Come visit the Jewelry, Gem and Mineral Show!

Provided.

Raffle prizes.

Come on by the Tehachapi Valley Gem and Mineral Society's Jewelry, Gem and Mineral Show at the Tehachapi SENIOR CENTER on Aug. 17 and 18.

As usual the show has lots to see and do for all ages. Vendors will be showing and selling beautiful showcase minerals, fossils, polished rocks, beads and handcrafted jewelry. This might be just the place to pick up a unique Christmas or birthday gift for that "hard to shop for" friend or relative. Bring the kids, they love the popular spinning wheel with many unique prizes, such as fossilized shark's teeth and ammonites, beautiful minerals and polished rocks.

If you haven't purchased your raffle ticket for this year's raffle, the show will be your final opportunity to do so. This year we have three terrific prizes: a large heart shaped Amethyst with beautiful purple crystals, a lovely translucent green Jade bowl and a Zeolite crystal from India. The winning raffle tickets will be drawn on Sunday, Aug. 18 (you need not be present to win). Remember, our raffle helps fund our educational programs.

We are proud of our contributions to education and as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit entity our raffle, rock auctions and spin wheel proceeds go to educating our members, the public and area schools. We have monthly field trips to various rockhounding locations or museums and maintain a fully functional workshop to cut and polish our field trip finds. We generally have workshop work days twice a week and have recently started to offer twice monthly classes on a variety of lapidary and jewelry-making techniques. Our monthly meetings often have guest speakers who educate us on anything from rocks and minerals to meteorites and reptiles.

Each year we provide multiple scholarships to deserving high school students from the Greater Tehachapi area and donate rock and mineral teaching kits to elementary and middle school classrooms. Upon request we send knowledgeable members with fabulous displays of rocks and fossils to give lectures and demonstrations to students and various community groups. Not only do we have a lot of fun, we take our mission to educate seriously.

If all this sounds like something you would like to be involved in, join TVGMS for its regular meetings the fourth Thursday of each month at Tehachapi SENIOR CENTER at 7 p.m. Come out, dig some rocks and get involved!

Be sure to include a visit to the Jewelry, Gem and Mineral Show during this year's Mountain Festival on Aug. 17 and 18 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Tehachapi SENIOR CENTER, 500 E. F St. in Downtown Tehachapi. Come chat about rocks with our members – we'd love to visit with you. Bring the kids – rockhounds are just overgrown kids that haven't outgrown their love of finding a cool rock!

Hope to see you there!