Bayside Community Center Grows Linda Vista Leaders
Plus: Upcoming Community Events, Homeless Action Week at USD, Small Business Webinar, LV Residences Celebrate Halloween, and enjoying Pan de Muerto
Every community needs its share of concerned residents willing to spend time and energy actively supporting local civic organizations and initiatives, and/or finding individual ways to improve the community. This grass roots level of leadership may take the form of volunteering for general or board membership, regularly attending meetings, communicating valuable feedback/suggestions to community leaders, or taking the lead on proposing or advocating for new projects capable of impacting their neighborhoods.
In spite of best intentions, many motivated citizens wishing to become active in the community may not know which organizations are seeking support, may not know which tools are available to access to provide feedback/suggestions, or may simply lack the confidence needed to step forward and volunteer. Fortunately, the Resident Leadership Academy—a training program coordinated by the Bayside Community Center—provides local residents with the opportunity to develop the necessary know-how to begin making impactful contributions to their LV community.
The Resident Leadership Academy executes the mission of training local residents who want to learn how to improve their local communities. It requires participants to attend a 10-session (one day a week) training program. During these sessions participants focus on topics “such as community leadership, crime prevention and safety, land use and active transportation, and healthy food systems. Residents learn skills and best practices to address the issues that most affect their communities, and they work alongside their neighbors to help improve quality of life where they live. Upon graduation, attendees have new knowledge and access to a support network to help them lead community improvement projects.”
Participants in the program are often local residents who have utilized the Center’s services, with many coming from the community’s large Asian and Latino populations. Training cohorts are usually made up of 10-15 local residents. Since the program’s introduction to Bayside 10 years ago, 12 cohorts have gone through the training, with the 13th cohort currently in the middle of the 10-week program. During the pandemic timeframe, one training session was held virtually, while another was held at a nearby park.
The training is facilitated by Bayside Community Center staff members. The training curriculum has been developed by Live Well San Diego, a county program, with the program being supported by Jewish Family Services. Bayside Community Center facilitators have been trained to deliver the curriculum.
As explained by Bayside staff member Kevin Renac, the training is not just made up of reviewing manuals and PowerPoint slides, but also consists of conducting “conversations and dialogues” that attempt to relate what is in the classes to what the participants see every day in the community. Renac commented that, in the process, the participants develop a confidence and an understanding that they “do have a voice” in what goes on in the community. The participants also take away such important concepts as learning, for example, how “our health is impacted by our communities” (i.e., through gaining an understanding of how diet and access to fresh fruits and vegetables impact our lives).
As a consequence of the training, graduates have gone on to serve on the boards of such local civic organizations as the Linda Vista Town Council, the Linda Vista Planning Group, and the Linda Vista Recreation Advisory Group. They have also contributed to advising on several capital improvement projects, effectively utilized the city’s “”Get It Done” app to solve problems, and have actually initiated community improvement projects.
While sitting down on a recent Friday morning to discuss the training program with the current cohort of participants, (which included a group of students from the University of San Diego’s graduate nursing program) the enthusiasm level was quite evident. In explaining their reasons for attending the training, participants commented on their desire to “see change”, to “be part of the community,” wanting to learn how “to become involved,” and “seeking ways to share ideas.” They further elaborated on how they enjoyed the training, mentioning that the training “provides tools that enables us to see how change is a step-by-step process.” Finally, the motivation of the participants could be seen when they expressed a willingness to pursue certain community issues in the future such as improving the safety features of certain traffic crosswalks and sidewalks, educating Linda Vista residents about the importance of diet, and helping to bring back a farmers’ market to the neighborhood.
Local residents can rest assured that once these motivated participants complete their training program, they will join the many other previous graduates of the Resident Leadership Program and continue making our community a better place to live.
Upcoming Community Events
—Kearny High Football: The Komets’ varsity football team plays its final home game of the season against Clairemont High tonight (October 29) at 7:00 pm.
—USD Football: The Toreros football team plays its next home game against Valparaiso on October 30 at 1:00pm.
—Community Clean-Up: The next Community Clean-up, sponsored by the Bayside Community Center, will be held on Sunday November 7 at 10:00 am. The public is invited to participate in this Clean-up activity. Volunteers will meet in the Linda Vista Library parking lot. If you are looking for a worthy community service activity, this is the place to be. Prospective participants are encouraged to call the Bayside Community Center ahead of time.
