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Fall 2020 Message

Dear Members and Friends,

Hope ParrishIt’s hard to believe that nine months have gone by since your Historical Society’s Archives and Resource Center (ARC) was last open to the public. We miss you! While Culver City (and Los Angeles County) slowly moves into next phases of reopening, Veterans Memorial Building remains closed to the public.

While we do not believe that we will permitted to reopen before the New Year, we felt it was time to share updates of the goings-on with your Society because we have found safe ways to stay busy in quarantine! The board continues to meet each month via Zoom. Since our January installation of the board, Mara (Sherman) Bommarito, long-time Culver City resident and CC High School 1976 graduate, has joined as secretary. Welcome, Mara!

Dennis Parrish, VP of Programs (and my dad), had been working on the programs for the 2020 General Meetings when the pandemic put a halt in plans to host these presentations to the public in-person. Unfortunately, Dennis will be stepping down at the end of 2020. He has created so many programs over the years, which we know many of you have attended and enjoyed. This position is essential to the Society, highlighting local history and its residents. If you love research and are interested in Culver City’s history, this might be for you. Drop us an email and let’s chat!

The pandemic has forced us to reassess how we reach our members and friends, including how we deliver our programs, the print newsletter, and these email blasts. We continue to discuss steps to adjust and evolve, including moving to a digital newsletter. Printed newsletters will not go away entirely, but maybe mailed on an annual basis. If you have strong feelings on this, please email us. We want to hear from you!

In our Spring newsletter we announced plans to moderately increase membership dues in 2021. Because we have all felt the effects of the pandemic in our own personal ways, the Board felt that this was not the time raise dues, and so will continue at the same rates through 2021. If you are able, we encourage and appreciate you joining or renewing your membership online, and you can also help by shopping our online store. (We have great holiday gifts!) We can’t do this without you.

As we continue to grow our collection through generous donations, our volunteers have continued to carefully enter them into our database. With so many wonderful new items I wrote an article for our website with fun photos. We continue to plan for an ARC reopening as soon as it is safe to do so, and we cannot wait to welcome you back! If you have considered volunteering, there many opportunities to help.

On behalf of the board I would like to express our sincerest gratitude to the first responders, front-line and essential workers, our CCUSD teachers, and our city employees for all the hard work and dedication that they continue to give through these extremely hard times. To any of you who have lost loved ones during this trying time, you have our deepest sympathies.

As we move into the holidays, please continue to follow health guidelines and safe practices. We will get through this one day at a time, together.

With continued best wishes,

Hope Parrish, President

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