Interesting People
The Promise of Hope
Lucky for Marsha Spell, she likes “living on the edge.” That is why 10 years ago, she packed up everything she owned and drove from her former home in Southern California to Sacramento to take a job as executive director of Family Promise. The nonprofit organization helps homeless families achieve lasting independence through a 90-day mentoring program.
“Honestly, it’s a God thing,” says Spell, who now lives in Placerville but hails from Tennessee. “I think this is where I was supposed to be. It wasn’t planned. I just followed where I was led. I’ve always wanted to help people—I’m a try-to-fix-it person—and people always seem to call me. Maybe it’s the Southern accent.”
Yukon Gold
There is no easy way to train for a race that requires two or three days in a kayak paddling 444 miles though the pristine wilds of the Canadian Yukon. For practice, there’s a 100-mile paddle event on the Sacramento River from Redding to Chico. But that’s hardly the same.
So how does Marsha Arnold, a 63-year-old case management nurse at Sutter Medical Center, get ready for the most difficult physical challenge of her life?
Hearing The Muse
In the opening lines of the poem “Moments,” Wendy Grace Stevens writes:
How often have you heard
‘Live for the moment,’ or ‘Be here now?’
No matter the current idiom,
it’s a truth that merits attention.
Stevens seems to live by this sentiment. Amid two careers—first in banking, then 25 years working for the state Legislature, from which she retired in 2002—Stevens has lived for the moment through activities both artistic and outdoor.
We’re Here!
“I strongly believe that when people walk into a gallery, they deserve to see themselves reflected in the art,” Michael Misha Kennedy says.Over the past two decades, Kennedy has made it his life’s work as both an artist and a gallery owner to make sure everyone in the Sacramento community—especially women, people of color and members of the LGBTQI community—has a place to be seen.His eponymous Kennedy Gallery has been in operation for 13 years—and has called the stately Victorian on L Street (which once housed B-Bop Costumes) home for the past seven years.
A Family Affair
Sally Jeanne Luehrs was retired and living in Pennsylvania when her son called with a job offer.
Chef Deneb Williams asked his mom if she would be interested in tending the garden at Allora, his latest culinary venture with wife Elizabeth-Rose Mandalou. Allora opened last year on Folsom Boulevard in East Sacramento. The couple also owns Woodlake Tavern and Uptown Pizza on Del Paso Boulevard.
A Mother’s Memories
Ginger Rutland lives in Curtis Park not far from where her family resided when they first came to Sacramento in 1952.
“Of course,” Rutland says, “because of racial covenants on the deeds and real estate practices in 1952, blacks couldn’t purchase homes in this part of the neighborhood—nothing south of Second Avenue. Times change!”
