Norma Gallardo is Presented CITY TALK Award for Community Work

On Friday, August 19, Council Member Dr. G (Dr. Luis S González) presented the CITY TALK “Community Impact Award” to community volunteer, Norma Gallardo a long-time resident of Colton, and well-known community volunteer.

Norma has many interests and can be seen around the city at local events, cleaning up trash, planting bougainvillea plants, and helping with many school and community activities.

Two years ago, she started helping Dr G with his trash clean-up project. Every week, she has joined with the G-Team to clean-up various city walkways, medians, the Paseo, bus stops, as well as freeway entrances/exits. “It’s a good way to help the community,” says Norma, who squeezes-in time in the early morning hours before starting her day.

The bougainvillea plants are another G-Team project which focuses on bringing color and “freshness” to the dry areas in South Colton. As time permits, Norma helps maintain the plants by bringing in containers of water 1-2 times per week. The project now has 20 plants between the railroad track and Hert Street, and is starting to show nice color to those traveling along So. La Cadena.

Norma has three children, two which have graduated from Colton Joint Unified District, and one younger son who is attending Grimes Elementary School. “I like to support my kids and be a good example,” reflected Norma when asked about her school involvement. Over the years, Norma has communicated regularly with the teachers, and has volunteered to help in the classroom. In addition, she has helped with ROTC, girls basketball, and has served on ELAC and School Site Council. The coming year, she will assist with the Cub Scouts, a group which her son has shown interest in joining.

Another community interest for Norma is to get information out to residents, especially for the Spanish-speaking. For that reason, she created and administers the “Comunidad de Colton” page on Facebook. Through that media platform, Norma informs the residents of school activities, community events and local news. After her first year, she has 216 followers.

The CITY TALK “Community Impact Award” was established in 2020 to recognize the great efforts that people make “behind the scenes” to make our community, the City of Colton, a better place. Norma Gallardo is an excellent choice for this recognition, and truly represents the very best, in terms of meeting the intent of this award. Congratulations to Norma Gallardo on the “Community Impact Award.”

For more information about CITY TALK, various community groups, Colton history, the trash clean-up project, prayer list, Veteran spotlight, Church Spotlight, Business spotlight, U.S. Flag Watch, neighborhood meetings, community projects, or the online live-stream programs, contact Dr. G @ 909-213-3730. Questions and comments are always welcome.