Out and About Sacramento

By Jessica Laskey
July 2019

Uptown Fun

New market on Del Paso opens this summer

River City Marketplace (RCMP) has launched a new event series, Uptown Market on the Boulevard, taking place on Del Paso Boulevard every Saturday from noon to 5 p.m.
“Our most frequent request from vendors and visitors alike has been a consistent market in a more permanent indoor location,” says Ana Manzano Fairbairn, co-director of RCMP, now in its fifth year of presenting an eclectic mix of local goods and talent at events all over the city.
“This new venue on Del Paso provides us with a blank canvas to put some roots down and flex our creativity in a different way.”
Manzano Fairbairn and co-director Mindy Jovanovic, who founded RCMP in 2015, have partnered with local business owners to bring live music and entertainment back to Old North Sacramento. The Uptown Market will be a key site for the area’s revitalization.
Weekly events will feature a curated rotating roster of the region’s most talented makers and artists. Two new on-site murals are by celebrated artist Maren Conrad. Inside the warehouse space, visitors can shop and enjoy a photo booth, installations and lounge areas.
Outside, guests can listen to live music on the backyard stage and dine at Woodlake Tavern’s outdoor beer garden featuring a delicious lunch menu created by Chef Joe Pruner. After dining, visitors can play lawn games like giant Scrabble, cornhole and checkers.
“We want to send the message loud and clear that the boulevard is a destination for arts, music and entertainment,” says Manzano Fairbairn.
Uptown Market on the Boulevard is at 1409 Del Paso Blvd. For more information, visit rivercitymarketplace916.com.

CROCKER ENDOWMENT

The Crocker Art Museum recently announced a gift of more than 1,800 works of artist couple Paul Wonner and William Theophilus “Bill” Brown, and the establishment of the Paul Wonner and William Theophilus Brown Endowment Fund.

Per the artists’ wishes, the fund will support museum projects relating to emerging and LGBTQI artists. The Crocker will ensure the artists’ goals through the acquisition, care, exhibition and publication of their art, as well as through public programs.

By 2023, the Crocker will mount an exhibition of art by Wonner and Brown—the most comprehensive show of the artists’ work ever presented—and produce an accompanying catalog.

“Wonner and Brown were trail blazers, both individually and as a couple,” says Scott A. Shields, the museum’s associate director and chief curator. “It is wonderful that their legacy will live on, not only through their own art, but though their forward-looking support of other artists.”

For more information, visit crockerart.org.

GARDEN HIGHWAY LEVEES

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, California Central Valley Flood Protection Board and Sacramento Area Flood Control Agency are hard at work making levee improvements in the Lower Natomas Basin along Garden Highway.

The work is part of the American River Common Features-Natomas Basin project that was authorized by Congress in 2014. Upgrades will be made to Garden Highway levees through October.

While the flood-risk reduction work will ultimately make Natomas safer, it also will temporarily impact roadways. Sections of Garden Highway—mostly east of I-5—will be closed for extended durations this summer and fall. These closures will cause increased traffic and likely longer commutes.

To sign up for updates, email spk-pao@usace.army.mil or call (916) 557-5100. For up-to-date information, visit natomaslevees.com.

CLARA DIRECTOR

Jessica “Jay” Swanson has been named director of community programs at the E. Claire Raley Studios for the Performing Arts—Midtown’s arts hub on N Street—after managing the organization’s rental program.

“Jessica is a wonderfully strategic thinker with deep roots in many sectors of the artistic ecosystem,” says CLARA Executive Director Megan Wygant. “We’re delighted to leverage her skills in service to CLARA’s mission of unleashing our city’s creative potential.”

Swanson is a seasoned event planner, producer of the city’s longest-running cabaret series and manager of SactoMoFo’s food festivals. She will be responsible for building partnerships with independent artists, and curating performance and professional-development opportunities.

“CLARA is a fantastic resource for Sacramento,” Swanson says. “Having the opportunity to apply its strengths in service to the arts community is tremendously exciting.”

For more information, visit claramidtown.org.

#NAMETHEDOCKS

Have a loved one you’d like to commemorate? The cities of Sacramento and West Sacramento and British artist Joshua Sofaer have launched a new project. “River Crossing: I want to communicate with you” (also known as #NameTheDocks) invites the public to participate in creating a unique public art project along the Sacramento waterfront.

Local residents can nominate people they would like to see commemorated on two docks, one that runs from the Delta King in Old Sacramento to just past the Tower Bridge and one that will be built this fall near the Ziggurat Building in West Sacramento.

A panel of judges will select two names and Sofaer will create a public art installation of large light boxes that spell out the names in colorful maritime signals.

