Jessica Koslow

The seed for Saved by a Story, a nonprofit that hosts free community writing workshops, was planted while Kathy Katims was reading an article about foster youth. One of the distinct pains that people in the foster care system experienced was the absence of somebody to hold their story: riding a tricycle at the age of two, making a friend at five and playing baseball at 11.

In graduate school, when Katims was asked to create a project connecting her field of study, writing, with social justice, she knew exactly where to start.

“I had an idea that if I gathered a group of foster youth and offered a prompt writing workshop, people could hold their narrative for themselves and also share it,” said Katims. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

In 2011, when Pasadena local Kimberly Bautista finished her award-winning documentary about femicide in Guatemala, titled “Justice for My Sister,” her work had just begun. Partnering with survivors, organizers and artists to host community screenings, self-defense trainings and resource-sharing events, she traveled to more than 200 communities and, in doing so, realized she was creating a space for connection, healing and action.

Over the next four years, Bautista began to hatch a plan: launch a nonprofit for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) women, nonbinary youth, foster youth and survivors of gender-based violence, called Justice For My Sister (JFMS), focusing on youth leadership, workforce development and systems change. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

The month of October has become synonymous with breast cancer awareness. Yet Westside Family Health Center remains focused year-round on educating and servicing its patients about the second most common cancer in American women.

Last year WFHC celebrated its 50th anniversary. The Federally Qualified Health Center offers services to 13,000-plus patients spread throughout 170 zip codes in Los Angeles.

“The service that we provide is a screening mammogram,” said Felicia Osborn, Medical Director of Reproductive Health and Prenatal Programs. “Some are coming for the first time when they turn 40, and others are continuing their health maintenance. They have had mammograms in the past and either had abnormal ones and are returning for a screening mammogram or they’re continuing their screening mammograms for prevention purposes to detect cancer.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

Coach Lisa Thomas launched the Pasadena-based Move Your Feet Tennis Foundation (MYFTF) seven years ago, because as a young woman growing up in Chicago, she had been impacted by a similar organization, in which tennis players taught kids in the community how to play. 

“That was such a substantial time in my life,” Thomas said. “I feel like I wouldn’t have been the person that I became without that start. My intention is always to give back and to give the opportunity that I had to as many kids as I can.”

Thomas played both tennis and basketball in high school and college, at which time she was drafted by the first professional basketball league in the United States, the Women’s Professional Basketball League, where she played from 1979 to 1982. In 2018, she was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame — the same year she started Move Your Feet. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.