Caylee Cardenas, 9, from San Bernardino with puppy Dozer.
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)—LOMA LINDA, CA—Yucaipa Animal Placement Society (YAPS) collaborated with restaurant chain Raising Cane’s in bringing the society’s puppies to visit cancer patients at the LLU Children’s Hospital hematology/oncology outpost clinic Monday, July 30.
Patients cuddled up to the puppies between treatments. The clinic — which is an outpost of unit 4800 — treats pediatric blood-related diseases and cancers and is the largest of its kind in the Inland Empire. Young cancer patients receive treatments such as blood transfusions in the clinic.
The visit was designed to bring joy to children diagnosed with cancers such as leukemia, brain tumors and blood-related diseases such as hemophilia.
“I love seeing the smiles on my child’s face when they’re surprised by something special like this,” said one patient’s parent.
This is the first visit to Loma Linda University Health for both Raising Cane’s and YAPS.
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)—SAN BERNARDINIO, CA— To show their love to our servicemen and women, the Concerned Citizens for the Development of North Fontana and P-Love Helping Hands partnered with Danny Martinez Veterans Affairs to provide our soldiers with comfortable Snuggie pajamas that will be sent overseas.
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)—— SAN BERNARDINO, CA— Community Action Partnership of San Bernardino County (CAPSBC) is excited to be selected by Macy’s San Bernardino as the nonprofit beneficiary of the 2018 The Big Give Back – Make Good Cents for Your Community campaign.
Macy’s Corporate and Macy’s Staff have been a long-time supporter of CAPSBC, giving both times to volunteer, and dollars to support their great programs. Many staff volunteer at their Food Bank, which is the largest provider of free emergency food for those in need in San Bernardino County.
When you shop at Macy’s San Bernardino between August 1 to the August 15, you will see a message at the credit card pin pads when you check out that asks would you like to round it up to Help Community Action Partnership of San Bernardino County. You then have the option to round up your purchase to the nearest dollar, up to $0.99 cents.
We know you love to shop at Macy’s and you will be helping your fellow community members in need!
Macy’s San Bernardino is located at Inland Center Mall, 400 Inland Center Drive in San Bernardino.
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)— SAN BERNARDINO, CA— Roger’s Burgers has opened a 24-hour burger restaurant in downtown San Bernardino! The corner at Sixth and D Street is not particularly freeway close but is apparently close enough to the many burger lovers who keep coming back!
Roger promises 100% Angus Beef patties that are hand pressed daily; never frozen! They brag about a “4×4 Wild & Wreckless Burger” that features four 1/3 lb. beef patties, tomato, red onion, mustard sauce, pickle, chili, bacon, cheese and topped with pastrami. I have not tried that, but have enjoyed the plain ole, “Wild and Wreckless” that has only one 1/3 lb. patty and everything else.
Roger’s also has chicken, turkey, veggie and vegan sandwiches and salads. Charbroil is their mode of cooking.
They have done several things right; they moved next door to WssNews (we eat a lot) and he has made a commitment to the San Bernardino rebound with his 24-hour service. His menu is exciting, and his food is very good.
Roger’s website iswww.rogersburgersusa.comand you can phone in your order at (909) 381-8001. Roger’s other location is in Burbank.
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK)—RIALTO, CA—On Saturday, August 4 at the Johnson Center in Rialto, there were hundreds of cheerful and grateful smiles and gestures as students prepared for the new school year as they were given free backpacks and hair cuts.
Another successful Back to School Backpack Giveaway is under wraps thanks to Rialto Mayor Deborah Robertson and CEO and founder of Young Visionaries, Terrance Stone. Of course they couldn’t have made the event successful without the generous support of their volunteers and sponsors.
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)— RANCHO CUCAMONGA, CA— Jazz Enthusiasts, coming to the Inland Empire Labor Day Weekend Saturday, September 1, for the I. E. Jazz Experience in Rancho Cucamonga at the Beautiful Mountain Vista Winery.
