Community
Mike Hannigan and Sean Marx of Give Something Back have come a long way from selling office supplies from Hannigan’s living room office. In 1991, the two started a business-to-business office supply company with an out-of-pocket $40,000 investment that had a different mission in mind
Keith Salminen is passionate about his favorite team, the Oakland A’s. He’s the host of an Internet radio talk show called “A’s Fan Radio,” has been going to games since he was 2 years old, and says he regularly goes to 50 or 60 games a year. (The exception was the four years when he was in the Marines, stationed at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, when he only made it to handful of road games.) Last weekend, Salminen had the finishing touches put on his arm tattoo: the A’s logo with the Oaklandish tree behind it.
“Basically, for the last decade I’ve been planning on getting an A’s tattoo because of avid of an A’s fan I am,” Salminen said. He’s such a big fan, he recently became part of a group of committed fans who are working to keep Oakland’s three professional sports teams—the A’s of Major League Baseball, the NFL’s Oakland Raiders and the NBA’s Golden State Warriors—from leaving town.
Oakland North is continuing with our feature. Every Tuesday, Oakland Animal Services will spotlight an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s Oliver.
Frank Garcia can’t help but start laughing. He’s standing in the middle of the Bushrod Recreation Center gym on a Thursday night, wearing gym shorts and holding a small, red plastic ball that looks like a miniature version of the ones found in schoolyards from coast to coast. Two of his high school buddies are standing next to him, and they’re cracking jokes of the ball-pun variety at each other’s expense. All around the gym, these plastic balls are whizzing by, as dozens of people warm up for a night of dodgeball.
Occupy Oakland protesters marked Occupy’s six-month anniversary on Saturday by hosting the first of what organizers intend to be a series of weekly neighborhood barbeques.
After a dry winter, Oakland and the greater Bay Area are experiencing a surge of rain. Today, reporter Lexi Pandell walks you through Rockridge, Montclair and Lakeshore with a special look at how residents deal with the wet weather as part of our continuing series of Oakland street photography.
On Saturday, 44-year-old Irma Lira will walk onto a stage at Children’s Hospital Oakland, sit in a barber’s chair, and have her head shaved. Cheers will ring out as her thick black tresses, and her full, curled set of bangs, fall to the floor. A hat for donations will pass through the lively crowd, and people will eagerly fill it with money. And Lira won’t be alone—about 200 people will be shorn clean to benefit childhood cancer research through an organization called St. Baldrick’s.
Today, Oakland North reporter Adam Grossberg continues our weekly street photography series and takes us to one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods, Temescal.
The first ever Golden Gate Goaltimate Games brought teams from all over the West Coast to compete in this unique adaptation of ultimate frisbee, including Oakland’s own Team Try Hard.