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AUSTIN, Texas A mothers obesity in pregnancy can affect her childs development years down the road, according to researchers who found impaired motor skills in preschoolers and lower IQ in middle childhood for boys whose mothers were severely overweight while expecting them. A team of nutrition and environmental health researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Columbia University found that the differences are comparable to the impact of lead exposure in early childhood.

The team studied 368 mothers and their children, all from similar economic circumstances and neighborhoods, during pregnancy and when the children were 3 and 7 years of age. At age 3, the researchers measured the childrens motor skills and found that maternal obesity during pregnancy was strongly associated with lower motor skills in boys. At age 7, they again measured the children and found that the boys whose mothers were overweight or obese in pregnancy had scores 5 or more points lower on full-scale IQ tests, compared with boys whose mothers had been at a normal weight.

No effect was found in the girls.

Whats striking is, even using different age-appropriate developmental assessments, we found these associations in both early and middle childhood, meaning these effects persist over time, said Elizabeth Widen, assistant professor of nutritional sciences at UT Austin. These findings arent meant to shame or scare anyone. We are just beginning to understand some of these interactions between mothers weight and the health of their babies.

It isnt clear why obesity in pregnancy would affect a child later, though previous research has found links between a mothers diet and cognitive development, such as higher IQ scores in kids whose mothers have more of certain fatty acids found in fish. Widen said that dietary and behavioral differences may be driving factors, or fetal development may be affected by some of the things that tend to happen in the bodies of people with too much extra weight, such as inflammation, metabolic stress, hormonal disruptions and high amounts of insulin and glucose.

The researchers controlled for several factors in their analysis, including race and ethnicity, marital status, the mothers education and IQ, as well as whether the children were born prematurely or exposed to environmental irritants such as air pollution. What the pregnant mothers ate or whether they breastfed were not included in the analysis.

The team also examined and accounted for the nurturing environment in a childs home in early childhood, looking at how parents interacted with their children and whether the child was provided with books and toys. A nurturing home environment was found to lessen the negative effects of obesity.

The effect on IQ was smaller in nurturing home environments, but it was still there, Widen said.

This is not the first study to find that boys appear to be more vulnerable in utero. A 2018 study found lower performance IQ in boys, but not girls, whose mothers were exposed to lead, and a 2019 study suggested boys whose moms had fluoride in pregnancy scored lower on an IQ assessment.

Because childhood IQ is a predictor of education level, socioeconomic status and professional success later in life, the researchers said there is potential for effects to last into adulthood.

Widen advised women who are obese or overweight when they become pregnant to eat a well-balanced diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables, take a prenatal vitamin, stay active and make sure to get enough fatty acids such as the kind found in fish oil. Giving children a nurturing home environment also matters, as does seeing a doctor regularly, including during pregnancy to discuss weight gain.

Work with your doctor and talk about what is appropriate for your circumstances, Widen said.

The families involved in the research were participating in theurban birth cohort studyin New York City led by theColumbia Center for Childrens Environmental Health. The study on IQ at age 7 was published today in BMC Pediatrics with co-authors Amy Nichols and Sara Dube of UT Austin; Linda Kahn of New York University; and Pam Factor-Litvak, Beverly Insel, Lori Hoepner, Virginia Rauh, Frederica Perera and Andrew Rundle of Columbia University. The same team, absent Dube and Kahn, were involved in a paper about the children at age 3, published in September in the Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease.

Funding support for the research was provided by the Thrasher Research Fund, the National Institutes of Health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Irving General Clinical Research Center, the Educational Foundation of America, the Neu Family Foundation, the New York Community Trust and the Trustees of the Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund. Widen holds the Amy Johnson McLaughlin Administrative Chair in Human Ecology at The University of Texas at Austin.

Link:
Obesity in Pregnant Moms Linked to Lag in Their Sons' Development and IQ - UT News | The University of Texas at Austin

It has been a dangerous year to ride a bike in New York City. More cyclists have died in 2019 than any other year since 2000. Overall traffic deaths have also increased compared to the same time last year205 up from 192 according to the Department of Transportation. But cycling deaths have nearly tripled this year compared to last.

