Daily Archives: June 1, 2017

Hello there! This is Verlie Pickens, Verlie Mae Pickens. My family, friends and I will celebrate my 101st birthday on June 11, 2017! I invite everyone in the community to celebrate with me. In this article, I want to share with you my answers to questions that Anh Lê, a writer and journalist and a family friend, asked me. Ms. Verlie Mae Pickens, we wish you a very happy birthday! We wish you much good health, and abundant joy and happiness, Ms. Pickens!

It’s Friday afternoon at the drop-in center known as Mother Brown’s on the corner of Jennings Street and Van Dyke Avenue. Despite the iron-gated door fronting the entrance, people drop in freely to check their mail, take a shower, do laundry or chill out in the reception area. For a nominal fee, Mother Brown’s rents out lockers. Gwendolyn Westbrook, the director of the United Council of Human Services – the official name of Mother Brown’s – as well as staff, describe the place as a community center. Client Johnny Scott likens Mother Brown’s to a family. “This here is a place where people get along,” he says.

Kyle Wiggins started Wiggins Consulting to help businesses grow and refine their products and services. Desiring to be more strategic and supportive in a targeted fashion, he created TownBiz, a platform for expression where both budding and established businesses could showcase their goods while networking with like-minded entrepreneurs. TownBiz is a free trade market, serving as a launching pad for vendors.

Five hundred people packed an Oakland church to welcome Dr. Maryse Narcisse, presidential candidate of Fanmi Lavalas, the party of Haiti’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The event kicked off a week-long speaking tour of California that took her to Scripps College in Los Angeles County, the UCLA School of Public Health and the National Lawyers Guild annual dinner in San Francisco.