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The International Order of the Rainbow for Girls in California

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Who’s the Leader of the Pack?

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By: Carley L., Assistant Grand Editor

Come one, come all to learn about our very own Grand Worthy Advisor in California, Sydney Warney! Sydney was initiated into Natoma Assembly at Grand Assembly 2015 in a beautiful, sparkly, blue dress, inspired by her favorite Disney princess Cinderella. Sydney grew up watching Cinderella with her sisters Kenna, Emma, and her mom, Katy. Her sister Emma is a Past Worthy Advisor of Natoma and Kenna is currently in the line as Faith. Katy is Director of Youth Protection and was part of the Excellently Elegant Elephants, serving as Grand Fidelity, which happens to be Sydney’s favorite bow office and no, she is not biased. Sydney received her Past Worthy Advisor pin after presiding as Worthy Advisor for Natoma Assembly in 2019 & 2020. Sydney has received the Grand Editors Trophy (2018) and Grand Cross of Color (2020).  She also served on the State PR Team (2019-2020), the State Leadership Team (2020-2022), and the Supreme Ritual Team in 2020 and 2022, where she held the offices of Worthy Associate Advisor and Worthy Advisor. This year she will serve as Patriotism, while she participates in the California Bow Team Ritual competition at Supreme Assembly.

Outside of Rainbow, Sydney continues to enjoy learning new things and is well-rounded. In addition to participating in Cheerleading and Musical Theater, Sydney manages to maintain a 4.0 while taking classes at her high school, as well as college classes at Folsom Lake College. On May 27th, two days before the first OV, Sydney will graduate with honors from Ponderosa High School. In the future, she hopes to attain her Associates Degree at Folsom Lake College and transfer to San Diego State or Pepperdine to study Political Science. Her long term goal is to go to Law School and specialize in employment Law. She would love to go to college near the beach because the beach is where Sydney finds peace.

Sydney also loves to travel with her family and friends, as well as her Grandies to the Happiest Place on Earth, Disneyland. Did you know that Sydney and her family own over 100 pairs of Mickey ears? If you ever need to borrow a pair, you sure know who to ask. Sydney’s favorite ride at Disneyland is Indiana Jones and Pirates of the Caribbean, which happens to be Emma’s least favorite. Sydney’s favorite thing to do is listen to all genres of music and go on long car rides with friends. On the road, you’ll frequently catch Sydney at Starbucks, which is her favorite place to get a coffee. If you get Sydney an iced brown sugar oat milk shaken espresso, she will love you forever. As we all know Sydney absolutely loves the color pink and what goes best with pink? Sparkles! At her favorite birthday party, she and her friends went ice skating. She wore a pink, sparkly sweater dress and totally did not rip it on the ice. A few words of advice would be to never take Sydney ice skating as she is afraid of falling and getting run over, but definitely take her to San Francisco. Sydney has been to San Francisco over 30 times. In San Francisco, you may catch Sydney and her mom at a San Francisco Giants game, which happens to be their all-time favorite sports team. Her favorite restaurants in San Francisco are the Nordstrom Café and Frascotti. Sydney hopes to someday live in San Francisco full-time because she adores the city’s rich history and the high-energy lifestyle that the city provides.

Sydney is unique in every way possible. She is kind, gentle, determined, silly, ambitious, inspiring, and a best friend to all. Sydney is one of those people that you can’t spend enough time with. She will always make you feel like you have a purpose and will push you to attain your dreams. Sydney hopes for positive growth in our beautiful order. She truly loves Rainbow with her whole heart and cannot wait to see what this year has in store. She is very excited to spend this year raising money for the new Grand Service project, Pawsitive Teams, and making memories with all of the Pioneering Wolf Pack.

Welcome our Wolf Pack Pop!