Since January 1st we have reported on the preliminary investigations, the ensuing cyclist ticketing blitzs, and the occasional criminal charges. Eighteen crashes took place in Brooklyn. Twelve involved a truck. All but one involved a driver. Mayor Bill de Blasio acknowledged the crisis in July, and committed to accelerating the installation of protected bike lanes in underserved neighborhoods like Brownsville and Corona. Since the mayor announced these efforts, ten more cyclists have been killed by drivers.

Amid all of this carnage, it can be hard to fathom that each statistic represents a life.

This is our effort to honor those lives. Over the course of the last month weve learned that those killed while riding a bike were immigrants from Japan, Bangladesh and Israel; native New Yorkers and recent arrivals from Virginia, Kentucky, and Massachusetts; children and teenagers who loved video games and soccer. Grandmothers who loved to exercise, and practice yoga. A sculptor, a triathlete, a civil servant, and a rising indie wrestling star. People who cycled for work, for environmental reasons, to save on subway fare, and just to clear their heads.

See our infographic of all the cyclists who were killed on New York City streets in 2019.

Throughout these conversations, we also heard what friends and family think it will take to stop these deaths. Making biking safe here has to be for all types of people, said Rose Kaplan-Bomberg, girlfriend of Em Samolewicz, a cyclist who was killed in July. Not just people who can be very hardcore about keeping themselves safe in a particular way.

Note: Our figure of 28 cyclist deaths includes Donald Roberts, who is excluded from the official DOT count because the driver is accused of deliberately killing Roberts with his vehicle and has been charged with murder. This story will be updated through January 1st, 2020. Some families declined to speak with us, others we were not able to contact. You can reach us at tips@gothamist.com.

Listen to Emma Whitford and Gwynne Hogan's segment about this year's cyclist fatalities on WNYC:

Hugo Alexander Sinto Garcia

Hugo Garcia was working as a delivery cyclist for Bagels By the Park in Carroll Gardens when a taxi driver doored him on Third Avenue on New Years Day, 2019. The impact sent the 26-year-old off of his e-bike and into traffic, where a second driver fatally struck him. "He was a great kid. A great worker, the bagel shop owner, who identified himself as James, told Gothamist recently. Everyone was very emotionally attached to him." The driver who doored Hugo was eventually charged with a violation for unsafely opening a door, which carries a $138 fine.

Hector Ayala Jr.

Hector Ayala Jr.s family declined a request for an interview with Gothamist. Some of us are still trying to get over his death, his brother Richard explained in a text message. The 41-year-old was struck by a van driver while biking across Linden Boulevard near his home at the Louis Hinton Pink Houses in East New York on January 4th. The crash took place shortly before 4:00 that morning.

Susan Moses Courtesy of family.

Susan Moses

Susan Moses turned heads. She broke the hearts of many, Susans daughter Lila Lieberman, 42, said. When I was young and they would hit on her I would yell at them. The 63-year-old grandmother of five was born Shoshana Lerner in 1955, in Israel. Her father was a Holocoust survivor. He lost a lot and she was very much in touch with that part of her, Lieberman told us. Susan met her husband during her mandatory army service in Israel. They had an army wedding, and he immigrated first, to Borough Park. Susan followed after less than a year, but struggled to feel completely at home in New York City. She felt very lonely at times, not exactly sure where she would fit in, Lieberman said. Months-long trips back to Israel didnt feel quite right either. Susan and her husband got a divorce in 1992, and she eventually began dating a man named Jerry, who she lived with for 25 years up until the fatal crash on Kings Highway in Gravesend on January 26th. She also got her Certified Nursing Assistant license, and worked for several years at Coney Island Hospital. She was in phenomenal health, Lieberman said of her mother. Her mode of transportation was the bike. She loved being out and exercising. It helped regroup her mind. It was just so helpful for her and she would do it in the dead of winter, even. As much as we were all worried.

