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For less than a quarter of a tank of gas and 25 minutes of driving, Anthony Chabot Regional Park and campground is an easy, mini getaway from most anywhere in Oakland.
Oakland mayor Jean Quan announced on Thursday morning that as an effort to reduce crimes that involve Oakland students, a group of organizations will open their doors to kids until midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.
Local agencies that serve Oakland’s low-income residents joined community members at Saturday’s 6th Annual Walk to End Poverty, which is designed to draw national attention to the issue of poverty. The day was hosted by the Oakland Community Action Partnership and United Way of the Bay Area, which reports that one in five families in the Bay Area are living in poverty. That number includes 76,000 Oakland residents who are struggling to make ends meet.
The Prescott Circus Theatre started in 1984 in a second grade classroom at Prescott Elementary in West Oakland. The program has now spread to six other Oakland schools, including Piedmont Avenue Elementary in North Oakland. Kids in the program perform regularly in Oakland and the greater Bay Area. Now they are running low on funds and looking for local business sponsors to keep the juggling bats flying and the unicycles rolling.
Manifesto’s Bike Church isn’t your typical Sunday morning of sitting inside a stained-glass structure, listening to scripture and quietly reciting prayers. But there are some similarities. People with similar beliefs do congregate, listen to music and socialize — however, they’re surrounded by bicycles.
Taking the podium at Oakland City Hall during the Bike-to-Work Day celebration on Thursday morning, city councilmember Libby Schaaf of District 4 started a chant. “When I say ‘bike,’ you say ‘Oakland,’” say announced. “Bike!” she yelled. “Oakland!” the crowd chanted back. It was Oakland’s 18th annual Bike-to-Work Day and record numbers of people hopped on their bikes and commuted to work.
Since the 1930s, Oaklanders have been flocking to Temescal Regional Park for swimming, fishing, picnicking and to simply take in the great outdoors.
More than 100 Oakland residents—mostly parents, teachers and students from Claremont Middle School and Oakland Technical High School—will ride their bikes to Sacramento on Saturday to raise money for their schools and protest state cuts to education funding.
Some people coming out of the Rockridge BART station stop and observe; some just shake their heads and continue walking. The scene before them is not what one would expect on a sunny Thursday evening—it seems as if a window to the Middle Ages has been opened in the parking lot next to the BART station.