Development

At a mulching party, East Bay residents learn how to convert lawns to gardens

On a warm Saturday morning, people began to slowly stroll into the Memorial Tabernacle Church in Oakland’s Bushrod neighborhood. They were gathered not for a morning service, but for a special kind of lawn party. Trail mix, cookies, apples, and fresh-cut pieces of banana were laid out in colorful bowls on a table, but nothing smelled more fresh than the two 4-foot piles of compost and wood mulch laid out on the road in front of the church. StopWaste, a public…

Portraits of East Bay activists: Alana Banks

It is the first day back since spring break. Alana Banks still has her tan from Barbados. She walks onto UC Berkeley’s campus behind Sproul Hall to the Fannie Lou Hamer Center, a small tin building named after the voting rights activist. If you weren’t familiar with the place, it would be easy to miss, as it is hidden behind the English department and to the far left of the art studio. Banks, who is from Oakland, is one of the co-founders of the center, which opened in February. It is the first space set aside as resource center for black students on UC Berkeley’s campus.

Long waiting list for Head Start, despite new federal grant

Day after day, Criselda Feria waits for a phone call that will give her good news. Her name is stuck on a waiting list that will give her a slot for federally-subsidized child care. Feria’s 18-month-old son is one of the 2,074 children still on the Contra Costa County’s waiting list to receive Early Head Start child care.