Jessica Koslow

What Estela Zarate was seeing and hearing from the city’s school leaders and administrators, teachers and Loyola Marymount University (LMU) faculty and staff was that mental health had become a defining challenge for schools and communities. As LMU’s School of Education Dean, Zarate had the power and resources to do something about it.

On March 12, K-12 principals, educational leaders, policymakers, practitioners and clinicians, district and community partners and other stakeholders invested in the mental health of today’s youth convened in the Life Sciences Building at LMU to discuss the far-reaching impacts of federal immigration enforcement actions on children and adults. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

In 2001, Lise Bornstein joined — and now co-leads — KFA Architecture, which has completed approximately 60 buildings in Santa Monica, Venice, The Marina and Westchester, including Santa Monica Swim Center, Santa Monica Boys & Girls Club’s JAMS Clubhouse and Mar Vista Youth Center. She alternates projects between market rate and affordable housing and community-enhancing buildings.

“I love creating places where people flourish,” said Bornstein. “I love working with great people, both in our office and partnering with great developers, who have vision and also similar values of community-building: making sure that we have a good pedestrian experience, that we are not closing ourselves away from our neighbors and that we’re creating neighborhood.”

Bornstein was always building things as a kid. Her dad was an engineer, so she followed suit and started out in engineering. But then she switched courses to dig deeper into her fascination with cities and the built environment—”all the complexity and simplicity that goes into it,” she said. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

To say Sandra Mejia and her husband Bantalem have green thumbs is an understatement. The owners and founders of The Plant Chica, now located in Leimert Park, are spreading green love and oxygenating the atmosphere one indoor plant at a time.

The Plant Chica started as a side project in 2018 when the couple welcomed their son, Alem. They grew and cared for the indoor plants at their at-home greenhouse.

“We didn’t think anything of it,” Mejia explained. “It was just us setting up on random corners, selling plants and then it kind of took off. We started selling plants online on Etsy, and we became very popular there.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

CORE, according to its website, was started by a scrappy team of idealists determined to ease the suffering and destruction around them. One of those idealists was actor Sean Penn, who met CORE’s (Community Organized Relief Effort) co-founder, Ann Lee, at a displacement camp in Haiti while responding to the 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan. 12, 2010, that killed more than 220,000 people and left another 1.5 million homeless.

Since 2010, CORE has grown into a global team and, on Jan. 7, 2025, the organization prepared to respond to what would become the tragic aftermath of the wildfires in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

CORE Program Area Manager Matt Gsell lives in Sherman Oaks, just between both fire areas. He is responsible for the 14 caseworkers who each work with about 35 clients/families from the affected areas. CORE helps with everything from basic needs to rebuilding, housing to educational support — “anything that people need to get them back to where they were pre-disaster,” said Gsell. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

As the co-founder and CEO of the e-commerce platform Stan, John Hu identified a problem: Even the most promising creators rarely get the resources or funding to turn early momentum into sustainable businesses.

Successful entrepreneurs find solutions, and so Hu launched the Dare to Dream Challenge to, according to its press release, “flip the traditional American Dream narrative, moving away from the ‘white picket fence’ ideal toward a new version of success defined by creative freedom and doing work you love.”

More than 2,500 creators from around the world shared their dreams as part of the 2026 challenge, which ran from late 2025 through early 2026, with the winners announced on February 27. The grand prize is $100,000 to dedicate 2026 to building your dream, and five runner-up Creators each received $10,000 in funding. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Bryant Acosta may look young, but his resume is impressive. As a chief creative officer, he has built systems using advanced technology and helped shape global brands. As the CEO of Nightbreed, he has brought communities together through events that amplify marginalized voices and create safe spaces for all people.

He is also a first-generation American, openly gay Latino, and he is running for LA mayor alongside around 40 other candidates.

“I did my research on my opponents, and I don’t see anybody that’s bringing the experience that I’m bringing to the table,” said Acosta. “No shade to people, but there are a lot of community organizers, lawyers, people that are working in the public space, but they don’t have the organizational skills and multimillion-dollar budget experience. They don’t have multidisciplinary team experience. I feel like that is my lane and I’m sticking to.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.