It wasn’t too long ago that Thousand Palms was a sleepy village on the north side of the freeway and Ramon Road. Then came the fast food restaurants, new residential developments, a community center, a burgeoning industrial park, a brand new home for runaway and “throwaway” kids, the Coachella Valley’s state-of-the-art Animal Campus, and a brand new “Art Samson Memorial Library.” The near future holds the promise of a new fire station combined with a College of the Desert fire training facility, plus a major renovation of Varner Road and Monterey Avenue. Thousand Palms, with a population of about 5,500, is no longer a sleepy village, but a vibrant community with many new young families.