Coffee fanatics from around the Bay Area have been requesting Richmond’s Catahoula Coffee since the shop’s opening in 2008. The clientele remains loyal, but owner “Timber” Manhart has begun to feel the strain of rising coffee bean prices while running a small business in Richmond’s North & East neighborhood.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, Monday night passersby on Macdonald Avenue peer in curiously at a whirl of dance. Fingers snap. Feet slide. Hands swoosh a horsehair prop through the air, slapping the knees at intervals. The bright pastels of Victoria Secret sweatpants flash across the room in a blur of pink, yellow and turquoise. The dancers chant a call and response in a West African language: “Wadapo!” Drums pound in a…
At 19 years old, Lela Turner found herself homeless, jobless and struggling. Two years earlier, the San Leandro High School graduate had tried working part-time at McDonald’s and attending Chabot Community College in Hayward. But an unstable family life and unforeseen expenses soon put Turner out on the street with no place to go — until her caseworker told her about RichmondBUILD. The RichmondBUILD Pre-apprenticeship Construction Skills and Green Jobs Training Academy allows Richmond residents to obtain skills like solar…
When Fremont-based solar power company Solyndra LLC filed bankruptcy last week, “green job” supporters in Richmond shrugged their shoulders in indifference.