The day of the crash, Susan was returning from a manicure and pedicure, and a shopping trip to TJ Maxx. She succumbed to her injuries on February 2nd. The Uber driver who killed Susan was not charged, but his license was later revoked at a DMV hearing. That was the only justice we had, Lieberman said. Both Lieberman and Susans partner believe cyclists should be required to wear helmets, after Susan left hers at home. There has to be some sort of re-education and bigger crackdown on people who are not driving safely, Lieberman added. Thats really the biggest issue.

Chaim Joseph

What I gleaned from all of my conversations with people who knew Chaim was that he loved his bicycle and dedicated much of his time to charitable acts and social justice activities, said Families for Safe Streets organizer Chana Widawski. It sounds like his acts of kindness to all living beings were inspirational to many.

Chaim, 72, was fatally struck while biking on 8th Avenue in Hells Kitchen just before 6:00 a.m. on February 4th. Kenneth Jackson, who was behind the wheel of an Approved Oil truck, struck Chaim while turning left onto 45th Street, according to police. Jackson left the scene, and was arrested on March 26th and charged with violating the Right of Way Law, as well as failure to exercise due care. He was arraigned in late May. Chaims partner did not respond to an interview request from Gothamist.

Widawski, who lives in Hells Kitchen, noted that Chaims name was printed incorrectly in the press after his death, often with his first and last name reversed. Police originally identified him as Joseph Chiam. His actual name, Chaim, means life. And it broke my heart to see him misnamed repeatedly in the press, Widawski said. I ride by Chaim's white memorial bike nearly every night, Widawski added. Each time uttering his name out loud and thinking about a life so senselessly cut short.

Aurilla Lawrence. courtesy Shardy Nieves.

Aurilla Lawrence

Shardy Nieves, a bike messenger from Harlem, remembers the snowy day in 2015 when he met Aurilla Lawrence. I put out on social media, Hey anyone want to meet up and shoot photos in the snow?' Nieves, 39, recalled in a recent phone interview, while biking through Herald Square on a delivery. And she was the only one who said, Hey, I want to come out. Aurilla, a Paducah, Kentucky native who moved to New York City that year, seemed very shy at first. But she and Nieves hit it off, and started hanging out together regularly. Aurilla was a tough and skilled bike messenger, who always went out in inclement weather. On summer afternoons in the Flatiron District she and Nieves liked to get a Strawberita from 7-Eleven and pour it into a Big Gulp cup with ice to drink on the curb. She came out of her shell in a big way, and it was awesome to see her actually evolve into the person she was right before she passed, Nieves recalled. She probably had, like, one tattoo and right before she passed she was really covered. She found her place in the world.

Lawrence was 25 years old on February 28th, when she was run over and killed by the driver of a tanker truck on Broadway in Williamsburg, near the Williamsburg Bridge. The driver, who did not face charges, left the scene. Nieves stops by Aurillas ghost bike whenever hes in Brooklyn to clean up the area and sweep away broken bottles. Since her death, his job as a bike messenger hasnt felt the same. I keep doing this job because I love it, but it's definitely a different feeling, he said. The amount of cyclists that were killed this year, and you think how many people were actually prosecuted. It doesn't make you feel great, you know? Before Aurillas death, I never really wondered if I'm going to come home at the end of the day.

Rob "Tee" Spencer (left) with his friend Angel. Courtesy of family.

Robert Tee Spencer

Growing up in the Bronx in the 1970s, Tee Spencer loved to roller skate. That was our main thing, his lifelong friend Michael Vega, 56, recalled. The boys and their siblings also rode bikes, and worked after school at Vegas fathers dress factory. Vega and his brother Angel remained very close with Tee into adulthood, thanks in part to their common interests: Harley Davidson motorcycles, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Fantasy, the 1978 Earth, Wind & Fire song. Regardless, anywhere that we heard it, we call each other and we'd say, They're playing our song, you know? Vega recalled. Tee was a lifelong New Yorker. When he was fatally struck on March 14th, at the intersection of Borden Avenue and Second Avenue in Long Island City, he was working as a coordinator for the Department of Homeless Services, where he had a special interest in serving veterans. Vega and Angel are both retired Marines, and Tees brother Gabriel served in the army in Afghanistan. He saw that some veterans were getting a raw deal when it came to housing and so forth, Vega recalled. So yeah, that was one of his passions. Vega also described Tee as a helper by nature; a friend he could call at any time of day or night for counseling. He loved dogs, and ran a dog walking service on the side.

