Holiday Traditions

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The Orinda Junior Women’s Club had a wonderful holiday celebration last night! We collected a mountain of gifts for children at the Bay Area Crisis Nursery, packaged and sold olive oil gift sets for our holiday fundraiser, hosted our annual holiday mug exchange, dined on a wonderful potluck feast, and best of all had a fastastic evening enjoying each other’s company!

Halloween at Orinda Village

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The Orinda Juniors came together with all of their costumed kiddos and decorated pumpkins to bring a bit of Halloween spirit to the residents at the Orinda Village Senior Center.

Special thanks to Brigitte Meagher for corralling the little kids and making sure they got those pumpkins out. The kids were adorable, and the residents were lovely. We had all the superheroes represented, along with StormTroopers, GameBoys, ninjas, Steph Curry a few butterflies, the best snail costume ever and many more.
The pumpkin centerpieces stood the test of time (storage), and the kids loved the cookies and M&Ms.

Thanks also to our new members who attended along with their adorable kiddos. The Senior Village really was appreciative of the effort, and their Friday night dinner was off to a great start as we filed out.

Holiday Party

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One of the favorite events of the year, is the Orinda Juniors annual Mug Exchange and holiday party.  This year, the Orinda Juniors got together and not only exchanged mugs, enjoyed a decadent holiday spread of soups, salads and seasonal treat—we also donated holiday gifts for over 25 children from the Bay Area Crisis Nursery and kicked off a new holiday fundraiser!  Inspired by our November meeting at Amphora, we bottled 142 bottles of specialty olive oils and vinegars, including Basil Olive Oil/White Peach Balsamic Vinegar, Herb Olive Oil/Fig Balsamic Vinegar, and Gold Medal Arbequina Olive Oil.  Once bottled, we labelled and packaged them along with some great recipes and then sold them for holiday gift giving.  Our best fundraiser to date!

Olive Oil/Vinegar Tasting at Amphora

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Our November meeting was held at Amphora Olive Oil in Lafayette.  We had a fantastic turnout learned more about what makes a great olive oil! We sampled a variety of great salad dressing combos, spicy olives, and decadent blood orange brownies!  We also put the finishing touches on our Youth Ink writing contest!

New Member Meeting

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Our October new member meeting was a huge success, with many new faces joining us to learn more about the Orinda Juniors and working to decorate pumpkins for the seniors living at the Orinda Senior Village. If you didn’t get a chance to meet them last month, be sure to introduce yourself at our November meeting!

Candi Brooks-William
Chrei Arellano
Jennifer Balducci
Melissa Willingham
Nazia Sheriff
Orsi Teodorovic
Rene Erdem
Sharon Girdlestone
Shihyi Hong

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Over 20 little goblins came in costume to help deliver pumpkin to the Orinda Senior Village.

 

Introducing the 2016-2017 Board

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The Orinda Juniors kicked off our 2016-2017 year in September, with our first meeting with our new board:

President

  Amy Stuffmann

Vice President / Dean

  Katie Walsh

Membership

 Leslie Volk

Communications

  Michelle Bea

Treasurer

  Maura Aars

Secretary

  Lisa Siddall

Community Liaison

  Cindy Powell

Social

  Corrie Raphael

Hospitality 

  Leigh Colburn

Helping Hands

  Ignacia Guzman

Youth Ink

  Chantal Valentine

Celebrating 25 Years!

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This February, one of our own, Cindy Powell, celebrated her 25th anniversary with the Orinda Juniors.  In honor of this wonderful milestone, a house-full of current and former Orinda Juniors gathered for an evening of delicious wine, tasty treats, and reminiscing with friends old and new.

Getting Social at the Fourth Bore

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We had our best turn out ever for our January social event at the new Fourth Bore Tap Room and Grill in Orinda. Everyone had a wonderful time getting together to eat, drink and socialize!

Introducing the 2015-1016 Executive Board

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The 2015/16 Executive Board has been approved and is made up as follows:

President: Amy Stuffman
Deans: Cathy Opdycke and Katie Walsh
Membership: Tracy Cummings
Social: Corrie Raphael
Hospitality: Ignacia Guzman and Leigh Colburn
Communications: Michelle Bea
Treasurer: Maura Aars

Cooking with the Orinda Juniors

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Our April meeting featured a night of food and fun. We had a wonderful cooking demonstration with local chef Dan Petek and did some blind taste testing of some of our favorite wines. Dan demonstrated how to make an amazing ahi tuna appetizer, delicious herb-crusted goat cheese salad, a fava bean risotto with lemon and mint pesto, and topped it all off with decadent dark chocolate and sea salt topped bread – it was spectacular!

We ended the evening with laughter, full stomachs, delicious recipes, and great cooking tips (cut goat cheese with dental floss!). What a wonderful way to spend a beautiful Spring evening!

Download the delicious recipes!