Homeless Situation Focus of Week-Long USD Sponsored Discussion
The University of San Diego’s Urban Challenges Collective will be hosting Homeless Action Week from November 1-7. This program, consisting of both live and virtual events, will provide opportunities to meaningfully engage and address the multidimensional issues associated with homelessness.
The week will kick off with a Zoom session (11:30 am to 12:30 pm) titled “Community Conversations: What's Happening With Homelessness?” This session will focus on the realities of homelessness in San Diego. This event is open to all interested participants, to include local community members. You can register for this event by clicking here.
On Thursday November 4 the program will include a session titled “Addressing Homelessness in San Diego: Conversation with Hafsa Kaka, Director of San Diego's Homeless Strategies and Solutions Department.” In this session, attendees will “learn more about the city’s ongoing efforts to address homelessness in San Diego and how you can get involved in this work!” You can register to attend this session by clicking here.
You can read details on the entire week’s worth of events by clicking here.
As mentioned on the organization’s website, the Collective “funds and supports engaged, interdisciplinary, and actionable research related to homelessness and affordable housing in San Diego. Through analyzing the realities of these issues, we lay the foundation for systemic and sustainable change.” The Collective also “works to spread awareness about the realities of homelessness and affordable housing both on and off campus.”
Small Business Webinar
The office of Assemblywoman Dr. Akilah Weber (79th District) has announced a Resources for Small Businesses Webinar to be held on November 8 beginning at 11:00 am. See the below poster for more details, including registration instructions.
Linda Vista Area Residences Celebrate Halloween
After recently taking a tour of the Linda Vista area, we wanted to recognize a few residences for expressing the Halloween spirit in a truly exceptional manner. The residences highlighted below have successfully made the Linda Vista area a spookier place to live in, at least during the month of October. Their displays will continue to haunt us in the remaining October days.
This house (above) in the Alcala Knolls neighborhood featured a front yard full of skeletons— a distinctive sort of curb appeal.
Another house in the Alcala Knolls neighborhood (two photos below) focused on typical recreational activities like barbecuing and fishing to express the Halloween spirit. These traditional All-American recreational activities suddenly took on an All-Transylvania aura.
The Mission Heights house below featured a wide variety of pumpkins, skeletons, rooftop monsters, and basketball playing ghosts to scare the neighbors.
And finally, this house (below) in Fashion Hills went all-out in displaying Halloween decorations. It looked spectacularly spooky at night. The owner of the residence (Sonia D.) got so carried away this year with the Halloween spirit that she was happily employed by neighbors to decorate a total of seven houses on her street.
Enjoying Pan de Muerto
With Halloween right around the corner, many of us have already bought giant bags of candy at Costco to hand out to the little goblins, witches and princesses who will be ringing our doorbells Sunday night. But those of us who have been in San Diego for a while also know that another holiday is just around the corner—Dia de los Muerto, or Day of the Dead, is celebrated on November 2. It is a day observed by Mexican people to honor their ancestors. As you stroll through Old Town, you will see many artifacts used to celebrate this occasion such as skeleton dolls, altars, and more.
Another way Dia de los Muerto is observed is by baking and eating a bread called “Bread of the Dead” or “Pan de Muerto”. This is a sweet bread usually made in a round loaf decorated by a bump in the middle and other protrusions around the sides. Here are some facts about Pan de Muerto you may not know.
Pan de Muerto is made to honor the souls of those who have died.
The bread is soft and very rich. It is made with lots of eggs, butter, orange zest, sugar. In a traditional version, anise seed is used as it is said to ward off evil spirts.
The bread’s protrusions symbolize a skull, and bones. Some people actually decorate the cakes with these things.
Some say the roots of this bread can be traced to the time of Spanish Conquistadors in the early 1500’s. Others say it dates back 2,000 years.
It is usually made only in late October, early November. However, it is delicious and easy to make and can be eaten anytime of the year, in my opinion.
The bread is great with a steaming cup of hot chocolate (or coffee or tea). Great to dunk or for purists, to be eaten plain.
You can bake it yourself or you can purchase it at most Mexican grocery stores. We recently purchased a loaf at Carnival Supermarket (3560 Ashford Street) for this article and found it very tasty. You can warm/toast it or eat it cold. Either way I think you will enjoy its sweet flavor.
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