Doing Good in the LBC is an occasional newsletter where we’ll share the latest goings-on of nonprofit organizations in Long Beach.
Sugar rush
Anyone else sick yet of frosting and cookies? I know it’s early, but I’ve declared myself “done” after noticing a spatter of green food dye had stained three of my right toes.
I like to decorate cookies during Christmas, but it’s a ton of work — all that sifting, blending, scraping and inevitably, tasting.
If you’d rather eat cookies than make them, please try the Village Cookie Shoppe, a very unique enterprise owned by Mental Health America. The Shoppe gives the nonprofit’s clients — many of them formerly homeless or incarcerated — an opportunity to learn new skills and prepare for the workplace.
The cookies, I might add, are fat, crumbly and decadent. They are phenomenal.
Grab a box before your next holiday party and impress your host with a treat that, beyond the sugar rush, does a lot of good.
Our reporter John Donegan wrote a nice feature on the Shoppe last year. Read it here.
Congrats
This fall I visited Sato Academy recently as part of an excursion with the Rotary Club of Long Beach. We met Albert Gallo in a classroom that doubles as a warehouse-like workshop.
His engineering students learn how to make things work better, like taking theories of aerodynamics and applying them to the efficiency of a flying drone.
The school was in fact the first high school in the state to create a “drone soccer” program, an emerging competition among postsecondary schools around the globe.
Last month the Long Beach team took fourth place in the FAI World Drone Soccer Championship in Shanghai, China — an “extraordinary accomplishment” given that the competing schools are far better funded, Gallo said.
If you’re wondering what drone soccer is — I had to ask during our visit, to the relief of my fellow Rotarians — here’s a video.
A winter read
My friend Harry Saltzgaver, the former executive editor of the Grunion Gazette, has a new book out.
Harry and I worked adjacent to each other when I was the editor at the Press-Telegram. When I moved here in 2007, he was among the figureheads of news in the city, along with Rich Archbold at the Press-Telegram and George Economides of the Long Beach Business Journal. (The Post was just getting its legs, having been founded the same year I arrived.)
Harry no longer works at the Grunion, but still writes his “A Pinch of Salt” column. He’s written a few books before, including “Passionately Positive: The Beverly O’Neill story,” a biography of one of the city’s most beloved mayors.
The newly released “No Walk in the Park” is his first memoir, a look at his many years in the news business, and his battle with alcoholism and eventual spiritual awakening. Learn more here.
The news business
Our industry has changed dramatically in the years since I first met Harry & Co some 20 years ago. The Press-Telegram and Grunion have been sliced and diced by a national conglomerate, while the Post and Business Journal are run as local, independent nonprofits.
Our business model is simple: Because our work is a public service, the public supports that work with donations. (That means you.)
Please consider an annual gift, or a one-time donation, this holiday season. Every dollar we raise through the end of 2025 will be matched up to $15,000 thanks to a program led by national phiilanthropists.
This work isn’t possible, however, if local donors don’t step up. Help us keep telling the story of Long Beach.