Community
Oakland North is continuing with our new 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 Savannah the dog.
The average Christmas tree can be brought home in the back of the family station wagon, with the top of the tree hanging out the back window. Oakland’s Christmas tree was a bit too big for that. A Peterbilt truck hauled the 55-foot, 8,000-pound red fir from to Oakland Shasta County in a 50-foot trailer—with the top of the tree hanging out the back.
For the founders of Oakland’s Pop-Up General Store—Chris Lee and fellow chef Samin Nosrat—food is, indeed, a labor of love. Since early 2009, the former Chez Panisse and Eccolo chefs have been selling gourmet goods out of Grace Street Catering in North Oakland. Once a month, Lee, Nosrat and a team of helpers prepare homemade delicacies and, along with a host of other specialty food vendors, set up for an afternoon and sell them to an ever-expanding group of Oakland and Berkeley foodies. Patrons can order beforehand online or buy up whatever is left on the spot.
Cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie – Thanksgiving calls to mind a literal cornucopia of foods. But the pièce de résistance of a traditional Thanksgiving meal won’t be found among the side dishes. There’s a reason they call it Turkey Day.
After cancelling a public speech initially planned for Wednesday, Oakland mayor Ron Dellums presented his final State of the City address as a 68-page written document and a video posted on his official website.
November, for a number of Americans, brings Thanksgiving and the kickoff of the Christmas holiday season. But for the descents of the country’s first peoples, it also brings an entire month of heritage celebrations.
The San Francisco Goaldiggers, a recreational league hockey team that plays at Oakland Ice Center, is out to win games, as well as change minds. Otvos says his hope was always to simply show that the sport of hockey is for everyone, regardless of race, gender or sexual orientation.
Four three-foot high barrels resembling oversized soup cans sit at Spice Monkey Café and Restaurant in downtown Oakland. Each is emblazoned with photos of smiling children and has “Donate Food Here!” stamped across the black and red label. One barrel is filled with nonperishable canned goodies. Another is half full. And two are completely empty.
Experience Corps, a national service program for adults 55 years and older, has enlisted Bay Area seniors—known as corps members—to tutor and mentor children in Oakland’s public schools since 2003.
Nationally, the program reaches roughly 20,000 students in 20 urban communities including New York, Boston and Philadelphia. Oakland’s corps is operated in seven elementary schools and includes roughly 50 corps members, many of whom are retired.