Jessica Koslow

Executive Director Valarie Gomez has been working at the West San Gabriel Valley YMCA for 21-plus years. This is not the most impressive Y-related trivia relating to her life. Her grandparents met at the Ketchum-Downtown YMCA on 4th and Hope Streets after World War II. 

“My grandmother was a part-time bookkeeper, and my grandfather didn’t want to go back to Nebraska, so he came to California for the opportunity of growth and development — very similar to what the Y offers — and he landed at the Y because of the boarding that they had at the downtown YMCA,” said Gomez. “They met and fell in love, and they both stayed at the Y. My grandfather did the printing until the last 10 or 15 years of his life. Unfortunately, they’re not living anymore, but I wish they were because I could share this joy with them that I found at the Y.” . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

Feeding the cats in the neighborhood is not the problem, according to Jasmine Jones, a longtime DTLA resident and creator of the group DTLA Cats. Everybody leaves food out in the neighborhood. The bigger issue, and the one Jones has been tackling for the past five years, is saving lives through trap-neuter-return (TNR and rescue, reducing shelter intake and euthanasia).

TNR consists of trapping the stray community cats; bringing them to a veterinary clinic to be spayed or neutered, vaccinated and treated for fleas; allowing them to recover safely for a short period of time; and then returning them to the only home they know, which is outdoors.

“It’s the most humane and effective way to reduce the suffering and overpopulation of outdoor cats,” Jones explained. “It prevents endless litters from being born on the streets, reduces fighting and roaming, and helps cats live healthier, safer lives. Los Angeles has one of the largest stray cat populations in the country, and downtown is no exception. This work is urgent, and it’s very local.”
. . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

When Jill Weiss Ippolito leads yoga classes at juvenile halls, she often hears, “Yoga, what’s that? Then she sits down and says, “I was a kid in juvenile hall myself,” to which the response usually is, “What were you arrested for?”

Ippolito responds, “I didn’t run fast enough.”

Ippolito admitted that she doesn’t look like somebody that the juveniles could relate to but that has not stopped her from remaining committed to UpRising Yoga’s (URY) mission: To offer yoga life skills programs for those incarcerated and underserved communities. . . .

Read the entire article in Pasadena Weekly.

Like peanut butter and jelly or Snoopy and Woodstock, dinner and a movie are a classic combination. Kicking off this January, the Culver Hotel on Culver Boulevard is hosting “Feast & Film,” an Old Hollywood style experience that pairs a three-course dinner with a movie screening across the courtyard at the art-deco designed Culver Theater.

“We did get moviegoers dining at our restaurant, but that’s not actually how we came up with the idea for Feast & Film,” explained Danielle Goller, General Manager at the Culver Hotel. “We hosted a ‘The Golden Screen: A Cinema Series’ that we started last year. It celebrated the 100th anniversary of the hotel and the 100th anniversary of MGM. The Culver Theater played original MGM movies and after guests saw the movie, they would come to our speakeasy lounge, the Velvet Lounge, and have a themed bite and drink.” . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

When Oliver Alpuche worked at Nike, he was asked to create an authentic running community. As he began to produce events and build community, he realized that work can be so much more than a job; it can spark inspiration.

“It lit a fire within me,” he explained. “When I opened a bar downtown called Redline, I still had that same passion. As I looked at starting my own business, I asked, how do I build an authentic queer community?”

In 2015, three gay bars opened in DTLA: Precinct, Bar Mattachine and Redline. One of Alpuche’s goals was to create a queer community hangout, but he also had bigger plans. DTLA Proud was born the following year to, in Alpuche’s words, let greater Los Angeles know about its vibrant gay community and nightlife. . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

On Dec. 31, 2024, Gayle Nicholls-Ali and her husband touched down in Nassau, Bahamas, to celebrate their 43rd anniversary and her recent retirement from teaching photography for 20 years. One week later, the Eaton Fire burned down their home.

“I not only lost my home, but I lost all my equipment and my photo studio,” said the founder of Altadena Photographers, a volunteer-driven organization created to help creatives recover from the Eaton Fire. “We were trapped in the Bahamas. My son kept telling us, don’t come back to LA. There’s no place to live. He was also displaced. In February, I started to formulate the organization and by the time I came back on March 11, it was already in full swing.”

“I decided to start the organization because I was looking online at what was happening in our community, and I saw that Brandon Jay had started Altadena Musicians,” she continued. “I know that I’m not the only photographer in Altadena. I know I’m not the only artist in Altadena. I commented on a post he made, and I said, who’s taking care of the photographers? And he said, why don’t you? I took him up on the challenge.”. . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

Shira Lazar thinks big. She is the founder and CEO of What’s Trending, a multiplatform digital media brand, and a content creator. It is because of what she does that she started Creators 4 Mental Health (C4MH), which offers well-being tools to the creator economy through education, events and research. Many of her events are held in Venice, such as The Kinn.

This month, Lazar traveled to Dubai, where she emcee’d the creator economy stage the 1 Billion Followers Summit, and flew back to Washington, D.C. on Jan. 15 to meet with California Representative Ro Khanna, who was introducing the Creator Bill of Rights, a resolution supporting fairer treatment, economic security and transparency for creators and digital workers in the modern platform-based economy.

According to the Creator Bill’s press release, the creator economy is worth $250 billion globally and is expected to reach $480 billion by 2027. It provides income for 12% of U.S. adults and has emerged as a full-time job for more than 10 million Americans. . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.

Because Antonio Manning had lived in Altadena since 1991, the Eaton Fire was personal. Like many of his neighbors, he experienced a total loss. As a business person with 30-plus years in the banking finance world, specifically working with nonprofits, he became interested in the recovery process. In late summer 2025, he started attending the Eaton Fire Collaborative meetings at the Pasadena Elks Lodge.

The Eaton Fire Collaborative has been meeting weekly since Jan. 14, 2025. The group brings together community groups, local nonprofits and city, county and state officials dedicated to supporting the rebuilding and recovery of Altadena, Pasadena and Sierra Madre. Soon, Manning assumed the role of chair of the Eaton Fire Collaborative Long-Term Recovery Group.

As Chair, the first order of business, according to Manning, was to bring a more formal structure to the group and its processes. The first steps were to get the leadership team in place and adopt bylaws. . . .

Read the entire article at Pasadena Weekly.

When Albert Zakhor rented a building 30 years ago for $350/month on the corner of Maple Avenue and East 9th Street, he was following in the entrepreneurial footsteps of his father, uncles and grandfather: buying and selling buttons.

Since the age of 1, his family was in the button business, eventually owning a button-making factory in Iran. After the Iranian Revolution ended in 1979 and the factory was confiscated, the family relocated to Los Angeles.

“Buttons are very strange merchandise,” said Zakhor. “It’s not food; it’s not building material. But dresses need a button and a zipper to close it. Nobody believes that the button is important, but it’s very important, and it’s very unique.” . . .

Read the entire article at LA Downtown News.

Although she has been working in jazz radio for 50 years, Rhonda Hamilton was still surprised to receive a call from the National Endowment for the Arts informing her that she was the recipient of the 2026 A.B. Spellman NEA Jazz Master Award for Jazz Advocacy.

“That came as a big surprise,” Hamilton, who joined KJAZZ 88.1 in October 2021, shared. “I never expected that at all. When you’re working every day, you just do it. I’m not thinking about the impact that this has had. I started when I was in college in 1975. So here we are: This is 50 years, and when I think about that, my goodness, it’s a long time.”

When she first got the message to call somebody from the NEA, she thought, “That’s interesting, maybe they’re asking me to recommend somebody?” . . .

Read the entire article at The Argonaut.