Smith: After a long stay, Snoopy is discharged from Sutter Santa Rosa

If you know people who work at Sutter Santa Rosa Regional Hospital, you might want to go especially easy on them for a few days.

They’ve lost Snoopy.

For 10 years, a sculpture of the world’s best-loved canine character large enough to look big kids in the eye has greeted Sutter staffers and visitors, first to the hospital on Chanate Road and then to the campus near the Luther Burbank Center.

The polyurethane statue was created in 2007 as part of Peanuts on Parade, a public art project that over the course of several years produced more than 250 custom-adorned figures of Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Woodstock and Lucy. You still see a few around at businesses and homes and in public places.

The figure of Snoopy at Sutter was loaned by Andrew and Mary Valentine, fun lovers who for decades collected vintage games and a while back decided to donate hundreds of them to The Strong, the National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.

More recently, it occurred to the Valentine family that the Snoopy that’s resided for a decade at Sutter would be a grand addition to The Strong.

“We’re going to put him in our lobby,” said Chris Bensch, the museum’s vice president for collections, as Snoopy was gently loaded into a truck at Sutter’s main entrance. Bensch expects the beagle, dressed in a smock adorned with words like Gratitude, Faith, Frailty and Compassion, will be a hit.

“He’s going where he’ll have a lot of chance to play,” said the man from The Strong.

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MARIA CARRILLO High School heard from a couple of Bay Area nonprofits alarmed by reports of all the students who lost homes to the firestorm.

Members of the Beijing Association of Northern California and the Able2Shine Foundation asked if they might visit.

The group of mostly women showed up to tour Maria Carrillo and hear about the campus fund created to help students whose families struggle from impacts of the fires.

Then the visitors contributed a check to the school’s relief fund. For $5,000.

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SATURDAY AFTERNOON, the eve of Christmas eve, music man Buzzy Martin will be at the Roseland camp for people who are homeless. He will lead all who are interested in a round of caroling.

Buzzy hopes for help. He can handle the guitar strumming and singing, but he’d love for the 80 or so camp residents to have something to eat, and perhaps a small Christmas tree.

Buzzy would be elated for you to contact him at buzzy@buzzymartin.com if you’d care to provide a simple supper or perhaps contribute to a meal on the order of pizza and salad.

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THE TREE LOT next to the fire-damaged Burbank Center is where Scott and Shirley Chilcott most recently sensed the Spirit of Sonoma 2017.

The retired couple picked out a Christmas tree, then inquired about the cost of having it delivered: $30.

That exchange was overheard.

A man approached the Chilcotts and offered to place their yuletide tree in his pickup, beside the one he’d purchased, and drop it at their home. They resisted; he insisted.

Soon, Bill Stirnus, the retired Montgomery High School principal, delivered the tree and the Chilcotts thanked him with a bottle of better-than-decent wine.

You can reach Staff Writer Chris Smith at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.