About Our Club

West Bakersfield Optimist Club is a membership organization of neighbors, colleagues, and frends who meet regularly to serve the youth of our area. We currently have over 33 members of all ages, all walks of life, and all parts of West Bakersfield and the surrounding area. We love to serve. We really do.

The club was founded in October of 2008. We had 32 charter members with Angelina Bertrin-Harris as president. James  Minyard was Secretary-treasurer. The club builders responsible were Julie Lowe and T G Thomas.

Our first project in which we participated was the “Safe Halloween” at Pioneer Village in 2008 in conjunction with the Kern County Sheriff’s Department. We provided treats for about 2000 youths. We also participated in the event in October of 2009.

Our next event was a bowling event for foster youths from the area. This event was in conjunction with the Renegade Bakersfield College Optimist Club.

We began to serve the Unicorn Home with a special picnic for several of the boys who had birthdays. There have been two other bowling events with the Boy’s home.

In December of 2009, we elected to have the Unicorn Garden as our focus for the club. We are going to have a Health Camp in June of 2010. We expect to serve 50 foster children in this camp.

The main purpose of our Club is to get out and organize events for our community, centered around youth.

Programs

In addition to sharing our interest in helping our youth with others, another great passion of ours is learning more about our self through our PGI (Personal Growth Involvment) program. Four times a year, we will get a chance to attend our "Quarterly Meeting" where coaching from a visiting master in the Optimist Organization will introduce you to Club Information and training not available anywhere else. 

Affiliation

Our Club is a chapter of Zone 11, Pacific South West District, the Optimist International is divided in  clubs, zones, districts, regions and countries. The Headquarters are in St Louis, MO.