Business
The First Friday art crowd packed the room, backing all the way up the stairs. This wasn’t a conventional event for one of Oakland’s downtown art walks. It was a youth fashion show, featuring local kids trained by Mario Benton, a San Francisco native who moved to East Oakland 16 years ago. “From childhood I wanted to be a fashion producer and have models,” Benton said. “That’s my first love.”
Last week, the Hyundai Motor Company presented Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland with a $100,000 grant to support the Children’s Oncology School Reintegration Program, which helps pediatric cancer survivors return to school following treatment.
Touted by locals as the center of the medical marijuana industry, Oakland seems a fitting host for the nation’s first marijuana outdoor street festival: the two-day International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, which opened its doors Saturday.
At Spokeland, anyone can learn how to fix their ride, with bike tutorial workshops designed for everyone from kids and families to women and transgendered people.
The International Maritime Center (IMC), which has been at the Port of Oakland in some form since 1964, provides a variety of services for seafarers while they are in port, such as shuttling them to local shopping centers, selling them discounted phone cards, or helping wire money home—anything to make their lives easier.
Thousands of Bay Area commuters will forego their solo morning drive in September and October after the 2011 Great Race for Clean Air kicks off this Thursday. For the next two months, employees will be encouraged to use bicycles, take public transit and carpool to get to work.
To give students more time to obtain a Clipper Youth card before the school semester is in full swing, the AC Transit Office in downtown Oakland will offer special evening hours Wednesday, closing at 8 pm instead of 5 pm.
Clars Auction Gallery on Telegraph Avenue will auction off some of Amelia Earhart’s possessions, including rare photos and a pair of goggles she wore when she was learning to fly.
If the phrase “gourmet cheese store” conjures up an image of the food elite batting around unpronounceable words in a stodgy storefront, check out Temescal’s Sacred Wheel. The shop, which opened in January on a quiet corner at 49th and Shattuck, offers mostly local cheeses in a hip atmosphere.