Community
If you could turn a slab of cement and portable classrooms into a vibrant neighborhood park, what would it include? Last night at a community meeting in the Oakland International High School library, a group of approximately 25 North Oaklanders took part brainstorming what a new park could look like in their Temescal neighborhood.
The lunchroom at Hoover Elementary School has a long metal counter built into the wall between the lunchroom and the kitchen. There’s an industrial-looking sliding metal door that can be opened for serving food directly from the kitchen, but this serving arrangement is no longer used. In terms of food preparation devices, the kitchen now boasts only a refrigerator and an “oven” that is not equipped to do anything old-fashioned, like bake; it only reheats trays of already-cooked meals. Despite the fact that there is no cooking at Hoover, there are still 325 mouths to feed at breakfast and lunch every day.
Gangs are a complicated reality in Oakland, a city haunted by violence and the negative reputation that comes with it. But this fall, the nationwide broadcast of “Gang Wars: Oakland” added a new layer of complexity to many viewers’ already complicated feelings about what that violence means and how outsiders perceive it.
The Hooligans MC Christmas Toy Run had their 5th annual toy drive this afternoon in a parking lot on 51st Street and Telelgraph Avenue. The motorcycle group from Modesto comes to Oakland every year for the day to collect gifts and cash donations to make sure every patient at Children’s Hospital in Oakland has a gift for the holidays. In addition to the main event of the day—collecting toys—there was a well-attended barbecue and motorcycle enthusiasts from all over California…
The Golden Gate Boys Choir and Bell Ringers and the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir performed last night at Oakland City Center. Check this slideshow–and the 600 ornaments on the lit-up tree.
The Oakland Raiders and Mrs. Fields Cookies helped the Oakland Children’s Hospital celebrate its 50-year anniversary Tuesday morning. Raiders players paid a visit to the hospital’s atrium, where patients and staff were treated to cookies and snuggly, eye-patch-wearing teddy bears.
“Hi, my name is Becky and I am going to die,” I said as we went round the circle. We were at a three-day workshop run by Chris Zydel and Sharon Pavelda called a “death rehearsal,” a therapeutic workshop designed to help people envision and accept the eventuality of their own deaths.
Full-bellied, bleary-eyed, and shaking the last vestiges of their turkey-induced tryptophan hangovers, shopoholics and bargain-hunters nationwide kicked off the holiday spending season, lining up before dawn the morning after Thanksgiving to raid their favorite stores on Black Friday. But while consumers flocked to big-box stores across the Bay Area, local North Oakland retailers reported a much quieter beginning to the year’s shopping season.
Wednesday morning, 9 a.m. No appointments. No press releases. No plan. Just 17 reporters, each with one hour alone with one corner of the city.