The San Joaquin County Historical Society partnered with the nonprofit group Tree Lodi in a proposal to the Lodi Lions Club.  We were guided by the original designer of the Sunshine Trail exhibition, Mike Schneider.  Our project was selected as the Lodi Lions Club community improvement project—the “Lions Love Lodi Excellence in Community Service Grant”—for 2008.  The project is the first phase in rehabilitating the Sunshine Trail living exhibition.  

The Sunshine Trail is a unique educational and recreational resource—a loop trail that passes through plants representing life zones in a transect across California, from the Redwood Coast, through the Valley, and into the Foothills and the Sierra.  The exhibition was initiated and championed by Soroptimist International of Lodi and was planted 25 years ago.  The trees have matured and recent years of deferred maintenance had taken their toll.

In June 2008, tree crews from Grover Tree Service removed a number of large hazardous trees.  They also completed the high-level removal of deadwood, thinning/weight reduction, and the removal of many smaller trees that were shaded out.  The technical tree work was funded by the Lodi Lions grant.

Work crews from Lodi Lions Club and Tree Lodi removed thousands of invasive Privet trees—from seedlings to large trees that had to be felled by chainsaw—and did lower-level clean-up.  This will allow Museum staff to access and repair the irrigation system.  Eventually, many of the lower-story specimens that had been shaded or crowded out will be replanted.

The financial planning firm Drummond & Hickingbottom has assisted by encouraging gifts to an endowment for ongoing Sunshine Trail maintenance.

In June 2008, students from Tracy (2), Franklin, McNair, Lincoln (2), St Mary’s, Tokay, and Lodi high schools attended a Plein-air Art Camp at the San Joaquin County Historical Museum. En plein aire in French means painting in the fresh air. Plein-air painting has come to mean representational painting done from real life in nature. It is a national and worldwide movement that has significant roots in San Joaquin County. The Haggin Museum in Stockton has taken an active role in promoting plein-air painting and the Plein-air Art Camp at the Museum was an outgrown of the Plein-air Painters of America exhibition at The Haggin last fall and winter.

The students were assigned full sets of equipment and materials, and received instruction from renowned local artist Gil Dellinger. They did “studio work” in the Museum multi-purpose room, painted outside at locations within the Museum grounds and at the Japanese Garden (in Micke Grove Regional Park), and took a field trip to The Haggin Museum. The students progressed through a series of exercises to develop their skills. For example they started with the development of ability to see and interpret values from photographs, then moved on to interpret the same values from natures, and finally explored how to turn those value studies into accurate color studies.

The San Joaquin County Historical Society plans to offer additional art camps at the Museum in the future.