Rancho Higuera – Mission San Jose & Niles Rotary Clubs Fencing Project
In the Fall of 2017, Mission San Jose Rotary along with Niles Rotary have taken on the project of building a fence to protect the Adobe building located on Rancho Higuera Road in the Mission District of Fremont. This Adobe building has a rich history of early settlers of Fremont and some connections to many of our members that hail from the Azores. This longer term project was comprised of a series of work days where smaller groups helped flag the fence lines, dig post holes (with professional machinery), set the fence posts and finally place the hog wire fencing around the building.
This was needed because the City of Fremont will allow grazing nearby to reduce the fire hazard risk associated with the grasses in this area. The City of Fremont has agreed to fund the cost of the materials in supporting our Rotary Clubs in protecting this precious historical gem.
Work Dates:
August, 2017 – Measure & Stake Fence Line (Completed)
September 9, 2017 – Post Hole Digging (Completed)
While we had a post hole digger at the location, about 50% of the holes needed to be hand drilled to break through the hard caked clay based soil at Rancho Higuera.
The holes needed to be 24 inches deep to make the posts secure. Here we can see Rich Godfrey using his favorite new toy on September 9th. Paul Andrus & Rich took turns putting their weight into it to get the holes going.
Hard Work & Sweat Video of Richard Godfrey Here
Larry Anderson, Rotarian Lead from the Mission San Jose Rotary Club of Fremont, did a great job and was a trooper working from before 7:30am until 12 noon in the hot summer heat on all the work days at this site. Many Niles Rotarians got involved and by the end of the project Niles Rotarians had put in a cumulative 99 hours worth of hard work.
September 23, 2017 – Fence Post Setting with Cement – This was a hot & heavy work day. Below you can see Padma Magadala hard at work. We don’t go light on our new members and she jumped right in. Big thank you Padma for being so excited to get involved!
Careful, she walks softly but carries a big stick! Featuring New Member Padma
Below is a picture of Paul Iannaccone working with Padma in getting the posts placed, aligned and cemented. We were the fastest working team on the site that day! Go P3 (Padma the two Pauls).
October 7, 2017 8am – Installed Hog Wire Fencing
October 21, 2017 8am – Finished Installing Barbwire, Fence Post Topping and the final gates.
Here you can see the crew from the last day of work – a couple of them escaped before the photo – Thank you Niles & Mission San Jose Rotarians!
This was a historically meaningful project, thank you for coming to support. This project was open to inviting non-Rotarians, friends, family, high school students seeking volunteer hours and other community leaders. Please reach out to us to learn more about other community projects we have coming up in the future.
Project Chairs – Larry Anderson – Mission San Jose & Paul Andrus – Niles Rotary
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