YMCA Executive Director Jim Kirtley oversaw the placement of hundreds of pumpkins before the patch opened at Simon Meadow.
MEMBERSHIP AND T-BALL:
Palisades Malibu YMCA Executive Director Jim Kirtley said there are free memberships available if you were affected by the fires. https://www.ymcala.org/programs/social/fire-response/ The memberships will allow one full access to all LA YMCA centers.
T-Ball will be offered for three- to six-year-olds at Simon Meadow (at Sunset Boulevard and Temescal Canyon Road) and is free to fire victims. Practices and games will be held Saturdays from 9 to 10 a.m. There will be free bats for the first 36 children to register click here.
PUMPKIN PATCH:
If you haven’t been to the pumpkin patch at Simon Meadow, there are hundreds of different sizes and kinds of pumpkins. There are also gourds and tiny pumpkins that might make a nice centerpiece.
Hours are Monday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. and on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Additionally the YMCA will have a mini pumpkin patch at Pali Elementary’s Yeehaw Day on Saturday, October 18.
School groups are welcomed Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays and available time slots are 9:30 a.m. or 10:30 a.m. Use the following link click here.
As a part of the patch experience, the Y hides a spider under one medium-sized pumpkin. The child who finds it gets to keep that pumpkin for his/her class. Visiting the pumpkin patch is free, but donations are welcomed.
On October 11, the annual pumpkin glass sale was held. Cindy Simon purchased two beautiful pumpkins, designed by the Santa Monica College Art Department students, and gifted them to this editor. They were too beautiful to be kept in a small apartment and immediately went to the apartment building lobby, and were much appreciated by the staff and the hundreds of residents living there.
Staff and residents at the Dolphin Marina enjoy the glass pumpkins purchased in Pacific Palisades and created by Santa Monica College Art students.
While at the pumpkin patch take a walk through the Winding Way, which is cleverly and beautifully decorated by Simon. She wrote on Instagram “When you need to get your latest upcycled scarecrow out to the pumpkin patch at Simon Meadow, there’s only one person to call. . . the magnificent Bruce Schwartz.”
Schwartz, who has planted pumpkins around the Palisades and who routinely hauls them to the pumpkin patch, said his truck survived the fire, although it was a bit battered and a bit weakened.
“It’s still running and getting the job done,” he said.
Simon added, “Isn’t that how many of us are feeling these days, like the blue flatbed truck? Like the truck, I’m picking myself up after nine months of despair and putting myself into Drive?”
Bruce Schwartz and his trusty blue pickup transported a scarecrow made by Cindy Simon to the Pumpkin Patch, which is open to the public.