It will be a day of great live jazz music and bands, great wine, selection of food vendors and a marketplace. The artist lineup for this year is Jason Weber, Michael Haggins, Vaughn Fahie, Nick Gomez and the Latin express, Jazz Zone, and more.
There will also be a Paint n Sip event throughout the festival for those that want to learn how to paint and sip on some great wine.
In the tasting room, sample great wines also featuring various wine demonstrations, fun lectures, more live entertainment and workshops. Listen to http://BACRadio.com to win tickets and for more details go tohttps://iejazzfestival.com
Advance tickets are on sale now. Get them before the price goes up!
John Jennings discusses the challenge of transforming the beloved classic into a best-selling graphic novel.
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)— RIVERSIDE, CA— For graphic novelist and illustrator John Jennings, transforming Octavia E. Butler’s classic “Kindred” into a graphic novel was both physically and emotionally draining.
Jennings, a professor of media and cultural studies at the University of California, Riverside, created the adaptation with fellow scholar, graphic novelist, and longtime collaborator Damian Duffy for Abrams ComicArts.
Published in January 2017, “Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation” debuted at No.1 on the New York Time’s Best Sellers list for hardcover graphic books and has received wide acclaim, garnering a Bram Stoker Award among other honors. Now, it is a finalist for this year’sEisner Awards for best adaptation from another medium.
Jennings, who provided the illustrations for the 240-page book, called the 11-month process “a small miracle.” The work took a physical toll — Jennings injured his shoulder while working on the illustrations — but also an emotional one.
Originally published in 1979, Butler’s story focuses on Dana, an African American woman who is transported to a pre-Civil War-era Maryland plantation, returning numerous times to help her white ancestor Rufus whenever he finds himself in grave danger. Trapped in the past, she experiences firsthand the harrowing cruelty inflicted on her own enslaved ancestors and later, herself.
Turning Butler’s book into a graphic novel presented Jennings and Duffy with several unique challenges, from figuring out how to truncate Butler’s seminal work while doing it justice, to the many aesthetic considerations involved in converting prose to a highly visual medium.
“You can’t go word-for-word with a comic book adaptation because they handle storytelling differently,” Jennings said. “We actually had less pages to tell the same story. Octavia was a masterful writer, but even with the terseness of her words, we still had hundreds of words that had to be cut and instead shown. That’s the thing in comics books; you need to show, don’t tell.”
To depict the time periods, Jennings played with the book’s color schemes, muting the present day and making the past full-color.
“Normally when you’re doing flashback stories, the current day is vibrant and in color and the past is kind of sepia-toned, but we wanted to do something different,” Jennings said. “We wanted to play around with the fact that in the book, Octavia talks about how vibrant and how real the past was, and how bright and harsh it is, so we decided to do the opposite.”
For the scenes in the present, Jennings drew inspiration for the color tones from an unlikely place.
“I actually sampled some of the colors from bruises and blood. The idea is that it’s her blood relationship to Rufus that continues to pull her back. It’s about family ties. That red is actually the color of what scabbed-over blood looks like.”
In Butler’s novel, time travel is more supernatural than scientific. To achieve this transition in the graphic novel, a subtle breakdown of the borders of the panels occurs. The lines become fractured and frenetic as Dana is pulled back and disappear completely when she finds herself on the other side of time.
Jennings found the experience of immersing himself so deeply in slavery especially difficult, noting he is a descendent of slaves in the South.
“I was crying physically onto the pages that I was drawing, because it’s so powerful, and so prescient, and so meaningful still today in the middle of the Black Lives Matter era. How do you get across visually the feeling of this book? My drawings were really manic, and energetic, and they make people uncomfortable.”
Despite the arduous process of creating the graphic novel, Jennings found the experience hugely rewarding, and it served as his first foray into mainstream work.
