Community
An eclectic group gathered last Thursday at the Oakland Cultural Center to view the Oakland premier screening of the work in progress, THE TRUST: Reclaiming Community In the Heart of the Prison Crisis. Produced and directed by yoga teacher Tamara Perkins, the film puts faces on the incarcerated and brings light to the issues they confront.
Bud Cropsey is an institution on the Oakland music scene—a longtime middle school and private music teacher, as well as a patron of the Oakland East Bay Symphony. This week, shortly after Cropsey’s 99th birthday, the symphony is honoring Cropsey with a three-day series of concerts geared at helping children learn about classical music. Read the story of Cropsey’s musical life, and hear more from this week’s concert series.
In an effort to increase its drooping ridership, BART has declared this week “Try BART Week.” All week, the transit district will be giving away free prizes including BART passes, airline tickets, and ice cream parties to a few lucky BART customers. Over the course of the week, BART will be awarding 1,300 prizes, collectively worth over $60,000
For more than two decades, the automotive attractions nicknamed “sideshows” have been a dangerous and illegal ritual in Oakland, claiming many lives along the way. Often referred to a “block party on wheels,” sideshows are impromptu tire screeching, doughnut-spinning, traffic-blocking congresses of cars surrounded by a crowd of people cheering on drivers as they execute dangerous twists and turns.
On Monday night, the Oakland Police and leadership-training group Youth Uprising celebrated the city’s first “sideshow-free” summer in 20 years with a reception that highlighted the dangers of the Oakland-born tradition.
Oakland North is adding a new feature to our site. Every Tuesday, Oakland Animal Services will be spotlighting an “Animal of the Week” that’s up for adoption at their facility. This week it’s Star the bunny.
In June, Oakland’s last two adult schools—out of five the city once supported—closed their doors. And at the start of this school year, the district announced it would no longer offer English as a Second Language (ESL) classes to adults.
Piedmont Avenue Elementary has garnered attention as an up-and-coming school in the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). This year, Piedmont was one of 12 OUSD schools that raised their Academic Performance Index (API) by more than 50 points. That’s twice the average increase for the district.
Oakland has become a popular destination for the estimated 20,000 Ethiopian and Eritreans living in the Bay Area, according to the Ethiopian Community Center in Oakland. The East Africans have been steadily migrating to the Bay Area since the late 1980s and early 1990s, seeking refuge from the brutal military dictatorship of then Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile Mariam. But now, the community is flocking to the area on a more positive note. Drawn to the city for its temperate climate, reminiscent of East Africa, and its food-centric culture, many Ethiopian and Eritrians have settled in North Oakland—bringing the flavor and color of their customs and cuisine with them.
For East Bay residents who don’t already ride BART, today may be the day to start. In a bid to win back the riders it has lost during the slumping economy of the last several years, BART has declared this week “Try BART Week,” and is offering a wide array of valuable prizes to lure riders to their trains—starting right here in Oakland.