Ed Aranda, president of the local Imperial Valley chapter of the ABATE biker organization, talks about the group’s Turkey Run to help poor families have a Thanksgiving meal. He is pictured outside the Sister Evelyn Mourey Center, an El Centro charitable organization that receives turkeys from ABATE. This year’s Turkey Run will be held Nov. 18.

Ed Aranda sits on his Harley Davidson bike. Dressed in a black leather vest, jeans and a red bandana underneath a cap bearing the name of his biker organization—ABATE—the 63-year-old Imperial resident talks of a 20-year passion of his to serve the community.

November is a special month for this biker.

It is this month in which ABATE Local 38, the Imperial Valley chapter of what is a very large motorcycle organization, holds its annual Turkey Run, an event to provide turkeys to charitable groups and churches throughout the

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Sylvia Preciado-Platero, manager of the American Red Cross’ Imperial Valley Service Center, part of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Chapter of the Red Cross, is pictured in front of an emergency response vehicle outside her El Centro office. Preciado-Platero has led the local office for 16 years.

In the conference room of the American Red Cross’ Imperial Valley Service Center are two plaques–one signed by President Warren G. Harding, the other by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Both commemorate the work of the Red Cross office in the Imperial Valley. Both point to the history of the American Red Cross and the important role it has played nationwide, but more specifically the role of the organization in this remote part of California.

Sylvia Preciado-Platero, manager of the Imperial Valley arm of the San Diego-Imperial Counties Chapter of the Red Cross, takes pride in the long history of the organization in the Imperial Valley,

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Children enjoy a summer day at the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Imperial Valley’s Brawley facility during a presentation by the California Highway Patrol.

On a hot summer day in Brawley, a group of children sat quietly in a cool gym, their attention on a California Highway Patrol K-9 Unit officer and his dog. Officer Bobby Gonzales talked to the kids about his work in the K-9 unit and his longtime canine partner. The children marveled at the animal, especially when it showed off its search skills and its ability to take down an assailant.

The kids were all members of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Imperial Valley, as was Gonzales when he was growing up in Brawley.

He said the Boys & Girls Clubs made a difference in his life during the years he attended, and it was an honor to be able to come back and

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