Day Under the Oaks: A community learning and lounging together

For Natalie Wright, Sunday was a little like a college homecoming.

With two kids in tow, the Santa Rosa mom strolled the grounds of Santa Rosa Junior College, nostalgically checking out her old stomping grounds where she once earned an associate degree in communications 17 years ago.

“I love this school. I love how beautiful the campus is. I think they’ve done a really good job of maintaining it and making it a desirable place to come,” said Wright, who leveraged her degree into a gig as an on-air personality for local KSXY radio.

She was among the estimated 7,000 people from babies in strollers to senior citizens, from alumni and students to prospective students and community members swarming the grounds for Larry Bertolini Day Under the Oaks, a free community carnival where the games were to teach and each attraction promoted education.

People in sunglasses and hats grazed on gourmet food truck cuisine like sushi wraps and whipped pineapple ice cream while mingling among dozens of booths to learn about the school’s different programs, clubs and services, many of which offered sweets, small prizes and swag.

There was the tooth toss run by dental hygiene students where kids could throw beanbags into a smiling tooth for prizes like toothpaste. Students dressed as tooth fairies flitted about the central green in the heart of campus to entice kids to learn about brushing. And at the Nutrition Club booth, students in the dietitian technician program - one dressed as a giant banana, another as a carrot - offered healthy hydration with fruit-infused water while guiding kids and adults in a guessing game to discover how much sugar is in common quenchers like soda and orange juice. The answer? Fifty-five grams of sugar for soda and 42 grams for pure orange juice.

“The kids flock over to see the carrot and banana but once the parents come and see how much sugar is in their drinks in the demonstration we’re offering, they’re like, ‘Wow,’” said Christian Uyeno, a dietician tech student and club member, peeking out from the facehole of a banana costume. “They think juice is so great. And yet there’s still a lot of sugar in it.”

The annual open house - named in honor of the late SRJC trustee and event co-founder Larry Bertolini - is also a chance for prospective students to learn more about the school’s different programs and in some cases, the job prospects they offer.

Mark Felling, a registered nurse who heads up the medical assisting program, was recruiting students, even though the program is at capacity with a waiting list. He called it a “hot vocation” with lots of employment prospects for jobs paying from $32,000 to $56,000 a year. Students gave vision screens and measured people’s blood pressure, while talking up the program.

Lupe Reyes graduates from the program this month. She chose it because she likes the medical field and the employment opportunities.

“I didn’t get to school until late because of my kids,” said Reyes, who at 42 is typical of many SRJC students who come back to learn trades or work toward degrees put off when they were younger.

“I was a single mother. Now one of my kids is 21 and the other one is 17.”

Inside, next to the dining commons, Clay Atchison didn’t have to work too hard to draw attention to his fledgling 3-D animation program.

A giant projection screen showed an animation project in process. Kids were encouraged to play with stop-motion animation using their own cellphone cameras.

Atchison said the field is burgeoning, with jobs not just confined to movie studios. There is a demand for computer animation across the spectrum, with applications in architecture, forensics, medicine and computer gaming.

You can reach Staff Writer Meg McConahey at meg.mcconahey@pressdemocrat.com or 707-521-5204. On Twitter @megmcconahey.