The Insect Monoprints begin as larger-than-life pen and ink drawings which are transferred to solar etching plates, using the sun to expose the plates and water to develop them.

Meanwhile, using either oil paint or etching inks, Morrison prints colorful monotype backgrounds on fine printmaking paper. Then, in a second pass through the press, she prints the etching over the background. The result shows a dramatic contrast between the swirling abstract colors and the crisp drawing of the insect.

Morrison’s hope is that by getting a closer look, people will come to regard insects as our fellow creatures on the planet, and not just annoyances. They are everywhere, and although they sometimes bother us, they are just trying to make their way in the world like everybody else. They are small, but their bodies have very complex shapes and structures. The more closely you look, the more interesting they become.

The address of the Community Center is 7007 Moeser Lane in El Cerrito. The Insect Monoprints are on view during the hours the Community Center is open, generally Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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Rand photographs local flora and fauna, specializing in images of butterflies, hummingbirds, California native plants, as well as roses and orchids, and much more! Her original, unique arts and crafts are ideal gifts for women, men, children and pets, including wearable art (silk scarves, purses, shirts, tote bags), decorative and practical home decor (handmade soap, sachets, light switch plates, mugs, nightlights, pillows, tile boxes), mixed-media one-of-a-kind artwork, cards, and more. Many unique handmade items priced under $20.

http://GardenDelightsArts.com

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“Thirst,” a 2004, hour-long, award-winning documentary, provides a piercing look at the conflict between public stewardship and private profit of water, perhaps the most important natural resource on the planet, one that is critical both to human health and to the economic well being of all nations.

2 p.m. Sunday March 1 at the Cerrito Theater, 10070 San Pablo Ave. (2 blocks from the El Cerrito Plaza BART). Admission is free! Food and beverages are available at this unusual theater.

Sponsored by The League of Women Voters of West Contra Costa County and the city of El Cerrito’s Environmental Quality Committee.

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BY DANIEL MCGLYNN //

There’s no way to count all of the homeless people in a county the size of Rhode Island in a single morning. But the trained volunteers for the Homeless Count 2009 will try.

Fanning out across Contra Costa County during the early morning of January 28, the volunteers will document people living in the street and staying in homeless shelters. While not a full census of homelessness, “we look at it as a snapshot,” said Cynthia Belon, the director of the Homeless Program, and the information is important in understanding how bad the problem is, and how well aid programs are working. The count also meets a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development requirement that helps the county qualify for federal homeless funds. Using the $7 million in HUD funds as well as money from state, county and local non-profit sources, the Contra Costa Health Services Department started a ten-year plan to end homelessness in 2004. The volunteers helping in this year’s homeless count will provide data for that program. “Overall that’s what is important about the count,” Belon said. “It helps us to show if we are ending homelessness in our community.”

Contra Costa County has more than one million residents, and a count in 2005 estimated 15,000 homeless. Previous homeless counts in 2005 and 2007 showed a decline in the number of homeless defined as “chronically homeless,” meaning they have reoccurring episodes of living on the street.  The county’s 10-year plan also targets people who may be homeless for the first time: people in transition – from jail, the foster care system, or other social services – and families. Between 2005 and 2007 there was about a 16 percent rise in the population of homeless living on the street, but there was a 40 percent decline in the number of homeless living in shelters or transitional housing.  El Cerrito, for example, had 139 people living on the street in 2005, and 117 in 2007.

Belon said that families will be of particular interest in the 2009 count because the downturn in the economy may have led to an increase in their numbers.

The goal of the County Health Service’s 10-year plan is to create more housing opportunities, Belon said. “Clearly we don’t have enough resources to deal with homelessness,” she said. Another key element of the plan is to get all of the individual cities working together and pooling resources to target homelessness.

