Health
Starting this week, Whole Foods shoppers in Oakland can pick up nutrition and fitness tips to go with their groceries. The natural food retailer has just launched the Wellness Club—a program that offers classes, workshops, lectures and a 10 percent discount on food products that the program deems whole, unprocessed and healthy. Oakland’s Lake Merritt store is the only Whole Foods location on the West Coast to host the pilot program, which will operate in five sites throughout the country. The Dedham, Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois programs began earlier this summer while the New York City and Princeton, New Jersey pilots are set to launch this fall.
About 600 people marched from Allen Temple Baptist Church in East Oakland to City Hall to protest crime and violence in Oakland on Saturday. Soldiers Against Violence Everywhere, a community and church coalition, organized the march and rally as a response to the 75 homicides reported in the city from January to August, 2011.
Oakland Tech senior Luc Dark-Fleury is expected to be one of the top defensive players in the Oakland Athletic League this season. Last season, though, he suffered his second concussion, producing fear that hits on the field could have lasting effects.
A comedic troupe of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus clowns made the rounds through the fifth floor of Oakland Children’s Hospital yesterday, waddling room-to-room, clad in big floppy shoes, and bright red noses and oversized apparel presenting each child with a special bead, and an unorthodox prescription: smile.
This September, in an effort to encourage public engagement in the fight against hunger, Alameda County’s Community Food Bank is working with 200 food banks nationwide to promote “Hunger Action Month.”
Oakland resident Kendra Poma said she noticed food swaps—local barering meetups for gardeners and cooks—sprouting up all over the country. “I couldn’t find one happening in Oakland,” she said. So she started one.
Last week, the Hyundai Motor Company presented Children’s Hospital & Research Center Oakland with a $100,000 grant to support the Children’s Oncology School Reintegration Program, which helps pediatric cancer survivors return to school following treatment.
Touted by locals as the center of the medical marijuana industry, Oakland seems a fitting host for the nation’s first marijuana outdoor street festival: the two-day International Cannabis and Hemp Expo, which opened its doors Saturday.
Thousands of Bay Area commuters will forego their solo morning drive in September and October after the 2011 Great Race for Clean Air kicks off this Thursday. For the next two months, employees will be encouraged to use bicycles, take public transit and carpool to get to work.