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By: George Whitten, State Rainbow Dad 2023

Hellooo California Rainbow! My name is George Whitten, and I am your Pioneering Wolf Pack State Rainbow Dad for 2023. I want to say a big thank you to Mrs. Regier for her confidence in me and for giving me this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to serve California Grand Assembly. I am thrilled to be able to travel with Grand Worthy Advisor Sydney W. and all the “Wolf Pack” Grandies and adults throughout California and other jurisdictions during 2022-2023. My home Assembly is Petaluma-Marin in Petaluma, Ca. (Novato Assembly became Marin Assembly and merged with Petaluma Assembly a few years ago). I retired in 2018 after working for 40+ years as a maintenance machinist in the oil industry. I joined Petaluma-Hamilton Lodge in 1990 and served as Master of the lodge in 1995 and again in 1999. During my first term as Master, I regularly visited both Petaluma and Novato assemblies. I really enjoyed the dynamics of the order and the fact that the girls oversee their assemblies with input from the advisory board. After my term as Master, I continued to attend assembly meetings and I guess I caught the “Rainbow bug” and have been involved ever since. I have served as Rainbow Dad several times, attended Grand Assembly starting in 1999, received the Grand Cross of Color in 2000, and been a board member for quite some time. During my time in Rainbow, I have had the pleasure of escorting all the Petaluma Assembly appointed Grand Officers to the floor at Revelations (except Marissa Simpson – I could barely control myself let alone take her down the stairs safely). I enjoy riding my Harley Davidson motorcycle (when I can) and have made several trips around the country. I also enjoy going to Sonoma Raceway each July to watch the NHRA drag races. As a machinist, I am a bit of a gearhead, and I like repairing mechanical stuff and doing most of the work maintaining my vehicles (that will help this year) and keeping things working in our food booth at our annual fund raiser during the Marin County Fair over the Fourth of July weekend. (Which is on again for this year)! I am super excited about the next 12 months of being State Rainbow Dad and look forward to a great, prosperous, busy, and FUN year for the “Wolf Pack”!

Welcome our Wolf Pack MA

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By: ____________________________________________

Hello California Rainbow, with all my wolfy wonder I’d like to introduce Mrs. Vickie Garcia. Born in Carlsbad, New Mexico. Her family moved to Artesia, New Mexico where she lived for 10 years. Then moved to Roswell, NM for six years. Mrs. Garcia’s maiden name is Marrs. It’s pronounced like the planet Mars. In 1949 there was a famous UFO landing outside of Roswell. There was a series called “Roswell”. The City of Roswell has a UFO Museum where every year there is a UFO convention attended by people from all around the world! Her son and daughter would tease her and call her an alien from “Mars”.  When she was 16 years old, her family moved to Fairfax (Marin County), CA.  When she eventually moved to Novato, CA.  In addition to living in various parts of California, she has also lived in Connecticut, Louisiana, and New Jersey.

Mr. Tony Garcia, CFO and PSRD- Panther Paw Pa, and Mrs. Garcia have been married for  40 ½ years. Together they have a pet Weimaraner named Sadie. Those who have been to their home know she is very spoiled! She has two children- a daughter Randi and a son Jonathan. In 2003 Randi served as Grand Faith for the Whimsically Wacky Walruses.  Randi has a son- Tyler and a daughter- Isabel. They live in Lemoore, CA.  Jonathan is not married and lives in Oceanside. Tony has three older children- oldest daughter- Linda, son- John, and younger daughter- Lillian. They all live west of Phoenix. There are 12 grandchildren in all and eight great-grandchildren in total. When they are all together, they always have a great time.

After 33 years with the Federal Government, Mrs. Garcia retired. She has now been retired for 17 years! She worked for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Starting out as a tax auditor and auditing individual tax returns. Then became a manager of tax auditors and a manager in the case processing function that processed the audited tax returns. She had the opportunity to travel on business to numerous cities.  Before being involved in Rainbow, she traveled to Fresno!  She also traveled to several cities throughout California. In addition to traveling to Anchorage, Alaska, Hawaii, Seattle, Washington, Salt Lake City Utah, Nashville, Tennessee, Raleigh, North Carolina, Atlanta, Georgia, Washington, D.C., and several times to Dallas, Texas. Traveling to some cities more than once. She was in Dallas on 9/11.  Her district’s Official Visit of the Grand Worthy Advisor was on 9/13 and she had obtained permission to leave the meeting early to return to California for the O.V. But with the events of 9/11, she was not able to return for the Official Visit. 

She was Mother Advisor for Golden Star Assembly, No. 275, in Vista, CA, for 15 years.  In 2005 she was appointed to the Grand Executive Committee as a GEC MA. She was one of two GEC MAs who first served as a three-year GEC MA. For about eight years she volunteered at the Grand Assembly Office for Mrs. Sara Lee Martin. Helping with financial training, answering questions, and providing direction to the Assemblies regarding financial and non-profit status based on IRS Code §501(c)(3). She continues to volunteer for Mrs. Dana Regier, our Supreme Inspector. At Grand Assembly 2016 she was appointed Area Grand Deputy for the San Diego County Assemblies. She has been on several Supreme Tours and has always enjoyed these trips and the many beautiful cities. They are always an adventure. The Supreme Tours have given her the opportunity to become better acquainted with the members of our Rainbow family.

