Community

As 2013 closes, here is a glimpse of just a few individuals who helped make the communities of Gilroy and Morgan Hill what they are today. From volunteers to doctors, mayors to teachers, mothers to philanthropists, the following faces leave behind their own unique marks on South County.

More than 41,000 blood donations are needed across the nation every day but donations tend to slow down in the holiday months, even though accidents happen all year long.

Senior nutrition programs at the Gilroy Senior Center (7371 Hanna St.) and the Centennial Senior Center in Morgan Hill (171 W. Edmundson Ave.) got a collective $10,000 boost as the YMCA of Silicon Valley was awarded extra funds through the CareMore Foundation’s Senior Hunger Grant Program.

Jennifer Lynn Kranz, or “JLK” as she is known to family and friends, loves wearing princess dresses and dancing, and believes wholeheartedly in Santa Claus.

An iconic yet long-neglected fixture in the heart of Christmas Hill Park has been living on borrowed time for months now, but judgment day for the old “Red Barn” as Gilroyans know it could be influenced by what they have to say about it.

A record low 1.46 inches of rainfall in Gilroy over the calendar year makes 2013 the “driest year on record” dating back to 1957, according to forecaster Steve Anderson of the National Weather Service.

Each Christmas, The Salvation Army supplies toys to nearly 2,000 children in need in the Gilroy community.

This year, the PBS-televised “Christmas at Belmont” concert - hosted by internationally renowned mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves and taped at Nashville's Schermerhorn Symphony Center - will have it's own Gilroy star: Emily Perino.

While riding his orange Kubota tractor at approximately 2:30 p.m. Dec. 9, Steve Alexander, who lives roughly three miles east of Saint Louise Regional Hospital in rural Gilroy, saw a mountain lion cross his path just 40 feet away.

Thirty years ago, an active local nonprofit organization started a modest holiday giving campaign that provided a few local families in need with food baskets.