Category Archives: community

Sep16

joy doesn’t have to wait.

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this is what this library did on sunday

brilliant

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Out of School Book Fair

for Adults

Are you still chasing the feeling of your school’s annual book fair? Nostalgic for bendy pencils, scented markers, and novelty erasers? Come feel like a kid again at our Out of School Adult Book Fair!

We’ll offer free trinkets and books that bring meld nostalgia with adult interests! We’ll have games and crafts set up for a fun time together!

For adults, 18 and over

Bob Lucas Memorial Library & Literacy Center

Our library serves an ethnically-diverse community of disaster survivors, most of whom lost everything. They are well worth supporting.   –  www.altadenalibrary.org
—
‘joy doesn’t have to wait until the hard stuff is over. 
it can exist in simple, ordinary moments alongside the mess.
joy isn’t a reward for overcoming pain;
it is the practice that helps us get through it.’
-lori deschene
Apr26

‘to affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.’ – henry david thoreau

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Former U.S. President, Barack Obama and New York City Mayor, Zohran Mamdani

sit together to read and sing to children in New York

the room is overflowing with joy.

 

—

‘you can’t lead the people if you don’t love the people, 

you can’t save the people if you don’t serve the people.’

-cornel west

 

 

note: the children guessed that Mamdani’s first name was ‘Mayor’ and did not know who President Obama was. At the end of their visit, the children gave them their hands to help them stand up from their little chairs because they ‘were older.’

 

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image credit: abc NY

–

 

 

 

Apr8

big wheels.

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Hundreds join SF Easter fun with annual Bring Your Own Big Wheel race
Hundreds of people lined Vermont Street in San Francisco on Sunday to celebrate the 24th annual Bring Your Own Big Wheels downhill race event.
At the top of Potrero Hill, people climbed into child-sized plastic tricycles and other small-wheeled vehicles to zoom down the curvy street at the annual San Francisco tradition.

Over 600 people registered online, according to Bring Your Own Big Wheels organizer Frog Gilmore, but many more signed up on the day of the race.

Gilmore said she started riding and volunteering at the event when it was originally held on the city’s twistiest tourist byway, Lombard Street, before neighbors started complaining. Ultimately the event was moved to its current location on Vermont Street, which is actually San Francisco’s most crooked street, with hairpin turns and steep drops.

“It started out as just a handful of people in 2000 and then it picked up gradually,” said Gilmore of the daring urban descent. “When it moved here, more and more people started hearing about it, and it spread like wildfire. More and more people really want to do the fun, cool San Francisco thing.”

The city is synonymous with hills. Locals have become all too familiar with long and exhausting uphill walks when traveling across the city. Easter Sunday’s event, however, showed a glimpse of when people decide to buy into their curiosity and ride down the iconic Potrero Hill. Adults and children alike donned colorful costumes and prepared their wheels by decorating them with balloons, bubble machines, and streamers.

Rider and local artist Misstencil wore a papier-mache horse head attached to a baseball hat on her head. She has lived in San Francisco for over 25 years and continues to find joy in the community that has helped her embrace her artistic side.

“I don’t think anybody in San Francisco has had a proper childhood until they come here,” said Misstencil. “It’s a very steep hill but it’s not as dangerous as it seems. Celebrating with so many people in costumes is really the San Francisco spirit.”

Brandon Dodge started attending the event in 2013 after a friend invited him to experience the city’s culture. He now brings his two sons to share in the tradition that has meant so much to him.

Audible “oohs” and cheers sounded as children and adults rode down the hill. The loudest applause echoed through the crowd of hundreds when people who got knocked over got back onto their wheels and continued riding.

“This is the San Francisco we know– where you get up and go,” said Gilmore.

—
‘a grownup is a child with layers on.’

– emma ward, author

—
source credits: abcnews, Bay City News
Mar16

in the streets.

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A world built for cars has made life much harder for grown-ups, Stephanie H. Murray wrote in 2024. https://theatln.tc/XVjVdlji
In 2009, two mothers in Bristol, England, experimented with closing part of a neighborhood road to traffic for two hours after school. “The experiment also produced some unexpected results,” Murray writes. “As children poured into the street, some ran into classmates, only just then realizing that they were neighbors … That session, and the many more it prompted, also became the means by which adult residents got to know one another.” As the experiment has expanded, “neighborhoods across the country have discovered that allowing kids to play out in the open has helped residents reclaim something they didn’t know they were missing: the ability to connect with the people living closest to them.”
Roads were once areas of community and play. “Only when cars hit the streets in larger numbers did things begin to change,” Murray writes, as “deliberate efforts within the auto industry shifted the blame for traffic deaths to children and their parents.” Streets became a place for children to cross only when cars were absent, and speed limits subsequently rose.
Play streets can now be found sporadically in urban centers. Play streets help bind communities, because adults must work together to enact the logistics of shutting the roads down. But it could also have something to do with the way children’s play alters the feel of the street, giving adults permission to engage in the sort of socializing “we’ve otherwise policed out,” one expert told Murray; kids function, he pointed out, as a sort of “connective tissue for adults.”
“Children’s tendency to violate social boundaries—to stare a little too long, ask someone an overly forward question, or wander into someone else’s yard—can nudge adults to reach across those boundaries too,” Murray continues at the link in our bio. “It probably isn’t a coincidence that playgrounds are one of the few places in America where striking up a conversation with a stranger is considered socially acceptable … By siloing play there, we may have inadvertently undercut children’s capacity to bind us to one another.”
—
:Ben Kothe / The Atlantic. Source: Giuseppe Ramos / Getty
Mar15

food gatherers.