She was a Rainbow Girl in Roswell, New Mexico. Belonging to Zia Assembly, which is now closed.  She still has her Lambskin Apron. Her favorite office is Faith, not only because her daughter was Grand Faith but because Faith represents so much about Rainbow.  Faith is the first person to lead a new initiate into the Assembly room and to instruct a new girl of the teachings of Rainbow.  She appreciates all the lessons of the bow stations.

She loves all the friendships she has made and all the people she’s had the opportunity to get to know.  Rainbow has given us all a common bond.  Through Rainbow she has traveled to many parts of California.  On one of her trips, she told Tony “we would have never come to this town if it had not been for Rainbow.” She always enjoys going back to New Mexico. New Mexico is the Land of Enchantment. There are so many things to see, and it is rich in history.  She also enjoys Washington, D.C.  She loves all the museums and history. 

She enjoys New Mexican Spanish food, she’ll definitely have to let me try a dish. Every year she buys fresh New Mexican green chiles, roasts them, freezes them, and enjoys them all year long. She also buys New Mexico sun dried red chiles to make red chile sauce. The New Mexico chiles have a wonderful flavor!

In her free time she enjoys digital scrapbooking.  She is scanning all her pictures into a cloud storage system and using their digital scrapbooking program. She is also a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Her initial Patriot is James Litchfield of Massachusetts. She is currently working on proving another Patriot- General Andrew Pickens. She is also a member of the Mayflower Society and a descendant of John Howland.  He is the person who fell off the ship on the way to America.

A message from Mrs. Garcia: To my beautiful Pioneering Wolf Pack daughters, embrace this year.  Enjoy this year and cherish your new Rainbow family.  Mrs. Regier has prayed about each girl and each office.  She appointed each of you to your special office. I look forward to getting to know each and every one of you. I look forward to our many travels together and fun times.  And as the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls begins the next 100 years of Rainbow, our Pioneering Wolf Pack will lead California Rainbow’s First-Class Organization.  Watch out California Rainbow, here comes the Pack!

Leadership, Service and Sisterhood

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By: Carley L., Assistant Grand Editor

Leadership, service, and sisterhood. The three beautiful virtues that make up our wonderful order. When I was first initiated into the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls, many people told me “The friends you make in Rainbow will last you a lifetime.” Of course, I believed them. I had met a few of my mom’s friends that she made when she was a Rainbow Girl and Grand Officer. My only hesitation was that I had never experienced it. I never had trouble making friends at school, but none of them were friends I could count on when I knew I needed them the most. Rainbow has not only given me friends that I know I can count on, but has given me friends that I know will be there for me throughout life. The friendships you make in Rainbow are so special. They are with girls who have the same beliefs, morals, and life values. I can truly be myself around my Rainbow sisters. A few of the friendships I have made have been more recent. No matter if you’ve known them for years, days, or even minutes, those true friends will make an impact on not only your life but your soul. Soulmates exist in many virtues of life, including love. But best friend soulmates are the best of all. You know deep down that they are truly there for you because they love who you are, even at your worst. Rainbow has given me friendships that I will never take for granted and will always cherish. I’m certain some of these ladies will be my bridesmaids when I get married and causing trouble with me in the nursing home from having too much fun. These girls are my best friends. I owe it all to the order we all know and love, the International Order of the Rainbow for Girls for giving me my forever friends.

The Narrator Welcomes You to be His Guest

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By: Zoee S., Grand Editor

Oh, a guest! Hello there! I haven’t seen you in a while. You might not remember me so let me re-introduce myself. I am the Narrator and the Narrator is me! You have come at the perfect time for I am about to tell the story of a handsome prince cursed to turn into an ugly beast by a witch and a girl, named Belle, who came along and healed his cold heart. It began long ago in a small village in France…

Belle was unlike any woman in her town, she enjoyed reading and had an education. Many of the townspeople called her peculiar but she didn’t mind. She enjoyed her quiet life in her village until one day her father needed to go off on a journey to the Beast’s castle. Her father was a maker of music boxes. One day when he was traveling back to the village he came upon a rose garden and plucked a singular rose. Unknown to him, this rose garden belongs to the Beast. Seeing Belle’s father pluck the rose, the Beast locks him up in the dungeons for life. Concerned her father has yet to return, Belle travels to find her father and happens upon the castle. There she finds her father being held in the dungeons and makes her first encounter with the Beast. Appalled by what the Beast was doing with her father she asks the Beast to release him. The Beast refuses only to accept when Belle offers to take her father’s place instead. 

