Orange County Register

Tom Patty was looking for the perfect gift for his wife Susan’s 60th birthday. He found it sitting in one of the marketing

From "Susan's Garden"

classes he teaches for SCORE, the volunteer small-business counseling group.

Tom is retired president of Chiat/Day Advertising and active SCORE counselor. He says he’s taught or counseled a thousand O.C. business owners in the past year.

One of these business owners was Jane Shafron, partners with her husband Peter in Your Story Here LLC in  Mission Viejo.

The firm specializes in personal history video documentaries “honoring people who may not be celebrities to anyone but their families and friends,” Jane explains.

That’s the perfect gift, Tom decided, so he hired Your Story Here to produce “Susan’s Garden.”

Here’s a snippet from the 45-minute video:

The intro on that video was provided by Paul James, host of Gardening by the Yard, on the Home and Garden Network, which Susan loves to watch.

“My wife wants a large garden in the northwest,” Tom explains. “In truth, the whole world is Susan’s garden. She cares for a large circle of friends and family just as she would care for her garden. I wanted someone to help me turn that concept into a gift.”

The video biographies range in price. Susan’s Garden cost $7,000.

The Shafrons are attorneys from Australia and came up with the idea for Your Story Here after attending the funeral for Peter’s mother.

“We put together a photo montage, but we thought what a shame not to capture her on video while she was still alive,” Jane says.

The couple have produced 60 “videobiogs,” as they call them and even won “Best Short Documentary” at the Lake Arrowhead Film Festival for “Growing Up Mischling.”

Click here to read Jane’s blog.

But back to Tom Patty’s gift. What was Susan’s reaction?

“It’s one of the sweetest things he has ever done” she says.

As the credit card commercial says, Priceless.

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