Keith Boggs Honored as Literacy Hero

In the first year of the program, 30 employees of Stanislaus County started mentoring.

Friday, Oct 12, 2018 (Manteca, CA) â€“ Keith Boggs of Modesto/Oakdale was recently honored by the leaders of the Great Valley Bookfest, who presented him with their Literacy Hero Award.

In 1999, Keith Boggs developed a mentor program to address Stanislaus Countyâ€™s dropout rate of 23.6%, which was one of the highest for the state of California. He initiated a community-driven solution to combat apathy and hopelessness caused by gaps in academic skills, low self-esteem, lack of role models, emotional detachment, and/or language barriers.

In the first year of the program, 30 employees of Stanislaus County started mentoring. Last year, 188 mentors worked in teams to provide over 2,500 hours of youth mentoring.

The Stanislaus County mentoring program uses a team-based approach to help volunteers balance their busy schedules. Teams are comprised of as many as three individuals, so volunteers can rotate their mentor days and provide backup when someone has an unexpected scheduling conflict, ensuring that their young protÃ©gÃ© consistently receives visits twice a week.

The program has grown in large part due to participation from partner organizations. Over the years, Boggs has forged working partnerships with other local agencies, including city governments (Hughson and Modesto), the Stanislaus County Office of Education, and Modesto Junior College. He has also developed partnerships with community organizations like the 500 Lions Club, Modesto Rotary, and City Ministries.

In addition to his volunteer role, Keith Boggs is the Assistant Chief Executive Officer for Stanislaus County. In spite of his heavy workload, Boggs has remained the champion and guiding force of the Employee Mentoring effort, serving as a mentor himself and contributing enormous amounts of his personal time to the program.

â€œThe Bookfest leadership team was impressed and inspired by this mentoring program and the investment Mr. Boggs has made in the lives of local children,â€ commented Melissa King, who chairs the award committee. â€œIt is our great pleasure to recognize him among our region's Literacy Heroes.â€

Now celebrating the completion of its twentieth year, the Stanislaus County Employee Mentor program continues to attract employees and partner organizations who wish to give back and become involved in the lives of young people in Stanislaus County. Anyone wishing to volunteer as a mentor can apply online: Employee Mentors

Learning to Save Lives

Stanislaus County encourages everyone to be CPR and First Aid trained and to learn how to use an AED before trying to save a life.

When a heart stops, it only takes six minutes before the brain starts dying from lack of oxygen. This is why Stanislaus County makes life-saving Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) available to each department, allowing those who are trained to use them, the chance to delay this process by minutes can be crucial in the event of a heart related emergency.

Prior to this recent training, only third floor investigators in the District Attorneyâ€™s office were trained to use the AED. However, as peace officers, many investigators are not always physically in the office. Depending on assignments and emergency callouts, the response time for them to assist with a person down could be longer than six minutes. To address this need for additional trained staff, recently the District Attorney offered AED, CPR and First Aid training to any employee interested in taking the class. Now there are multiple employees throughout the department who are trained to save a life.

The three-hour training provided class participants the opportunity to practice using the AED and doing CPR on mannequins. They learned how to keep chest compressions going for several minutes while waiting for fire or ambulance personal to respond, which can be physically exhausting. Using the AED is simple since the machine voice prompts you every step of the way, but it is no substitute for CPR.

Stanislaus County encourages everyone to be CPR and First Aid trained and to learn how to use an AED before trying to save a life.

Regional Tourism Roundtable Rebooted

In Stanislaus County, the landscape is changing. We have officially rebooted our Regional Tourism Roundtable with a small, representative group of partners.

Rural areas once inhabited only by trees and visited only by their growers and harvesters are now frequented by everyday folks â€“ people who want to be closer to their food. So close, in fact, that they can interrupt the food chain to pluck what they eat straight from the earth. â€œFarm-to-tableâ€ is now a do-it-yourself experience.

Urban areas are transforming empty commercial spaces that once housed department stores into multi-use gathering spots with coffee shops, tech hubs, gift shops and hotels â€“ brimming with locally sourced items. Boutique distilleries with posh tasting rooms can be found in industrial parks on the outskirts of town and craft beer makers are becoming destination spots.

Weâ€™re using space differently. Newly ordained â€œOpportunity Zonesâ€ are places where incentivization can bolster imagination. Smart planning can lead to a future of local job creation and economic growth. So, how does tourism play into this changing landscape?

Tourism is one of Californiaâ€™s the most lucrative â€œexport-orientedâ€ industries. During 2016, visitors to California contributed $126.3 billion to the economy with Stanislaus County seeing roughly $41.3 million due to tourism.

During the economic downturn, direct travel spending decreased by 3.9 percent. But a happy accident occurred. The â€œstaycationâ€ phenomenon. In-state travel surged as travelers focused on local destinations, avoiding airfares and finding new leisure activities nearby. We Californians continue to be the mainstay of the stateâ€™s travel and tourism industry. Nearly $135 million was spent in 2016 by Stanislaus County visitors on day travel.

With almost 600,000 people living in Stanislaus County and 4 million within a 50-mile radius, itâ€™s time to amplify what there is to see and do where we live. Itâ€™s time to sell our community.

We have no famous mouse, landmark bridge, or awe-inspiring mountains. But we do have a thriving arts scene, classic car culture, farm-fresh cuisine, the largest privately-owned winery worldwide and an Americana experience that could captivate millions of tourists simply driving through week in and week out. We just have to find the best ways to tell them about it.

Itâ€™s time we appeal to those who visit for a conference but then leave. We should lure them into staying, eating, drinking, taking in a show. But how? And whose job is that anyway?

Enter the Regional Tourism Roundtable. The County convened a tourism focused group 20 years ago, in 1998. This effort included all nine Stanislaus County cities, chambers of commerce and key tourism businesses. We talked about all things tourism and focused on how we could leverage funds, tell our stories and promote our region collaboratively. When the economy took a hit, this meant all of us had to take a hard look at priorities. We were forced to refocus on core missions.

We asked the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors to reconsider the investment in regional tourism. And we have officially rebooted our Regional Tourism Roundtable with a small, representative group of partners to our first convening. The discussion provided us with incredible insight as to how we can begin leveraging the power of local â€œfun makers.â€ Our hope is the Regional Tourism Roundtable can promote our beautiful communities and all we have to offer to a traveler or tourist.

Original story here: The Modesto Bee

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Keith Boggs Honored as Literacy Hero

Learning to Save Lives

Regional Tourism Roundtable Rebooted