Mid-Valley briefs in Monday's paper:

Yuba City

Seminar to cover at-risk children

“Identifying signs of at-risk grandchildren” is the topic of an information workshop in Yuba City for grandparents raising or helping raise their grandchildren.

The free workshop is scheduled at 10:30 a.m. Thursday at the Yuba City Senior Center, 777 Ainsley Ave.

How to recognize signs of drug and alcohol abuse, gang involvement and other troublesome activity will be discussed. Experts will be available to answer questions.

For more information, call 822-4608.

Smartville

$2,096 raised for SoCal fire victims

Local residents contributed $2,096 for victims of the recent Southern California wildfires in a one-day “fill the fireman’s hat” fundraiser sponsored by the Smartville Fire Protection District.

The department’s firefighters collected the donations Oct. 27 in front of the Wal-Mart store in Linda. The effort was made in conjunction with the Yuba-City based Three Rivers Chapter of the American Red Cross.

Tens of thousands of families were displaced by the fires that destroyed at least 2,000 homes in several counties of Southern California over the last two weeks.

Yuba City

‘Crop disasters’ topic of meeting

“Three crop disasters in the last four years - where do we go from here?” will be addressed in a meeting Thursday sponsored by the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Hosted by Franz Niederholzer, UC Cooperative Extension farm adviser, the meeting will start at 10 a.m., with lunch served at noon, at the Veterans Hall, 1425 Veterans Memorial Circle, Yuba City.

Lunch is free with reservations received by 5 p.m. today and $14 per person thereafter. For reservations, call 822-7515.

The meeting is co-sponsored by Sunsweet Dryers Inc.

Yuba City

LDS will offer Nativity exhibit

More than 600 nativity scenes from around the world will be featured in the ninth annual Crèche Exhibit presented in Yuba City by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Hours for the four-day exhibit are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Nov. 29 and 30 and Dec. 1, and 4 to 7 p.m. Dec. 2 at the church’s Yuba City Stake, 1470 Butte House Road.

Community members are invited to loan their Nativity scenes to display. To do so, call Judy Pringle at 742-6461 or 301-7717 by Nov. 19.

In addition, the exhibit will include live Christmas music at 7 p.m. each day.

Admission is free, with the exhibit as the church’s gift to the community during the holiday season.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is also hosting a Christmas devotional broadcast at 7 p.m. Dec. 2 from Salt Lake City, Utah.