Community
In one of her last organizing projects as mayor of Oakland, Jean Quan announced last week a new effort to stop the sexual exploitation of children along a stretch of East Oakland. The city began putting more police officers on the streets late last month in order to discourage pimps, as well as adult males seeking to buy sex, from preying on victims and minors at risk.
Annual program aims to keep shopping dollars in local communities and independent businesses.
Birdland Jazzista Social Club, a long-time Berkeley staple, moves into North Oakland. Its founder sees the opportunity to turn a stretch of Martin Luther King Jr. Way into a music and art district.
Breathmobile provides diagnosis, treatment, prescriptions, medicine supply and education at no cost for children under age 18 in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.
Oakland North takes a look at a unique restaurant in East Oakland, one where the Mexican and Vietnamese cultures come together in the same kitchen.
Local nonprofit works to reduce air pollution and improve people’s lives in rural areas of Darfur by producing a better cooking stove.
PEN Oakland’s 24th annual book awards honored eight writers for their literary excellence. The annual awards ceremony recognizes authors from across the country for their books published during the previous year. In addition to acceptance speeches, authors read excerpts of their work and signed books for fans.
What if people could create more colorful neighborhoods by simply throwing herb and vegetable seed balls on the ground? What if they could rescue the declining bee population using this method? Or what if someone could throw them from a small airplane to sow an entire field of wildflowers? That’s the goal of the “Grow a Rainbow” project developed by Christopher Burley, the “Lead Pollinator” and CEO of Seedles LLC, who has set a goal of growing one million wildflowers….
Sacred Wheel, an unpretentious cheese shop in Temescal, offers a funky menu featuring Pabst Blue Ribbon tomato soup, pickled eggs, and a Sriracha-infused sloppy Joe on what the menu calls “the trashiest bun we could find.” The eclectic menu is mirrored in the décor (a toy dinosaur with a chunk of cheese in its jaws presides over the cheese counter), and the staff (nearly all employees have a caricature of themselves on the wall, and the staff are decorated with…