Star Bright Community Stories

A Collaborative Resource for Non-Profits, Churches, Businesses, and Individuals Who Provide a Public Benefit.

Good day friends. Well it’s been quite a journey these last couple of weeks. We, as you know, were met face to face with the potentiality of a fire threat. An all too familiar feeling that summoned up a lot of emotions. Only now it had a different edge to it. Now it was our neighbors in Oroville that were evacuating their homes. And the knowledge we have from our own experience is the edge I’m talking about. We know exactly how that feels and because of that shared experience, we now have a space in our hearts where compassion lives deeper and we hurt and feel anxious for our neighbors. And when you combine that with the already present feelings of our own worries about fire danger to our town and our homes, well it’s just a lot for a heart to take. Then we found ourselves in an extreme heat assault, which added to the feeling of isolation in a sense. We stayed in our home to defend it against threat from fire, then we stayed inside to retreat from the
heat. The isolation was starting to feel all too familiar again, from when we were in the pandemic. July Fourth plans changed for a lot of people. The lakes were shut down because of the fire, activities got canceled because of the heat. People had to alter their plans and make do. But the one thing that didn’t get canceled or shut down was the July 4^th Celebration at the Paradise Performing Arts Center, featuring the Paradise Symphony Orchestra and the Paradise Community Chorus. It was a free concert in an air conditioned auditorium. There were 2 performances that day. I went to the first one and am so glad I went. First off the house was full. We don’t get to see that near enough. The music was all Patriotic songs that I knew and have known since elementary school, and you better believe
I was singing along as were my community members sitting around me. We were all waving our flags that were given to us at the door. Through music, we honored our Veterans and First Responders. Each branch of the Military was represented as those who served, stood up in the audience to receive much deserved acknowledgement and plentiful applause. We were guided through the program by Uncle Sam (Mark Thorp), and we were entertained by the Butte County Scottish Society Pipes & Drums group, Baritone soloist Michael Burchett
and even got a glimpse of some of the dancers from the Northern California Ballet who performed during the final song, The Stars and Stripes Forever.
For the moment, we forgot about the fires and the heat and the changed plans and we just gathered together and celebrated the music from our Forefathers, honoring our flag, our nation, our community, our neighbors and our voices. I just kept looking around at all the happy people singing, and waving their flags and smiling at one another. I couldn’t help but hink about our new community members and families that were seeing this for the first time. How happy they must have felt that this is the place they now call home. This is what we do here. This is who we are. We celebrate. We gather. We create and inspire.

A big thank you to the Paradise Performing Arts Center for hosting the event at no
charge, Dr. Lloyd Roby and the Paradise Symphony Orchestra and Sam Gronseth and the Paradise Community Chorus for the wonderful show that was free to the public. How blessed we are to have such amazing organizations in our town. I encourage you to check out their websites as well as the calendar from the Paradise Chamber of Commerce. Find out what’s going on in town and go there. The more we explore and attend the more opportunities will come out of it. Have a beautiful and blessed day my friends.