To volunteer for the Homeless Count 2009, contact Rachel Goldman at 510-282-7840 or racheal@homebaseccc.org before January 20.  Volunteers need to go through an hour-long training session, which are scheduled the week prior to the Count.  Volunteers will spread out in pairs across the county and go to specific areas to count people living on the streets and will be expected not to “talk or engage with the homeless,” said Belon, only to report their findings.

Students at the Hatlen Center for the Blind in San Pablo, Calif., are learning skills most of us take for granted – life skills that will help them live independently. Now, after 36 years, the center has a chance to gain its own independence, right here in El Cerrito.

Watch the video report from ECF reporter Matt Durning to learn how.

To learn more about this unique development project, read the earlier ECF article, “A New Neighbor in El Cerrito”

It’s the weekend – the El Cerrito DMV is closed – but  a constant stream of cars flows through the Manila Avenue parking lot. Rather than the usual hurry-up and wait posture of the DMV line, these cars move through the lot with the efficiency of a well-run drive through.

The cars are here to take advantage of the free electronic waste event sponsored by the city and run by the Oakland-based company, Universal Waste Management.

Trunks full of old TVs, computers, microwaves, and vacuum cleaners, are being unloaded to be recycled. “We take anything with a plug,” said Jan Rice, who is running the event in the empty parking lot – turned bustling transfer station.

One El Cerrito resident in line with a plastic bag full of small electronics including some cordless phones, said she comes to the e-waste events regularly. When asked why she doesn’t just throw her electronics away, she said, “well you’re not suppose to.” Another man waiting in line had an old electronic keyboard that he’d been trying to get rid of for three weeks. He said he pulled into the lot when he saw the sign for the event on San Pablo Avenue.

One weekend event like this will keep about 50,000 pounds of electronic waste from sitting in a landfill, according to Rice. “This is the fastest growing segment of the waste stream. In California alone, 6,000 computers go obsolete a day,” she said. Electronics left in a landfill can leech carcinogens and toxins like lead, mercury, poly vinyl chloride, and chromium.

Besides protecting the environment there is also money to be made by recycling electronics thanks to a 2003 state law that added a tax, called the electronic waste recycling fee, to anything with a screen. The fee can range anywhere from $8 to $25 depending on the size of the device. The tax is different from something like a bottle refund because the consumer will never get that money back. Instead, it is paid to collectors and recyclers of electronic waste.

Recyclers get reimbursed from the state based on the amount and type of e-waste collected. Companies like Universal Waste Management also dismantle the electronics and sell the material to specialized purchasers. “We reduce the electronics to the base component parts, like glass and plastic, and metal,” said Rice. “We might get pennies on the pound for some of this stuff.” The real money comes from the state reimbursements, she said.

The city of El Cerrito has a progressive recycling center. They accept the usual mixed paper, plastic bottles, and aluminum, but they also recycle batteries, large appliances, cell phones, and motor oil. But they are unable to deal with the quantity and difficulty of recycling most electronics. So, twice a year the city invites Universal Waste to host a free electronic recycling event. Residents can safely get rid of their old electronics and recyclers can make a living off of keeping toxic trash out of the landfill.

There have been a few stories in the media recently about the e-waste stream being exported to developing countries. Discarded cathode ray tubes (CRTs) – like TVs and computer monitors – are shipped, often illegally, to other countries where they are disassembled for valuable copper, gold, and lead. Without regulation, safety standards, or proper equipment, processing e-waste can cause in a lethally toxic environment.

Rice said, “I got a call once from China. They wanted to buy some CRT’s, but we won’t do it.” Universal Waste Management recycles all e-waste items and the products stay in California,                                                                      she said.

Besides electronics, events organized by Universal Waste Management also accept donations of coats for the organization One Warm Coat, and food donations for local food banks.

If you missed the January 3 and 4 event, there will be another e-waste event in El Cerrito on the first weekend in June. E-waste can also be dropped off at the Universal Waste Management facility at 721 37^th Avenue in Oakland.

More information about local e-waste disposal can be found at www.unwaste.com or by calling 888.832.9839.

