Community
Books weren’t the only things flying off the tables at the Temescal branch of the Oakland library on Saturday. In the backyard, boxes full of succulent plums gleamed in the sunshine at the library’s North Oakland crop swap. Gardeners bring their excess yield and set them on the table for others to take. While there, they are free to choose from items on the table that their fellow gardeners have brought to share. Meanwhile, Moms in the basement were giving and getting new ensembles for their kiddos.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every week, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s a dog named Betty Boop.
Each year the Oakland Heritage Alliance selects a variety of neighborhoods to visit when it offers its summer walking tours through the city. This year visitors will have the opportunity to visit 16 areas over eight weekends on tours such as the Mountain View Cemetery, Montclair Village and Oakland Walkways and Streetcar Heritage tours. Each trip is led by volunteers for the alliance, who include local history buffs, residents of the neighborhoods, as well as professors and business professionals familiar with the area.
From Cuban exiles to Bay Area salsa fanatics clad in nostalgic Cuban revolutionary gear and chomping the occasional cigar, Oakland’s Splash Pad Park was a crucible of various cultures Sunday as San Francisco-based Cuban salsa outfit, Team Bahia, performed some of its best tracks for a crowd of more than 300 dancers.
Over one hundred people gathered at Splash Pad Park on Sunday for a “Celebration and Convergence for Public Education” concert and rally hosted by the supporters of the Lakeview sit-in and People’s School for Public Education. The park became a home for the People’s School after the volunteer-run program, and the tent city it served, were raided at Lakeview Elementary School in early July.
On Friday, over 60 Havenscourt neighborhood residents gathered at Carter Gilmore Park in East Oakland to attend “Friday Summer Nights at the Park,” a weekly series of family-friendly fun nights hosted by Messengers 4 Change, a coalition of Oakland organizations and residents working together to decrease violence. At the same time, a similar party was happening further east at Willie Wilkins Park in the Elmhurst neighborhood. The goal of these Friday night events is to decrease street violence by turning strangers into neighbors.
On Thursday, the Oakland Superheroes Mural Project, an initiative by the Oakland-based nonprofit Attitudinal Healing Connection (AHC) to revitalize and add beauty to some of the city’s blighted areas, launched the first in a series of six planned street murals under the bridge on San Pablo Avenue and 35th Street.
On Thursday Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch and San Francisco 49ers quarterback Josh Johnson gave a $500 scholarship to Oakland gunshot victim Gerald Williams, a former Castlemont High School student who will be studying business management at San Diego State University this fall. Nearly 200 people attended the ceremony held to recognize Williams’ achievement of what organizers said was a milestone in his academic career, which had been disrupted by the shooting incident. The award ceremony was held during…
Genevieve Brazelton, co-founder of 200 Yards, wants photographers to take a closer look at North Oakland. The premise of the project is simple: Draw a 200-yard radius around an alternative gallery or other landmark and invite photographers to cover that area with a hyperlocal focus and submit their work. The cream of the crop from the show’s Oakland version, which has the majestic oak tree as the center of its radius, will be displayed in a show at Oakland City Hall during the Art & Soul festival.