The sign posted at the entrance of Sacramento County’s Bradshaw Animal Shelter reads, “The shelter is closed to public access until further notice.”
It’s late March, three weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a State of Emergency and ordered Californians to stay home to help combat the spread of COVID-19. As a result, Sacramento animal shelters have shut their doors to the public.
Nonprofit organizations suffered this spring when social-distancing orders due to COVID-19 gradually closed up most volunteer positions. For the McKinley Rose Garden, run by nonprofit Friends of East Sacramento, the timing couldn’t have been worse.
“Our volunteers start up at the end of April and continue throughout the year until the New Year,” says Nisa Hayden, who started her position as garden manager and volunteer coordinator in late March. “But flowers are dictated by nature, and the beautiful spring weather and generous fertilizing all winter have brought glorious blooming to our 1,200 rose bushes.”
Aquamarine Jewelers’ motto is “Your jeweler for life”—and owner Aiman Nasrawi means it.
“My business is built on trust,” says the master jeweler, designer and store proprietor, who recently relocated his 25-year-old business to Five Points Plaza in Carmichael.
When the owner of a Tahoe Park rental home abruptly sold the house, Kelly Cunningham and her 37-pound Australian shepherd mix found themselves unexpectedly searching for a new place to live.
“I started looking for housing and was completely dismayed,” Cunningham says. “There was a scarcity in rentals that would take pets, specifically a 37-pound dog.”
When people ask Jay Greenwood how long it took him to write his new historical fiction novel “Race to Marathon,” his answer is simple: a little over half a century.
The Oregon native credits his “fantastic English teachers” in high school with first piquing his interest in Ancient Greek literature and history. As a freshman, Greenwood recounts that he was assigned “The Odyssey” in class—which he calls “a very heavy lift for a country boy from Oregon.” But when he managed to finish the book and realized he’d just read one of the greatest works ever written, he was hooked—so much so that it changed the course of his career
April is a busy month for Mary Beth Arjil. She is helping organize not one, but two fundraising walks to fight Parkinson’s disease—the 4th Annual Robert G. Smith Walk to COP (Cancel Out Parkinson’s) by the Parkinson Association of Northern California, and Moving Day by the Parkinson’s Foundation.
These walks raise crucial funds for research and support for people living with Parkinson’s disease. People like Mary Beth Arjil.