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working with a group of like-minded helpers

we sorted through 1200+ pounds of apples

fresh from a local farm

getting them ready

to donate to our community

‘act as if what you do makes a difference. it does.’

-william james

—

Food Gatherers is the largest anti-hunger program in Washtenaw County, Michigan. We partner with a network of hunger-relief partners that includes agencies and programs providing direct food assistance through schools, clinics, low-income housing complexes, shelters, counseling programs, and faith-based organizations, as well as programs serving seniors, the disabled or those with mental illness, and substance abuse recovery programs. By providing free or very low-cost food to our partners, they can serve their communities and direct their own funds toward the vital human services they provide. 

Food Gatherers’ mission is to alleviate hunger and eliminate its causes in our community. As the food bank and food rescue program serving Washtenaw County, we do this by connecting valuable food resources to programs that serve those in need. In fiscal year 2025, Food Gatherers distributed 10.3 million pounds of food — the equivalent of 8.5 million meals. This is only possible thanks to the support of many volunteers, community partners, and donors.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE ONLINE

More ways to give

  • By phone: Please call Food Gatherers at 734-761-2796. Our hours are Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
  • Start a monthly donation: Join our Full Plate Partner program and provide even more nutritious food to our neighbors. Click here to start your monthly gift.
  • Donate food: Visit our Give Food page for details on our most needed food items and donation guidelines.
  • Host a food and fund drive: Want to engage your community in the fight against hunger? Click here for details on how to host an event to benefit Food Gatherers.

Food Gatherers is effective and efficient — 95% of donations go directly to hunger-relief activities in our community. Food Gatherers does not share donor names publicly without permission. 

Feb24

do what is right.

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a large and passionate crowd turned out in the cold last night 

speakers, chanters, singers, hot cider, flags, signs, hand warmers

even a counter-protester

before the city council met

some community members

spoke at the meeting

the Romulus city council

unanimously approved a resolution

against a planned ICE detention center

in which they outbid an auto supply company

to purchase a vacant building in the city

during the meeting

the mayor  said the city will not issue a permit or a certificate of occupancy

unless mandated by a federal judge to do so

next step is to take it to the state

power of the people.

—

‘the time is always right to do what is right.’

-Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Feb7

simple humanity.

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“human beings must involve themselves in the anguish of other human beings. this, i submit to you, is not a political thesis at all. it is simply an expression of what i would hope might be ultimately a simple humanity for humanity’s sake.”   ~ rod serling

Jan27

lights shining.

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Ann Arbor vigil last night
second one
in a very short time
 people came together 
in the bitter cold
gathering in community
sharing poetry, music, art
sad, angry, defiant, strong
still with lights shining
in remembrance of Alex Pretti, 
VA nurse killed in Minnesota.
—
‘we do not exist for ourselves.’ 
-thomas merton

*Thomas Merton (1915–68) was a renowned American Trappist monk, poet and author,  best known for his 1948 autobiography The Seven Storey Mountain. Based at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, he was a leading 20th-century spiritual writer who focused on contemplation, social justice, peace, and interfaith dialogue, particularly with Zen Buddhism. 

Dec9

wine box jenga.

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who wants to play ‘wine box jenga?’

—

that was the question on the listing.

once again

I love my local ‘next door’ website

for its creative and fun content

you never know what you’ll find .

even these

which you didn’t know 

you had to have

until you saw them there.

—

‘enthusiasm is the great hill-climber’

-elbert hubbard

*Elbert Hubbard ( 1856- 1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher. Hubbard is known best as the founder of the Roycroft artisan community, an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts Movement. He and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard,  died aboard the RMS Lusitania when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine  off the coast of Ireland in 1915.

Nov23

welcome.

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Last night I had the honor of sharing a meal with neighbors in my community. Some were volunteers, some came just to be friendly, and others were refugees from all over the world, now part of our community. The annual Thanksgiving Potluck get together was organized by Washtenaw Refugee Welcome, (whose mission is to identify and mobilize resources to support refugees and resettlement agencies in Washtenaw County), and EVERYONE in the community was  invited.

 Having gratitude for our neighbors was a great reason to come together and a shared meal was a natural way to get to know each other. Many of our refugee families brought food from their cultures and some local residents brought traditional North American foods to share. There was music, and art and things to play with, and toys for the children to take home.

The refugee crisis is a humanitarian issue that continues to touch every corner of our globe. Today, there are millions of refugees worldwide, each with their own unique story of resilience, hope, and survival against overwhelming odds.

They have been forced to flee their homes due to war, persecution or natural disasters, often embarking on dangerous journeys in search of safety and a better life. They represent some of the most vulnerable populations in the world, yet their courage and strength in the face of adversity are remarkable.

Over dinner, they shared their experience, their hardships, resilience, and hope for a safer future. Their words were a reminder of our shared responsibility to protect and support refugees and the importance of compassion, empathy, and understanding in addressing the refugee crisis. There is a shared humanity that connects us all.

“refugees are mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children,

with the same hopes and ambitions as us-

 except that a twist of fate has bound their lives

to a global refugee crisis on an unprecedented scale.”

-khaled hosseini