Ojai Valley News Blog

Mentor Madness Car Show partiicipants Pinky Salsedo and Larry Cobos share a moment with one of about 67 classic cars and trucks on display to benefit Segue Career Path Mentors Program at Nordhoff High School. Photo by Scott Wintermute.

Heal the Community organizes poker run, car show to bring in Segue speakers

By Sondra Murphy
Organizers of last weekend’s Mentor Madness Poker Run and Car and Motorcycle Show are happy that the event was a success. “Approximately $7,000 was raised and there were a little over 100 poker run participants,” said Heal the Community co-founder Dusty Fernandez. “We had five vendors who want to be mentors and 250 raffle items. The music was great, the food was great and we got nothing but compliments.” The raffle raised $760.

Proceeds will benefit bringing the Segue Career Path Mentors Program to Nordhoff High School. Nordhoff has begun scheduling community speakers who volunteer to serve as mentors. “How cool was it for Segue to put this program up before we had funding for it?” Fernandez said. “They had complete confidence in us. Between the first town hall meeting and the day of the event it was four-and-a-half months.”

Fernandez said 10 motorcycles and 67 cars were entered in the shows and three Best of Show awards were given, plus 13 surprise plaques sponsored by local community groups. “Both winners of the poker run donated their money back to the Segue Mentor program,” said Fernandez. “Our new motto is ‘go big or go home.’” The Optimist Club of Ojai helped sponsor the event held at St. Thomas Aquinas Church. Fernandez said Heal the Community plans to make Mentor Madness an annual event and intends to keep the poker run stops in the valley in the future for expediency.

The group will have little time to bask in the glory, as they are busy working with Segue for the next phase in the program.

For more information about becoming a mentor, call 640-0995 or 649-1466 or go to healthecommunityojai.com. There is a Segue link on the home page.