Anyway you stack it – in red food donations barrels, in giant cardboard boxes, or on shrink-wrapped pallets – a million pounds of food is a lot of food. That’s about how much now sits in the massive warehouse of the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano Counties in Concord.

The million pounds of donated food is the result of the last two months of community food drives and will help get the 178 non-profit pantries, soup kitchens, assistance programs, or schools – and eventually the 98,000 people a month that this food feeds – through the winter.

The worry is that the food goes fast. With the current economic troubles and the number of working-class families that hover around the margins of the poverty line increasing, the Food Bank is “expecting more demand and for it to get worse in January,” said the Bank’s community outreach manager, Lisa Sherrill, while meandering through the aisles of the warehouse.

The demand for the Food Bank’s services has grown 20%, in the past two years, and it now serves nearly 100,000 people. “We are seeing an increase in the amount of people who never asked for food before,” said Sherrill.

By early spring, Sherrill said, the supplies on the shelves in the Costco-esque warehouse will start dwindling. By summer the shelves may be bare, “a couple of times a year we have no food,” she said. 

So far, the increase in demand is being met with an increase in supply. As the number of users has increased, the amount of food distributed by the bank has risen over the last two years from 8 million pounds to 9.6 million pounds.

Future growth projections on the supply side are conjecture as they are based on the material and financial donations that the Food Bank is able to raise in the future.

One Food Bank trend that may explain the availability of more food is the shift toward fresh produce. Grocery stores and the U.S. Department of Agriculture don’t supply as much canned food anymore, and food banks have become more efficient in dealing with farmers. This year the Contra Costa and Solano County bank will distribute 3.5 million pounds of produce, Sherrill said, four times the amount from four years ago.

The job of sorting processing, checking and readying the food for distribution is done mostly by volunteers. “We can not operate a singe day without the help of volunteers,” said Sherrill, repeating the refrain of the organization’s volunteer coordinator. 

The volunteer workforce runs about a 1,000 strong and accounts for 36,000 hours of work a year, said Sherrill. The millions of pounds of donated food need to be checked for quality and expiration, and then properly categorized.

Besides distributing food donations, one of the Food Bank’s main tasks is to remind people that hunger exists year round. After the rush of the holiday food drive there is usually a Post Office food drive in the spring, and then a Safeway summer drive. But the thousands of people who rely on the Food Bank do not go away after the food runs out.

Besides food drives the Food Bank has a series of programs that it organizes:

• Brown Bag. This program gives free groceries to 3,600 low-income senior citizens in the two counties to help supplement their food budget.
• Food for Children. Kids aged four to six, who might fall between the gap of the federally funded Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program and school-based assistance. Each month each of the 700 children in this program receives a 25-pound box of food.
• Food Assistance. Funded by the USDA the program gives food to 15,400 families that fall under the poverty line defined by the federal government.
• Extra Helpings- In conjunction with the Contra Costa County Health Department, the Food Bank provides supplemental food for eligible residents with specific chronic illnesses.
• 2 Kids- The Food Bank provides three to five pounds of fresh produce to 3,400 children in 33 after school programs.
• Emergency Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens- With the Food Bank’s support, 4.3 million meals are served a year.

Even when the holiday season is over and some of the red food donation barrels are rolled away for the year, the Food Bank is still looking for volunteers and donations. In addition to donating food, especially during the summer, the Food Bank could use help in the office, in the development department, or as advocates.

Some suggestions for helping out include: writing a letter to an elected official to address hunger issues, host your own food drive, have a food donation party, or plant an extra row of vegetables in your garden.

The Food Bank of Contra Costa & Solano Counties can be found on the web at www.foodbankccs.org or by calling 925-676-7543

Students practice at the Sport Fencing Center in Richmond.