Sometimes we do crazy things for the people we love. We may question our choices at first, but it’s all worth it if we can prevent our loved ones from being hurt. Even if that means taking their place. Belle did exactly that. She didn’t know what would happen because of her actions, all she cared about was making sure her father was safe. In the end, she fell in love with the Beast and became a princess. Belle’s father experienced a similar situation, but only negative. He picked the rose thinking about Belle and how it would make her happy. Because of this, he ended up in the dungeon with Belle ultimately taking his place. Not really a desired outcome. However, it’s okay because in life we won’t know what will happen if we don’t do it. My advice is to do what you think is right, and to try the grey stuff because it’s delicious!

Ah, would you look at that I’m late for dinner! Please excuse me, Mr. Cogsworth doesn’t like tardiness, he tends to keep time better than most. Tah! Tah! Till next time when we meet again for our storytelling corner!

Pawsitive Teams

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By: Zoee S., Grand Editor

Hello California Rainbow! I am so excited to share with you more about our Grand Service Project, Pawsitive Teams. I had the chance to interview the Executive Director of this nonprofit organization, Eileen Heveron. Eileen told me Pawsitive Teams was started 25 years ago in San Diego by two local women…and one dog. She then explained their mission was to enhance the lives of individuals with special needs in San Diego County through the use of highly trained service and therapy dogs. Pawsitive Teams has three programs they train dogs under: service dogs, facility dogs, and therapy dogs. 

Pawsitive Teams specializes in training Service dogs to work with mobility limited individuals. These dogs are trained once a week during group training, otherwise, they are at home, at work and around town every day with their volunteer trainer learning very specific commands. Formal specific activities occur in short sessions throughout the day so as to not overwhelm the dog. A lot of the time during these sessions the trainers have to break down the command into tiny pieces to help the dog understand the specific task they need to do, which takes a lot of time and effort. For example, if you drop your keys or wallet the dog needs to recognize to pick up the item and give it back to their person specifically and then whether to place it back into the person’s hand or in their lap. They will even learn to give something to a sales clerk in a store, and these choices all depend on the specific commands. Anything we do in our day-to-day lives can be/needs to be translated into a request that the service dog can understand. The service dogs Pawsitive Teams works with come from different breeders they know and are labs, golden retrievers or lab/golden crosses. These dogs are usually dogs who have the right temperament and have the physical conformation to help a disabled person. 

Facility dogs are dogs that go to work with their professional partner at a specific workplace to help clients. They are trained in obedience and specialty cues. An example of where a facility dog might work is in the court system. Currently, Eileen says they have one facility dog who goes to work with the Victims Advocate in Family Court where the dog supports children who might need to testify in court. 

Therapy dogs can be dogs of any breed and who are pet dogs. They go through Pawsitive Teams’ Therapy Dog Prep School with their owner who wants to train their dog to become a therapy dog. Therapy dogs are typically dogs that are loving and have good temperaments. Pawsitive Teams also offers a specialized therapy dog program, called Pawsitive Animal Assisted Therapy. These Goal Directed Therapy Dog volunteers can work with kids that have physical/developmental limitations or with veterans who have PTSD or a serious injury coming back from war. Pawsitive Teams now work with eight partner organizations in this program to help serve people with special needs. 

The Service and Facility dogs from Pawsitive Teams take about two years to be trained. After the dog is trained, they are matched to a person who has applied for a dog; matching is based on what the dog can do and what the person needs the dog to be able to do. This transition from the trainer to the new owner takes about three months to accomplish. This process is needed so the dog will know to follow the new owner’s requests, rather than following its original trainer. 

In order to be matched with a dog from Pawsitive Teams, people need to apply and unfortunately, they don’t have enough dogs for all their applications and not enough trainers to train a possible new puppy coming in if all the trainers are already working with a dog. In the past 18 months, Pawsitive Teams logged close to 150 applications for service dogs and have been training six dogs, so they would like to grow to serve more people. When a person does get matched with one of their dogs, Pawsitive Teams supports that dog throughout their life, helping the owner in emergencies and retesting the dog every two years until the dog retires or sadly passes away. 

