Fischer has toured the club’s numerous facilities with staff and board members, and “We talked a bit about what needs to be done.” Income from the November benefit would help “repair some of the physical limitations” at club locations.Vice Mayor John Procter asked Fischer to explain bocce ball - commonly referred to as lawn bowling - for those unfamiliar with the game, and she noted that any skill level could play. “It can be very, very addictive,” and is known as a family type sport.“I’ve seen it being played and didn’t know what they were doing,” said Mayor Ray Luna. “It did look like fun.”“I’m half Italian and my grandfather was a huge bocce ball player,” said Fischer. “There’s not a whole lot of in between,” with most people either never hearing of the game or “loving it... it can be set up in the backyard. It’s a game of skill and patience.”Luna asked that the city explore helping to sponsor the tournament.
SP famous for bocce ball? Council told of upcoming celebrity tournament
January 24, 2007
Santa Paula City Council
Santa Paula is famous for many things, but it’s bocce ball, the traditional Italian game of skill, that just might capture even more publicity for the city, the Council learned at the January 16 meeting.
By Peggy KellySanta Paula TimesSanta Paula is famous for many things, but it’s bocce ball, the traditional Italian game of skill, that just might capture even more publicity for the city, the Council learned at the January 16 meeting. Kristen Fischer, corporate partnerships manager of the Nuts Bolts & Thingamajigs Foundation, told the Council that actor John Ratzenberger’s unique organization will be holding a two-day festival in November at Limoneira Co. in Santa Paula where tinkering and bocce ball will be the top attractions.“A bocce ball celebrity tournament will be day one, and day two will be a day of tinkering,” in keeping with the goals of the foundation. Ratzenberger started the organization due to evidence of a growing crisis in America that is occurring because too few young people now develop the kind of manual skills required by industries, manufacturers and engineering practices.“John’s mission here is to really get the kids working with hands again,” and to introduce them to the pleasure of tinkering, the basis of all invention as well as the root of many of careers that are the root of a self-sufficient, self-sustaining society. The day of tinkering will involve local and national manufacturers demonstrating what they do: “If they build guitars, we want to show the kids how” to tickle an interest in tinkering.The bocce tournament and tinkering day will bring “tourism and the entertainment industry to Santa Paula,” while benefiting the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Clara Valley and The Education for Children with Diabetes Foundation, she noted.