“These are things that really effect black people in America still, the wages of slavery which I think our country is still paying, and you can see how that presents itself in our current political climate,” Jennings said.
In graphic novel form, “Kindred” is offering new audiences a chance to experience Butler’s thought-provoking work.
“Some people who have never read comic books before have picked up ‘Kindred,’ Jennings said. “A lot of the time, it’s the first sci-fi or speculative story people have read, because sci-fi is still dealing with representation issues with people of color.”
Jennings will be at this year’s Comic-Con in San Diego, participating in several panels and attending the Eisner Awards ceremony on July 20. Known as the “Oscars” of the comic book industry, the awards are named for the pioneering comics creator and graphic novelist Will Eisner. Jennings previously received an Eisner for his scholarly work, “The Blacker the Ink,” but the nomination for “Kindred” marks the first time he has been nominated for his graphic novel work as an artist.
“It’s a huge honor, especially to represent Octavia Butler’s legacy,” Jennings said of the author, who died in 2006. “I’m so glad we are a part of getting people to read her work and push her into the future. I’m hoping that if she’s out there somewhere looking at us, that she’s happy with what we’ve done, and we want to continue celebrating her.”
A softcover adaptation of “Kindred” is due at the end of July, and the adaptation will also be translated to Spanish, French, and Swedish, with those editions released in the fall.
John Jennings at Comic-Con
Jennings will be participating in five panels during Comic-Con International: San Diego. In addition to the various panels, he will also be attending the post-con offsite event, AfroFuturism Lounge, which he helped organize. Catch Jennings at the following panels and events:
Inland Affiliate Hosts Breakfast Wednesday Dedicated to Empowering, Supporting Community
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)— SAN BERNARDINO, CA —- Susan G. Komen IE is hosted a special breakfast on Wednesday, August 1 at Dignity Health St. Bernardine Medical Center in San Bernardino to educate, empower and mobilize the African-American community in the fight against breast cancer.
The breakfast was part of a broader statewide program known as the Susan G. Komen Circle of Promise Initiative that focuses on addressing breast cancer disparities among African-American women by educating the community and providing better access to care. The statewide program is made possible in part by a grant from the Anthem Blue Cross, Foundation, LLC. Proceeds from the breakfast help fund education, screenings, diagnostics, treatment, patient navigation and research to help find cures for breast cancers.
“All women and men, regardless of race, ethnicity, place of residence or socioeconomic status, should be empowered to take personal action and access appropriate breast health services. However, many African American women still face barriers to screening, diagnosis and treatment services,” said Jill Eaton, Susan G. Komen Inland Empire executive director. “The Circle of Promise initiative will make a significant impact on the lives of women in the Inland region, across the state, and ultimately, save lives.”
Gains from the war on breast cancer have sidestepped African-American women. Prior to 1980, African-American and white women faced nearly identical mortality rates of approximately 33 deaths per 100,000. But today, African-American women are 40 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than white women.
In fact, these women are between 40 to 70 percent more likely to have a late-stage diagnosis, are more likely to be diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer, and are also more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer at a younger age.
For women without health coverage, the burden is even greater – uninsured women have a 30 to 50 percent increased risk of dying from breast cancer than those with insurance.
In San Bernardino County, there is a mounting crisis in the lack of quality and affordable breast health care services. There has been a dramatic decline in the number of surgeons, oncologists and primary care physicians available to serve African-American women, regardless of their insurance status.
The breakfast at St. Bernardine Medical Center, Matich Conference Center, featured speeches by:
Dr. Margaret Hill, a member of the San Bernardino City Unified District Board of Trustees who will share her own story of battling breast cancer;
Michelle Melancon, a certified oncology nurse and accredited oncology nurse navigator who recently was honored by Dignity Health St. Bernardine Medical Center for her work as a breast cancer navigator
Dr. Krissa Smith, director of research programs for the Komen Research Programs Department
Follow the Susan G. Komen Inland Empire affiliate on Facebook Susan G. Komen Inland Empire and or Twitter.
