer

It was a lively, toe-tapping good time at the Green Valley Lake Summer Faire on July 22. There was fun in the sun at the community garden with vendors, games, a bake sale and music featuring Holy Crow Jazz Band.

There was a handful of vendors, most of them local artisans, selling handmade jewelry, beautiful macrame designs, exquisite stained-glass work and much more.

Katie Cornejo, owner and creator of Sew What, was one of the five vendors at the Summer Faire. She has a fresh new take on her macrame creations.

The annual event was sponsored by the Mountain Community Alliance (MCA). This nonprofit charity is dedicated to disaster preparedness and education, community building and educational scholarships.

The Holy Crow Jazz Band entertained the crowd with their old-time American jazz and blues music from the 1920s and 1930s. They wowed the crowd with their undeniable talent as band member Mario Maggio played both an alto and tenor saxophone at the same time.

Maggio also played the clarinet and resonator guitar, as well as sang some of the songs. His wife, Jessica Maggio, did much of the singing and also played the washboard and kazoo. Normally, there are several members of the band performing, but it was a duet at the Summer Faire.

When asked about the band, MCA treasurer Sandi Huckaby said, “They’re wonderful. There’s just something about it. If you try to explain it and say that someone plays a kazoo and washboard, they wouldn’t understand. They have more talent than they know what to do with. They have about seven members, and I can’t imagine how they sound with all of them playing.”

Holy Crow Jazz Band had played at the Green Valley Lake community garden once before, and will possibly play again in the future. If you missed them at the Summer Faire, they are definitely worth the drive to Knotts Berry Farm, where they play every Thursday.

The Summer Faire also included a presentation by Emily Nohr, office manager of the Green Valley Mutual Water Company, on water conservation and how the use of a stop-and-waste valve could have saved their customers two million gallons of water, which was lost due to leaks.

Members of the Mountain Community Alliance held a bake sale to raise funds that help with scholarships for local high school graduates. Lani Wood, left, and Kristine Langley enticed the crowd with fruit tarts, cupcakes, cookies and other delectable treats.

“People think that, since we had so much snow this winter, we now have so much water. That’s not really the case,” Nohr explained. “We see a seasonal drop in the aquifers in the summer. It takes, in some areas, hundreds of thousands of years for water to trickle down into the aquifers, so it’s not really that significant of a bump right after we get so much water.”

Nohr stressed the importance of using a stop-and-waste valve – and using it properly. A couple of Green Valley Mutual Water Company customers had leaks that wasted 400,00 or 500,000 gallons of water each. That led to bills of over $9,000, for which they are responsible. It pays to use the stop-and-waste valve.

Huckaby said, “Wasn’t that talk great? I’m trying to get the word out (about watching for leaks). I’d be walking down the road and see Emily and her husband out last winter walking around with her snowshoes on because they had been out looking for gas leaks. They’d be coming home at midnight after being out all day.

“To me, it’s heroic that they would care so much,” Huckaby added. “The water loss is terrible. I wish the entire mountain could have heard that talk and said to themselves, ‘I am going to look for water leaks at my home.’”