Health
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.
As health organizers around the globe assess the illness during the week of World AIDS Day, local officials say funding cuts and young people’s attitudes are contributing to new infections and the comparatively higher rates of HIV/AIDS among black teens and women.
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 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.
Out of the Closet, a chain of second-hand stores, marked Tuesday’s World AIDS day by offering on-the-spot HIV tests at all its locations, including the five Bay Area shops. “In a clinic setting, people are nervous,” one of the test counselors said in Oakland. “This is more casual–it’s kind of better for the community.”
“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.
Acupuncturists, Ayurvedic specialists, and massage therapists are responding to the growing demand in the Bay Area for alternative health care right in Oakland’s center of Western medicine—“Pill Hill.”
Drop in donations this year is leaving Children’s Hospital with few gifts to give away.
On Monday night people came out from around the East Bay to attend the Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA) event at the David Brower Center in Berkeley. The event showcased Oakland organizations like Planting Justice, Communitree, Art in Action, People’s Grocery, Something for your Soul catering service, Healthy Hoodz, and Ital Pinay Jewelry. Each addressed the importance of sustainable agriculture and featured the creative ways they are implementing it in their urban communities . “We’re trying to create health and wellness…