All Things University City: UC’s Alphabet Soup

I was looking at my notes of UC related meetings and I thought what an alphabet soup of group names. How does the regular Joe (and I’m not picking on you Joe) know what is who or who is what? So, I decided to provide a quick recap of some of the groups, since I’ll refer to them quite often in future blogs. I’m probably missing a few, and I didn’t include some on purpose since their group’s name is self-explanatory, such as the Standley Recreation Council. Here's what I've got:

UC: University City – the area bordered within the 5 freeway to the west, 805 freeway to the east, and the 52 freeway to the south, sometimes called the Golden Triangle.

CF: Centurion Foundation of UCHS – a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting UCHS athletics, clubs and other extra-curricular activities. www.uc-centurionfoundation.com

EdUCate! – a nonprofit foundation to provide supplemental funds for all five of the UC public schools: Curie Elementary, Doyle Elementary, Spreckels Elementary, Standley Middle, and University City High Schools. www.uc-educate.org

JCC: The Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center - the Jacobs Family Center on Executive Drive offers activities for the entire family, including camps, theatre (J*Company Youth Theatre), teen dances (Club J), trips for seniors, plus much more. www.lfjcc.org

LJCDS: La Jolla Country Day School – a private college-prep school for students in pre-school through 12th grade. It has been at its current location off of Genesee Ave. since 1961. www.ljcds.org

LOL: Laugh Out Loud – oops, that’s another list, but sometimes we just have to LOL at local news.

OMC: Our Mother of Confidence Catholic Church at the corner of Governor and Regents, which observed their first mass in 1965. The church hall has been the site for various community events. www.omcsandiego.org

PTA or PTSA: Parent Teacher (Student) Association – each UC public school has a parent association that helps with many school needs.

SDUSD: San Diego Unified School District – the school district that oversees UC’s five public schools. UC is located in sub-district A and our representative is board member John Lee Evans, who happens to live in UC. www.sandi.net

UCCA: University City Community Association – our local volunteer community group that publishes the monthly newsletter and oversees community activities and groups (UC Garden Club, Neighborhood Watch). www.universitycitynews.org

UCCC: University City Cluster Committee (aka UCAG: University City Cluster Advisory Group or UCCAG: University City Cluster Advisory Group) – the group strives to provide a unified voice amongst the five public schools in UC, and to share ideas and resources amongst the schools. www.uccluster.com

UCHS: University City High School – the local public high school. www.sandi.net/universitycity

UCLL: University City Little League – the local little league open to all children ages 4 through 14 residing in the UC boundaries, and is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary. www.ucll.org

UCPG: University Community Planning Group – meets monthly to discuss development, maintenance and zoning issues, current ad-hoc committees include High Speed Rail, Capital Power Plant, Bicycle Safety, Mid-Coast Health, Scripps Health. www.sandiego.gov/planning/community/profiles/university/agendas.shtml

UCUC: University City United Church – community based congregation of the United Church of Christ whose buildings were built in 1968. www.ucuc.org

UCSD: University of California, San Diego – located in both UC and La Jolla communities, with approximately 30,000 students. Many of the UCSD staff, faculty and students live in the UC area. www.ucsd.edu

UTC: University Towne Center – sometimes mistakenly referred to the whole area north of Rose Canyon, UTC is the mall and is currently going through extensive renovations. www.westfield.com/utc 

Okay, that is done, and I’m sure there’s more, but let’s go on.

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Oktoberfest IV by EdUCate! is Saturday, October 6 from 2:00-6:00 pm at Standley Park. Yes, there will be beer, but there will also be root beer for the kiddies too. The following are some of the local micro-breweries providing samples: Rock Bottom, Monkey Paw, Stone Brewing Co., Hangar, and Ballast Point. Also, anyone can enter the Home Brew Contest featuring brews in the “Belgian and French Ale” category.

Entertainment will be provided by the UCHS Band, the Standley band, the ALSI Ensemble, and the El Cajon German Band. Kids can play at the Rock Climbing Wall, Jousting, Penguin Flicker, Giant Jenga and more. And as usual, the school principal’s challenge is pretty entertaining.

Besides beverages, brats, hot dogs, pretzels, strudel, and Forbidden Yogurt will be available for purchase. Ticket prices are $20 for 5 beer tastes and a commemorative cup, $2 for root beer/soda, and food/game tickets are $1 each or 25/$20. Bonus: wear any school spirit gear and get one free ticket! For more info: www.uc-educate.org.

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Quickies:

The CF and UCCA are looking for new volunteer treasurers. If you have the time and some accounting experience, contact for CF, Marie Webber, phillygrl1360@gmail.com, and for UCCA, Barry Bernstein, apdrfn@aol.com. Thanks to Ellen Minteer (CF) and to Ginny Charvat (UCCA) for the time they have put into those positions.

Kudos to Sherri Lightner’s office for pushing to get Genesee resurfaced. She reminds us to contact her office if we see additional areas that need work, including roads, potholes, sidewalks, etc. We are the city’s eyes and ears. They won’t know something needs to be fixed if we don’t tell them, and tell them often.

Lightner’s office also helped stopped some vandals who were trying to create their own BMX park in Rose Canyon.

The UCCA is working on beautifying the area medians. Additional plants will be acquired, but they need more volunteers for maintenance Otherwise, they are considering paying a service if we can’t recruit more helpers. Additionally, Greg Zinser is spearheading a project to possibly create a non-profit for the purpose of creating new medians in the whole community – about 18 total. Volunteers will be needed to pull it off, including an attorney and landscape attorney. Contact the UCCA if you are interested in helping with any neighborhood beautification projects.

UCHS has a new Parent Liaison, UC resident Marie Byrd. Contact her with any related UCHS questions. UC has very active parents, and Marie’s role will help communicating with the school be more efficient. mbyrd@sandi.net

Finally, and I know I talk about the UCHS football games a lot, but again it was nice to see so many members of the community out at the football game this past Friday Night, many with younger kids. And what was really cute were the youngsters of the local Tiger Boy Scout Troup who helped with the National Anthem, and stayed up to watch the game. I think the amount of snacks they purchased added quite a bit to the football boosters coffers.

Next Friday Night Lights at UCHS is HOMECOMING! Friday, October 26 versus Christian High School, starts at 6:30. Now, there are a lot of you out there that grew up in UC, so come on out and live the high school experience that you should have had – you know who I’m talking to!

Until next time, UC U KNOW!

Hope you enjoyed the All Things UC Blog for LaJolla Patch. Feel free to send me anything UC related at jemmasamala@gmail.com.