Since Tees death, Vega has been in contact with advocates, including Transportation Alternatives. He says he would like to see more bike lanes installed across the city, which he envisions as just a blanket of security for all people. Vega is also sticking to a plan that he and Tee had, to move to California for retirement and ride Harleys with Angel. Whenever he needs a reminder of that pledge, Vega listens to the last voicemail he received from Tee. Its brief, and he played it for us recently: Thats what Im talking about my brother! We will live looooong lives!

Pedro Tepozteco

Pedro Tepozteco of Sunset Park was fatally struck by the driver of a Hino box truck at 5:30 p.m. on April 17th, on 47th Street near 17th Avenue in Borough Park. An initial police report claimed that Pedro fell into the side of the truck, a narrative advocates condemned as victim blaming. Gothamist was not able to reach friends or family of Pedro. However, the Daily News spoke to one neighbor this spring who said the 26-year-old was originally from Mexico, and a hardworking delivery cyclist for a restaurant.

Victor Ang

Victor Ang was 74 years old when he died, more than a month after a UPS driver struck him off of his Citi Bike on 11th Avenue in Manhattan. Attempts by Gothamist to contact Angs widow, Sandy, and daughter, Charlene, were unsuccessful. He was a clever man, a MacGyver, nothing was insurmountable, Angs obituary states. He lit up every room he was in, and was known for his good sense of humor, his jokes, and laughter. Born in Manila, Philippines, Victor was living in Leonia, New Jersey when the crash occurred, police records show. He was a real estate agent, according to the obituary, as well as a renowned photographer.

Kenichi Ken Nakagawa

It was already Mothers Day in Japan when a driver struck Ken Nakagawa as he biked on Dean Street near his Bedford-Stuyvesant home on May 11th, the eve of his twenty-third birthday. What a Mothers Day present I had, Kens mother, Naoko Nakagawa, 53, told Gothamist via email from Tokyo. She had not seen her son, who sustained a fatal head injury, for four years. Born in Indonesia and raised in Tokyo, Ken moved to Batavia, New York in 2015 to study at Genesee Community College. He moved to Manhattan to attend art school two years later. Nakagawa was gentle and kind, according to his mother. What he did not like was to compete, and [he was] not interested in winning.

Ken fell in love with bikes at age 13, when he learned to fix them in Boy Scouts. Many of his friends rode bikes, and he planned ambitious cycling trips, including a 350-mile ride between Tokyo and Osaka. He generally preferred bike commuting to taking the train. In Japan, we celebrate being an adult at the age of 20, Kens mother wrote. His grandparents gave him money for him to customize his own bike, which cost $2,000. The bike he was riding at the time of the accident. Ken rekindled relationships with both his sister and his birth father shortly before he died, according to Nakagawa. Asked how similar tragedies might be prevented in the future, Nakagawa bemoaned that her son ran a red light, and was not wearing a helmet when he was hit. I suppose many cyclists ignore a traffic light, including my son. Providing thorough instruction might help, she said. He hit his head and died of brain death. It could have been different if he wore [a] helmet.

Robert Sommer (right) at a holiday party. Courtesy of family.

Robert Sommer

Rob Sommer grew up in Marine Park with an acute understanding of loss. His mother Ellen died of lung cancer when he was just 13 years old. But Rob never turned inward with his grief, according to his step-aunt Myrna Roman, 65. Instead he was always warm and approachable. When Romans nephews wife got diagnosed with lung cancer too, Rob took her two young children under his wing, helping babysit the toddlers when she was in the hospital. The 29-year-old had a knack for befriending people wherever he went, old and young. Some friends knew him as Robert, others Rob, and even Bobby Guns, for his biceps.

