Pictured above and below: Local nonprofit Corazón Healdsburg hosted a sweet “baby shower” last Tuesday for the largest class to graduate yet from its “Mi Bebé y Yo” prenatal workshop series. Twenty-one families just completed the program, according to Corazón spokesperson Holly Fox — and “for the first time ever,” she says, “Corazón formally incorporated a series of support group sessions… so that parents and families could build relationships and share experiences as they navigated this important life transition together.”
So this year’s graduation was an extra celebratory and emotional affair, complete with classic baby shower games and rounds of Lotería; giveaways of essential items like diapers, baby clothes, car seats and handmade quilts from volunteer Tina Crabtree; and plenty of tacos to go around. FYI, the Mi Bebé y Yo program covers topics like “physical and emotional changes during pregnancy, parenting roles and life adjustments after birth, parent-infant engagement, breastfeeding, brain and infant development, postpartum mood disorders and self-care, as well as infant care and safety.” It also just gives local Spanish speakers a place to navigate early parenthood as a community, instead of going it alone. Learn more here.
Next up: River’s Edge Kayak & Canoe, which runs river trips out to and from Memorial Beach in Healdsburg, arranged a bunch of kayaks in the shape of a love letter to the NOAA late last month. I’m assuming that stands for National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, the federal weather-monitoring agency that has been targeted by the Trump administration’s budget cuts, but I’ve reached out to River’s Edge to clarify!
And below is a recent pic shared by Farm to Pantry, our local food-justice nonprofit. According to org rep Kelly Conrad, it shows special-needs volunteers from the Santa Rosa-based Becoming Independent program helping out at the Mason Street community garden near the train depot, across the street from the Longboard Vineyards tasting room. Each Wednesday, they tend to the garden’s “empowerment plot,” as Farm to Pantry calls it.
Kelly explains: “The Mason St. Garden Empowerment Plot (a former industrial equipment staging area) addresses land equity and food justice. We are working together with local community members (many of whom live in apartments with no land space for a garden) to transform this county-owned plot of land into a space where community members have the resources to grow their own food. We hope the Mason Street project will blossom into a place of genuine community, where the marginalized feel welcome, cared for and safe.” If you want to get involved, Farm to Pantry hosts a Mason Street garden workday every Thursday from 9am-noon.
Note from Simone: These photos originally appeared in the weekly email newsletter I write for the Healdsburg Tribune, called Healdsburg Today. Subscribe here!
