I’ve been in Sacramento long enough to remember the old county animal shelter—when “pounds” existed simply to impound strays. The dilapidated, dungeon-like building was cramped and dingy—where unwanted dogs and cats went to die.
When the public’s attitude toward companion animals began to change, shelters across the country broadened their scope to promote spaying and neutering, encourage adoptions, and recruit donors and volunteers.
If you need it, we’re here to serve.”
This is the motto of Brent Sorlien, lead pastor of Southpointe Christian Center on Stockton Boulevard. Southpointe has served the South Sacramento community since the 1950s—it will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2025—and recently received some help of its own.
Last summer, Southpointe was chosen from approximately 2,200 entries to receive a Lowe’s 100 Hometowns grant as part of the home improvement retailer’s centennial. The grant allowed Southpointe to update its clothes closet, which serves hundreds of people each week along with its on-campus food closet. The home improvement chain provided materials and labor.
Women have no problem talking about all the things that suck about themselves,” laments Catherine la O’. “My work is about taking the stories we’ve been told about who we are and transitioning that mindset to something that feels more authentic. We’ve been told a story of limitation, but it’s not true.”
Technically, la O’ is a yoga teacher, but she’s more than that. Through her virtual studio Liminal Space, clients can take classes in various styles of yoga and engage in “shadow work,” a process of personal introspection and examination based on the psychology of Carl Jung. The goal is to rid clients of limiting self-beliefs in favor of greater self-expression.
Giuliano Kornberg’s excitement is palpable.
After five years as the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera’s go-to fundraiser, Kornberg has stepped into the role of executive director.
“I’m incredibly fortunate,” Kornberg says of his selection to succeed Alice Sauro, a fellow Minnesota native who helped the organization reach new heights during her nearly seven-year tenure. “The board could have looked for a more experienced person—I’m only 28—but I had the very lucky combination of knowing people, being here for five years and having a really supportive boss, organization, staff and board. I’m so honored, it’s really humbling.”
Once upon a time, a young woman named Sabrina Nishijima was born in Hilo, Hawaii.
The “bookstore and library addict” traveled all over the country—New York, Boston, Portland, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco—to visit every bookstore she could.
Some were dingy, some were dirty, some eccentric, some more refined, some polished, just like the people who ran them, “all so different and wonderful in their own unique way,” she says.
In 2008, Nishijima and her husband moved to Sacramento for his job in emergency medicine. They settled in East Sacramento with their two children.
As pandemic lockdowns began, California’s unemployment rate spiked from 4.3 percent to 16 percent. The economic collapse might have devastated one of the Sacramento region’s major organizations—PRIDE Industries, with 5,500 employees and revenue of $300 million.
But PRIDE marched forward, bolstered by its legacy of providing essential services in areas such as facility maintenance, custodial and landscaping. About 60 percent of PRIDE’s employees are people with disabilities, but much of the workforce stayed on the job.
“In the facilities maintenance space, workloads increased as a result of disinfecting requirements that most companies were putting into place,” says Vic Wursten, PRIDE’s chief rehabilitation officer.
