Photography

Bay Area artist runs unique business inspired by her grandmother

Among the many unorthodox tools Cara Corey has used to make her handmade artist line unique are knitting needles made out of PVC pipe and merino wool fiber (the material before wool becomes “wool”) shipped from the Ukraine. Corey moved to Richmond, California, in 2010 after spending over four years as a newspaper reporter in Des Moines, Iowa. She had written a wide variety of stories about people who owned their own businesses, and at one point, she had her own…

Agents of Change: Scenes of a city in motion

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.

After hard times, restaurant owner warms hearts in Richmond with love

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.

Creating a stronger community through bicycling

When you walk into Rich City Rides you’re immediately met with the sweet smell of bicycle oil and the satisfying click-click-click of shifting gears. Najari Smith, the owner and founder of the nonprofit group that owns the shop, is working in the back along with mechanics Taye Roshni McGee and Rafael Fernandez.