Community

Many of the 20,000 people from Ethiopia and Eritrea living in the Bay Area call Oakland home. Oakland North is taking a look at the culture and history of the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities in Oakland with “East Africans in Oakland” a series of profiles on everyday people living in the city.

Oakland North is introducing a new guessing game. The eight images above have been carefully shot, giving you just enough information to try to guess where and what this is.

Oakland’s inaugural Veg Week starts this weekend. A number of events geared toward community education about meatless lifestyle choices will be taking place from April 15-21.

The Clipper fleet is on display this weekend as part of the Strictly Sail Pacific Boat Show at Jack London Square, which began Thursday morning. The show has 65 booth exhibitors selling sailing equipment, gear and accessories on both floors of the Market Hall. Outside, about 65 boats are on display and for sale in the marina. “Any part, gear or accessory for your boat, you’ll find here,” said Sail America executive director Jonathan Banks.

Until April 2, when a shooter killed seven and injured three students and staff members at Oikos University, few in Oakland had even heard of the school. Now, reports about the school’s future are mixed. University officials have signaled that they may begin holding classes off-campus, and state officials have raised concerns about Oikos students’ pass rate on a national nursing exam.

Desi W.O.M.E, the founder of the Community Rejuvenation Project, says he wants to “transform the San Pablo corridor” by engaging the local community with a series of murals focused on sustainable practices. His plan is to take a huge wall—tagged with graffiti but otherwise blank—and talk to members of the community about what they’d like to see in a mural, then work out a deal with the owner of the building. Then, he says, local artists will turn the vision into a reality.

The Oakland Food Policy Council is an organization dedicated to developing a local food system that can feed all citizens of the city in a healthy, sustainable way. The 21-seat council, which was established in 2005 with seed money from the city, meets monthly to work on initiatives that address some of Oakland’s most pressing food concerns, like poor nutrition, access to fresh produce and antiquated laws.

If you live in the Bay Area, there’s one question you’ve probably asked at some point: why on earth doesn’t BART run past midnight? Over Presidents’ Day Weekend, it did.

Trayvon Martin was killed more than six weeks ago, and Oakland and Sanford, Florida are nearly 3,000 miles apart. But that didn’t dim the outrage of a group of about 30 people gathered at the intersection of International Boulevard and 71st Avenue in East Oakland on Tuesday afternoon to “demand justice for Trayvon Martin.”

“It’s been six weeks since Trayvon was murdered and Zimmerman is still walking free. What kind of a system is this?” said D’andre Teeter of Berkeley, an organizer for the demonstration. “This is a system that protects this kind of racism.”