Featured events- 03/10/2012 - Ton Koopman & The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir
- 02/27/2012 - Classical at the Freight: Rossini Birthday Celebration
- 02/23/2012 - Michio Kaku: Physics of the Future, How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100
- 02/23/2012 - 2012: a Turning Point? And If So, Which Way?: A Talk by Robert Reich
- 02/19/2012 - Takacs Quartet
Category Archives: Non-profits
The “before” pictures: Berkeley Art Museum/PFA
Call it “beautiful decay”: these stunning photographs, taken by David Stark Wilson, show the interiors of the future home of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA).
Just as with the new Magnes, which unveiled its new space on Sunday, BAM/PFA is to be housed in a 1920s-era 1939 building originally designed as a printing plant for UC Berkeley. It is located at 2120 Oxford Street at Center Street, in the heart of downtown.
Is it not fitting that, as the demand for printed thesis, documents, books and monographs has waned, the engine rooms that produced these volumes are now being put to good use while remaining in the cultural realm?
Berkeley’s new Magnes building to be unveiled on Sunday
On Sunday, the doors will open to a new cultural institution in Berkeley. The many thousands of books, paintings, prints, textiles, and photographs that make up The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art & Life – which was formerly located in an early 20th-century family home on Russell Street in the Elmwood neighborhood — will now be readily accessible to the public in a beautifully renovated, centrally located 25,000 sq ft space at 2121 Allston Way.
The building, which was designed in the 1920s as a printing plant for UC Berkeley, was most recently used by UC’s Bancroft Library, with whom the Magnes now partners. Before that, the Berkeley Public Library occupied the space. Marks left by book stacks on the stained, maple-colored concrete floors bear the stamp of the building’s history.
The building has been transformed by San Francisco architects Pfau Long in collaboration with local design and fabrication company Picassa Studios. The goal, said the museum’s Director Alla Efimova, was to create a warm, inviting place with an emphasis on transparency.
“We wanted an open space with a good flow where the community could spend time discovering the collection,” she said. … Continue reading »
Student-run project works to rebuild Navajo community
By Grace Garey
During the first week of January, when most college students are lounging at home nursing New Year’s Eve hangovers and enjoying meals and laundry courtesy of mom, 60 California students will be working with the Berkeley-based non-profit Project Pueblo to help rebuild a Navajo Nation community devastated by a 43-year federal ban on development.
The founder of Project Pueblo is 28-year-old Sean Wycliffe. In 2002, Wycliffe was mid-way through his second year at Cal when he opted dropped out to oversee the expansion of a marketing business he’d started on the side. “I wanted to be financially independent,” Wycliffe said, “and I knew I had a good idea, so I just went for it.” Allowing himself to pursue his spontaneous instincts paid off; the business generated over $1 million in new revenue during his first year. … Continue reading »
Councilmember: Look at unauthorized collectives
City Councilman Jesse Arreguín will ask the city manager tonight to investigate whether two medical cannabis collectives are operating in violation of Berkeley’s zoning laws.
Arreguín’s announced his intent after a contentious meeting of the Medical Cannabis Commission on Thursday, Dec. 1. The MCC spent a large part of its meeting debating whether to send a letter to city officials drawing attention to the proliferation of collectives in commercial districts, but could not agree on the wording. The MCC will take up the matter again in January.
“I don’t think this should be swept under the rug,” said Arreguín. “It is an important issue. Some action needs to be taken. The city is trying to be sensitive to these particular collectives, which provide medicine to patients. At the same time, they are clearly violating the city’s zoning laws and medical marijuana ordinances.” … Continue reading »
Everyone deserves to eat: Andre Green’s kitchen wisdom
Andre Green’s mission is both simple and heartfelt: no one should go hungry. It’s a mantra that has worked for him in his more than seven years serving food to the homeless and poor.
After a long stint in the kitchen at the East Oakland Community Project, Green began cooking for Berkeley’s most vulnerable residents on Valentine’s Day this year, as the new food services coordinator for Berkeley Food & Housing Project. The non-profit group serves hot meals to homeless men, women, and children from food purchased from the Alameda County Community Food Bank and wholesale grocery stores, along with donations from individuals, organizations, and businesses. … Continue reading »
For when that disaster comes, Berkeleyans, be prepared
By Dave Peattie
When there is a major disaster in the Bay Area, help may take a long time to arrive, as the recent hurricane in New Orleans and earthquakes in Japan, Haiti, and Turkey have shown.
The Berkeley Disaster Preparedness Neighborhood Network (BDPNN), a nongovernmental organization, wants to help residents survive a disaster by being organized and prepared.
The BDPNN will hold a hands-on medical practice session Thursday November 17 with Barbara Morita, Emergency Preparedness Coordinator for the Alameda Health Consortium, and a member of the Disaster Medical Assistance Team (DMAT). It will take place at 6:30 pm, at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall (corner of Cedar and Bonita).
Field trip highlights programs in food-forward Berkeley
Tomorrow, Bay Area Green Tours co-hosts a food field trip spotlighting some of the best of Berkeley’s alternative food systems. It’s part of the 15th Annual Community Food Security Coalition Conference, which runs today through Tuesday in Oakland. The Community Food Security Coalition is a national nonprofit dedicated to creating a food movement that is healthy, sustainable, and just.
The national conference draws sustainable food advocates, anti-hunger experts, and food policy wonks from around the country. The Food Sovereignty tour, which is open to the public (though now sold out), introduces participants to community food gardens, farmers’ markets, school food, and alternative food businesses in this town, which, of course, is well known for its food-forward agenda. … Continue reading »
Chez Panisse birthday fundraising declared a success
Now that the hoopla is over, it’s time to take stock of how the Chez Panisse 40th anniversary celebrations fared as a fundraising effort.
Answer: pretty well. The Chez Panisse Foundation had a goal to raise $500,000 for all its 40th birthday activities combined, which it exceeded by a lot, said event producer Carolyn Federman, who didn’t specify exactly how much the private dinners, restaurant parties, and other activities raised.
The money will go to support the recently launched Edible Schoolyard Project (ESYP) website, which has an estimated annual operating cost of about $1.5 million, according to Federman. This new, national nonprofit, building on the work of the Edible Schoolyard locally, intends to serve as a “best practices” resource for kitchen and garden classes in schools across the country looking for ideas, tools, resources, curriculum and community to support their work. Interviews for candidates for the ESYP director position are currently under way. … Continue reading »
CANFIT wants to improve the health of all America’s youth
Arnell Hinkle, the founding executive director of CANFIT (which stands for Communities, Adolescents, Nutrition, and Fitness) may be based in downtown Berkeley, but her work to improve the lives of low-income youth of color takes her across the country and around the globe.
She has been involved in development projects in India, Ecuador and Scotland, and spent last year on a Fullbright public policy fellowship in Wellington, New Zealand working with Maori and Pacific Island groups.
A kind of community food coach for young folk, the registered dietician who holds a masters in public health has worked as a restaurant chef, organic farmer, and as a project coordinator of the Hunger and Chronic Disease Prevention Program at the Contra Costa County Health Services Department. … Continue reading »
Swimmers cross Bay to raise funds for cancer research
About a year and a half ago, Steve Barbour, the CFO of Nestlé Dreyer’s Ice Cream, decided to take up swimming to get back in shape. While he had loved the water while growing up in southern California, he had stopped exercising regularly and his inactivity was beginning to show on his 52-year-old frame.
Barbour started swimming every day at 6:00 am at the pool at the Claremont Hotel. He got to know Susan Helmrich, a three-time cancer survivor and … Continue reading »
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