Mary Rees

Snappy’s Cafe in Hayward is usually a good place to grab a quick cup of coffee, or maybe a pastry before heading to work. Either could run you anywhere from a $1.50 to $3. But on the third Sunday of every month, Snappy’s transforms.

Today, the menu consists of refreshing coconut juice, a South Indian snack called idli, and eggplant chutney. It’s all provided by a local Indian caterer and served by volunteers. Shruti Hegde is one of them, and she treats people as if she were in her own living room.

It’s a Saturday morning at a formerly vacant lot in Richmond. The sun warms the ground. Rows of fruit trees bend in the breeze. A raised bed made of cinder blocks harbors vegetable plants. Andromeda Brooks carefully plucks weeds from her raspberry patch, offering the young plants encouragement. This is Happy Lot Farm and Garden. 

Less than a year ago, this 14,000-square-foot lot, zoned for low-income housing, lay empty, except for the litter.

“Nothing has really been done on the lot for well over ten years,” says Brooks.

(SF Gate) // Investigators found DNA evidence linking Antolin Garcia-Torres to the disappearance of a 15-year-old Morgan Hill girl. At a news conference, today, Santa Clara Sheriff Laurie Smith said the source of the DNA was not blood. The girl, Sierra LaMar, was last seen on March 16…

On a May evening, the Pinole Seals Swim Club hits the water for their first night of practice in the season that almost wasn’t. This is a popular pool that Pinole resident Kiki Kaski says hundreds of people use every year.

“All the camps in the area send their kids to this pool, the YMCA, Special Olympics uses this pool,” says Kaski. “You go there and you get this feeling like, ‘It’s summer!’ And it feels good.”

(San Francisco Chronicle) // The San Francisco teachers union will vote this week on whether to strike in protest of salary and benefits cuts proposed by the San Francisco Unified School District. District officials say they'll have to find $80 million dollars over the next two years, but the union claims that money is available within the existing budget...