Eileen told me about a memorable sponsorship. Eileen’s dad, before he had passed away, told her he wanted to do something for the dogs! He left a donation to sponsor a Pawsitive Teams service dog, which Eileen and her family decided to name “Duffy” after her dad. Turns out, everyone knew Eileen’s dad as Uncle Duffy! Duffy was a yellow lab who was placed with a woman who had a service dog previously with Pawsitive Teams that had passed away. The woman had seen Duffy when he was a puppy since Duffy was being trained by the same trainer as her former service dog. She said when Duffy was little that he would be her next service dog, which isn’t how it works but she was very insistent. She even had his photo on her desktop! Low and behold Duffy became her service dog. Another cool pairing was when a woman was getting married, her Pawsitive Teams service dog walked down the aisle with flowers around his neck just like a flower girl. As you can see Pawsitive Teams dogs have a special impact on individuals and on the community. Pawsitive Teams is a very hands-on dedicated organization. Their tagline for this year, their 25th anniversary, is “Pawsitively Changing Lives for 25 Years!” Eileen told me that all of Pawsitive Teams is so excited California Rainbow has chosen to support them and can’t wait to work more with them! I also can’t wait to see what California Rainbow can do for Pawsitive Teams!

Be A Pioneer

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By: Sydney W., Grand Worthy Advisor

When you think of the word, Pioneering, what comes to mind? At first glance, the beginning of the word is what immediately jumps out, and would cause many of us to picture the first groups of people who traveled across America to settle in the frontiers in the 1800s. Many of these pioneers began making the 2,000-mile journey to take advantage of what the United States had to offer. Some went to the frontier in order to prospect for gold, but many were looking for adventure or just the possibility of improving their lives. People left their families and friends, and many knew it would take a long time, if ever, before they saw them again. The trip was a long, hard, and dangerous one. The trail was rocky, raging rivers had to be crossed, and many didn’t make it to their final destination. Those who did make it, laid the foundations of the cities and states that would become the America we know today. 

Personally, the word pioneering doesn’t remind me of frontiers and dangerous treks, but rather of some of the most famous trailblazing female leaders, who “pioneered” the way for many women to follow for years to come. Katherine Meyer Graham was the first female CEO of a Fortune 500 company, The Washington Post. Amelia Earhart was the first woman to make a solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, and she was the first aviator to fly solo from Honolulu to Oakland. Katherine Johnson was a mathematician whose calculations were critical to the success of NASA’s first U.S. crewed spaceflights, which helped send astronauts to the moon. While the list can go on and on, these women revolutionized the world by challenging the status quo and having the courage to break barriers that stood in their way of success.

The lessons that we learn in Rainbow provide the foundation for us to become “pioneering” leaders. A perfect example of this can be seen in another trailblazing woman, former Supreme Court Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, who just so happened to be a Rainbow Girl herself. She was the first woman to be confirmed as a Justice on the Supreme Court, and by breaking through this glass ceiling, she proved to women everywhere that they too could make it into positions of authority and power, even in the Supreme Court of the United States. 

There is so much that we can learn from both the pioneers of the frontier days, and the trailblazing leaders that we continue to be inspired by. First, they know where they’re going, meaning that they’re visionaries and understand what it will take to reach the goal. Good leaders know where they are going, even when others don’t yet see it. They are also willing to take risks, shoulder the burden and take the responsibility for those risks. When they do this, they are able to build a stronger connection with those who follow them. These pioneers also become part of the journey, never asking someone to do something they wouldn’t do first. Pioneers also know the value of “being one with the team”, leading from within rather than from afar. They teach and translate, stay connected to their team, and know them by name. They invest in their people, because they know that the people are the mission. At the end of the day, a business or organization that invests in and maximizes the potential of its people is far more likely to succeed in its mission. Finally, pioneers know that eventually, it becomes time to return to the ranks, and watch as the people they inspired become leaders themselves. They take the risk, teach their people, lead by example and raise up the next generation of pioneers. 

This is what makes them leaders, and it is why we can learn so much about leadership from pioneers. California Rainbow girls, I challenge each of you to be pioneers, to have the courage to break glass ceilings and to blaze a trail for others to someday follow.