To nominate someone, visit rivercrossing.name. Applicants will need to provide a brief written explanation for their nomination. Judges will select names in August. Sofaer will begin work on the light boxes in the fall.

SACREYCLE APP

Sacramento launched its free SacRecycle app on Earth Day to provide quick access to important information about garbage, yard waste, recycling and street sweeping for city customers. The app also includes the Waste Wizard—a database of proper disposal methods for hundreds of household items—and an interactive sorting game.

“‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’ is still the mantra for handling waste,” says Erin Treadwell, outreach manager with the Recycling and Solid Waste Division. “The changes in recycle markets, concerns about contamination and constant shifts in how different materials are managed is confusing. The SacRecycle app is a great tool to help our customers make easy and correct disposal decisions in their homes.”

Customers can download SacRecycle on Apple and Google app stores, and enter the billing address for properties that receive city services. Residents who are not city customers can still access the Waste Wizard.

For more information, visit sacrecycle.org.

SOCIETY FOR THE BLIND EXPANSION

More than 70 people attended the highly anticipated groundbreaking of Society for the Blind’s new training center, an expansion of the Sacramento nonprofit’s current facility on S Street that will include a teaching kitchen and music room.

“We are extraordinarily grateful to all of our donors who have helped this dream come to fruition,” says Shari Roeseler, executive director of Society for the Blind. “We are excited to provide this additional space for training to empower people with vision loss to live their lives to the fullest.”

There are more than 100,000 people with vision loss in the greater Sacramento region. Society for the Blind is working at capacity serving more than 5,000 children, working-age adults and seniors each year.

The headquarter’s expansion is part of Society for the Blind’s Vision 2020 campaign, which has raised more than $3.5 million from organizations such as Roseville’s M&M Whitmire Family Foundation, Northern California Lions Sight Association and Lions Clubs International. The campaign will fund education and training, create an endowment, expand the onsite Low Vision Clinic, upgrade technology and complete the training center.

Now in its 65th year, Society for the Blind is a comprehensive rehabilitative teaching center that provides services such as low-vision eye care, life and job skills training, and mentorship for 27 counties in Northern California.

For more information, visit societyfortheblind.org.

HOMELESS HOTEL

The Sacramento City Council has approved $23 million in funding to open a 180-bed temporary homeless shelter, operated by the Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency, at the Capitol Park Hotel on 9th Street. The shelter is slated to open this month.

While half of the hotel’s single-occupancy rooms currently sit empty, more than 90 elderly and disabled people who already live there will be displaced—though the city has pledged roughly $3 million to relocate these residents.

“Capitol Park Hotel provides an unusual opportunity to add shelter beds quickly and in a part of our city that desperately needs them,” Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg says. “Getting people off the streets in our Downtown core will not only help them reclaim their lives, it will provide relief to residents and businesses that are daily confronted with the health and safety impacts of large numbers of people living outdoors.”

Shelter repairs and operation will require $9.7 million in Measure U reserve funds, as well as private funding. The city will loan Mercy Housing approximately $10 million to purchase the property, but will be reimbursed in full after 18 months, after which Mercy will convert the shelter to permanent supportive housing.

SAC CO-OP GRANTS

The Sacramento Cooperative Community Fund has announced the four winners of its 2019 micro-grants, which fund local nonprofits and cooperatives that are promoting nutrition, health and the cooperative movement.

The grants range from $300 to $700 and are used for projects and activities that require a one-time purchase of equipment or supplies. Grants are funded by an endowment founded in 2001 by the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op in conjunction with the Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation.

This year’s four grantees are Alchemist CDC for its Connecting Families to Farmers program; Shakti Rising for an educational and interactive garden to serve women in the Transformational Recovery program; Sowing Solidarity for its half-acre urban farm, which provides ecological education and raises awareness of social issues connected with poverty; and Strategies for Change for a Therapy Garden for moms and children.

For more information, visit sac.coop.

DIAPER DRIVE

Residents who bring an unopened pack of diapers to any Leatherby’s Family Creamery (such as the one at 2333 Arden Way) on July 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. will receive a free scoop of ice cream as part of Daddy Dave’s Diaper Drive, benefiting the Sacramento Life Center.

The drive will provide diapers for low-income new moms in the Sacramento area and honor the ice cream shop’s founder Dave Leatherby Sr., who passed away earlier this year.

The Sacramento Life Center’s mission is to offer support, resources and free medical care to women and couples facing an unplanned or unsupported pregnancy.

For more information, visit saclife.org.

Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Submissions are due six weeks prior to the publication month.