BY FERNANDO GALLO //

Karen Ladenheim has been operating the Sport Fencing Center in Richmond for seven years, bringing a lifetime of fencing experience along with her as she coaches East Bay youth on the art of swordsmanship. The El Cerrito resident gives us some insight on the center, her students and how we all have a little swordsman inside of us.

BY ALEXIA UNDERWOOD //

In a time of economic strife and hardship, laughter appears to be prevailing.

The house was packed at the Contra Costa Civic Theater in El Cerrito for Saturday night’s performance of Greater Tuna, a “comedy with Tex Appeal.”

Theater-goers laughed and guffawed the night away at Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard’s comedic play about small-town life in Texas. Directed by Mark Manske, the comedy showcased two actors – Joe Fitzgerald and Kyle Nash – who each play 10 characters, contrasting an impressive variety of costumes, voices and physical mannerisms.

The crowd was mostly middle-aged, and seemed more than willing to put their woes aside for an evening of outlandish accents and caricatures. “Wow, that was really funny,” an audience member commented to her partner as they walked out the doors at the end of the show.

The performing arts, traditionally an under-funded and vulnerable member of the entertainment sector, have not yet experienced the funding cuts that other industries have, according to several East Bay performing arts venues.

“Our season ticket sales have held pretty steady this year,” said Alex Ray, house manager on Saturday evening as audience members streamed around him to purchase snacks and drinks during the 15-minute intermission. “Attendance is actually up a bit from last year.”

Brit Johnson, the theater’s general manager, agreed. When asked if the down-turn in the economy had affected attendance, he responded, “It hasn’t. We actually think it may be a boon. They talk about ‘staycations’ – I call it ‘stayculture,’” Johnson said, referring to the national trend of people opting to stay home and save money rather than travel for the holidays.

Another reason could be timing. “Season tickets were sold in July and August – before things got horrible,” Johnson said. Season ticket sales actually went up this year, from about 9,004 to 9,036 – a slight increase, but still an increase – in a time when few organizations or businesses are seeing any hope at all.

Theaters don’t appear to be scaling back their production schedules, either. Nine, a musical, will open in the first week of February. Johnson also said that the theater was planning a 50th anniversary kick-off event on April 25.

“We’re actually experiencing record ticket sales right now,” said Terence Keane, director of public relations for the Berkeley Repertory Theater. Several recent shows have been extended by a week or two, and Yellowjackets, a recent production, exceeded its ticket goal.

“In terms of ticket sales, we are building on a very successful several years of increased sales,” he said. “It’s kind of bucking a national trend.”

The national trend is one of cutting back, as Americans prepare for an uncertain economic future.

Keane attributed the increase in ticket sales to the quality of the productions as well as the local appeal of certain production choices, such as Yellowjackets, a play set at Berkeley High and written by a Berkeley High graduate, Iatamar Moses. However, half of the theater’s budget comes from endowments and donations – other sources that may still be affected by the economy.

“Naturally, in this economic climate, we‘re very anxious about how this will come together,” he said. “We’re holding our breath here…to see what happens.”

Mark Gilbert, director of the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts which hosts performing arts groups said that they were in the process of transforming into a performing arts center for children and youth.

“Historically, activities for kids and youth tend to be a little more recession proof than adult’s activities,” Gilbert said. He thought that parents would rather sacrifice their own entertainment than their children’s, when money is tighter than usual.

“I would expect we would be less affected,” Gilbert said, “but we’ll see.”

BY MATT DURNING //

In October, the city of El Cerrito began work to improve the upper stretch of Fairmount Avenue from Richmond Street, just east of the Plaza BART station, to Colusa Avenue at Sunset View Cemetery.

Funded through the city’s redevelopment agency, the project has two key goals: to improve pedestrian safety and enhance physical beauty throughout this important community corridor.

Watch the video below to learn more about the work completed so far, community reaction to the project, and what’s still to come.

You can read the original Upper Fairmount Avenue Streetscape Master Plan report here.

For project updates, visit the city’s Public Works webpage here.