community
James Anderson has a habit of peeking out of his house, day or night, constantly checking on his unofficial front yard. From his front door or upstairs window, he can scan the half-acre park known as Elm Playlot, just to make sure there’s no trouble. He grew up in the Iron Triangle, a notoriously high-crime neighborhood in central Richmond named for the train tracks that create its distinctive borders. More than year ago Anderson started working at Elm Playlot, located…
Larnel Wolfe was released from prison six months ago after a 12-year sentence for a robbery. The former San Quentin inmate is now a Live Free Fellow at Richmond’s Safe Return Project.
Old opinions about Richmond often seem set in stone, but at least some of the worst may be on the way out.
That’s what we tried to document in “Agents of Change,” a series of photographs and feature stories by Richmond Confidential’s Brittany Kirstin, a photojournalism student at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Our plan was simple: Richmond Confidential student journalists would pick a spot and observe, just watch and take notes, for the same hour, recording everything seen, heard, smelled.
Menbere Aklilu has come a long way. From a struggling single mother, she is now a restaurant owner in Richmond, after moving from her native Ethiopia and a time in Italy.
Aklilu hosts an annual Thanksgiving dinner at her restaurant, Salute E Vita, where she just served a sit-down dinner for more than a thousand Bay Area homeless people. She has also begun holding a four-course Mother’s Day brunch for young single mothers. She helps Richmond and Oakland students pay school tuition.
UC Berkeley and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are planning the new Berkeley Global Campus at Richmond Bay. The committee wants the university to sign a legally binding agreement aiding those such as disadvantaged workers, emancipated foster youth, homeless people and individuals with criminal records, and requesting the university pay a fee to the city, to improve affordable housing and displacement issues, among other suggestions.
About 60 senior citizens attended this year’s Richmond Annex Senior Center’s Thanksgiving lunch. Richmond Fire Department fire fighters helped serve the food, prepared by students of Contra Costa College’s Culinary Arts Department.
Advocates for veterans held a resource fair Wednesday in Richmond, arguing that the men and women who served their country sometimes aren’t being given the services they need to resume civilian life.
Malcolm Marshall, managing editor at the Pulse, has been recognized this year by the Northern California Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). Malcolm will be presented the group’s Silver Heart award tonight, an award that honors a “journalist whose career reflects an extraordinary dedication to giving voice to the voiceless”.