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)- SAN BERNARDINO, CA— San Bernardino County Superintendent Ted Alejandre was
Superintendent Ted Alejandre
unanimously chosen as president-elect in 2019 for the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association (CCSESA).
Alejandre, who was elected to his second term as San Bernardino County superintendent in June, will serve as president-elect beginning Jan. 1, 2019. In 2020, he will serve as president of the organization, which includes the 58 county superintendents throughout California. CCSESA’s mission is to strengthen the service and leadership capabilities of the state’s county superintendents in support of students, schools, districts and communities.
“It is a tremendous honor to be selected as the president-elect of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association,” Alejandre said. “I look forward to the leadership position and helping support the terrific work being accomplished at the state level by CCSESA.”
As president-elect of CCSESA, Alejandre will serve on the group’s executive committee for three years. Currently, Alejandre serves as the Region 10 chair for the organization.
For more information about CCSESA, visit the organization’s website awww.ccsesa.org.
(EMPIRE NEWS NETWORK (ENN)—— Canvassing in the scorching heat, knocking door-to-door, talking to residents to get pledge cards, and testifying during public hearings. Sounds extensive, doesn’t it? These sorts of actions are typical for local volunteer, Mariana Lopez.
A recent 23-year-old graduate from the University of California at Irvine, Lopez triple-majored in international studies, sociology, and political science. She’s been a resident of Rubidoux for the majority of her life–a community she says she “wouldn’t leave at all.”
“You can empower and uplift your community when you truly understand the issues affecting people.”
Because of Lopez’s efforts, industry led efforts like Proposition 70 (Cap and Trade Vote Amendment) are being defeated at the ballot box. She was also CCAEJ’s top signature getter in our efforts to repeal Proposition 13. Lopez obtained 55 signatures, more than twice the number volunteers were asked to get.
CCAEJ Civic Engagement Director Italia Garcia notes that Lopez took “a lot of self-initiative” in the process, going above and beyond to attain signatures.
“Mariana really stands out among volunteers because she has great leadership skills and work ethics,” Garcia explains. “She really cares about making a change in her community.”
Civic engagement has always been an important aspect of Lopez’s life. She began volunteering at St. John’s Church, supporting her father’s weekly food pantry program. Interacting with others in the community, especially those from low-income backgrounds, motivated Lopez to dedicate herself to making a difference. While studying abroad in Barcelona, she organized students for a Sisters/Women’s march–where she became truly passionate for “advocating and uplifting everyone’s voices, especially those of women.”
“If you’re truly passionate about what it is you are supporting, I think that will be reflected when you’re communicating with people,” Lopez says about her experiences.
Shortly after returning from Barcelona, Lopez learned about a controversial incident at Rubidoux High School, in which various teachers made derogatory comments about students who chose to participate in the ‘Day Without Immigrants’ protest.
“I was so mad that teachers we looked up to could make racist comments and mock those who participated,” she said about the incident at her alma mater.
With the help of the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Lopez learned how to “mobilize the community” in a manner that was non-violent, yet direct.
Through phone banking, Lopez contacted community members–urging them to attend and testify at public hearings to demand action against the teachers. Lopez also testified at one of these hearings, an experience she admitted was frightening for her.
“[My siblings and I] had a close relationship with one of those teachers…so for me it was really scary to go out and testify…but that didn’t hold me back,” she recalls.
In fact, Lopez is now helping lead an effort to bring further resources to undocumented students. The goal, she explained, is to have DREAM Resource Centers at all three Jurupa Unified School District high schools.
“To me, I know that the little action I’m taking will hopefully impact or motivate others to volunteer or help out in the community,” said Lopez. “It’s like voting. If you truly want to see a change within your community, go out and do something. Be relentless about it.”
Westside Story Newspaper – Online The News of The Empire – Sharing the Quest for Excellence