At the wake following his fatal crash on May 12th, Roman spoke to a middle aged man shed never seen before. He says, Oh, Rob used to come around the corner and we used to have coffee together,' she recalled. He knew what I call the lonely souls. A group of young boys came to the wake who knew Rob from Jimmys Famous Heros in Sheepshead Bay, where he worked and made them sandwiches. Always, Roman said, Rob gave love as much as he craved it.

One rainy night soon after Rob was killed, his high school friends created an impromptu memorial garden near the crash site on Avenue U. After the funeral flowers died, they planted new ones. Recently, a Christmas tree appeared. Rob was living in an apartment near Jimmys Famous when he died, not far from his father, a retired NYPD detective. He rode his bike everywhere. That's all he did, Roman said. He was a cyclist. He did not have a car. Roman herself is not a driver either, and said shes distraught about the distracted driving she observes in Gravesend and Marine Park. I'm a walker. And everybody is driving, she said. They are stepping on the gas and they are looking at cell phones. I see it daily.

Yisroel Schwartz. Courtesy Rabbi Lipa Brennen.

Yisroel Schwartz

Sixteen-year-old Yisroel Schwartz was biking home from yeshiva for dinner on May 15th when police say he struck the open door of a parked car on 17th Avenue in Borough Park. The impact knocked him off of his bicycle, and another driver fatally struck him. An NYPD spokesperson could not locate any record showing that the motorist received a citation for opening their door onto Yisroel.

When he died, the tenth grader was in his second year at Yeshiva Novominsk, a school that neighbor Alex Rappaport, 41, described as particularly friendly to bikers. They had bicycle racks in front of their buildings before Bloomberg, he told us. Yisroel was quiet and studious, according to Rabbi Lipa Brennen, the executive director of the yeshiva. Two of his brothers attended the same school. He was very analytical. And so the study of the Talmud was very enticing for him and very challenging for him, Brennen told Gothamist. And he was able to master the subject matter.

Yisroels death was shocking for his classmates, as well as the broader Chasidic Jewish community of Borough Park. The school brought in counselors, and the funeral drew mourners from across the tri-state area. In the months since, Yisroels classmates have decided to honor him with additional study sessions. As a sign of respect for him they have made extra study sessions throughout the whole year, Brennen said. For the first anniversary of his passing, they're doing extra studies in his memory. In the coming year, Brennen expects many of his students will keep biking to and from school. The city buses in Borough Park don't go all over the place, and it takes time as well, he said. Especially in the morning with the yeshiva buses. So it's a much easier and faster way to come, with a bicycle.

Friends and roommates of Mohammed Abdullah. Mostafa Hossain is at far left, Shohel Vhy third from left, Shahad Shahad fifth from left. Scott Heins / Gothamist

Mohammed Abdullah

Mohammed Abdullah had been granted asylum in the United States and was preparing to apply for a green card when a driver killed him on Avenue D in East New York on the night of June 9th. Treasure Liggins, 22, was arrested the next day, and charged with manslaughter and driving while intoxicated, among other charges. At the time, 29-year-old Mohammed was living with four roommates, all Bangladeshi immigrants like himself, in a small apartment in East New York. He worked for Uber food delivery and GrubHub, Mohammeds friend and landlord Mostafa Hossain said. I was really upset about it because he was always a happy guy and friendly. He would always make a lot of jokes when wed meet together.

Mohammed was an honest and careful person, according to his friends, and would sometimes ride on the sidewalk to avoid large cars. As Hossain recalled, Whenever he goes outside hes very careful he always tried to be cool with people. Mohammed immigrated to the United States across the Mexican border in 2017 with his friend and future roommate, 35-year-old Shohel Vhy. The men spent two months in a detention center near the border, according to Vhy. In New York, they worked for delivery apps in order to send money home to their families, and dreamed of eventually saving enough to start their own business. We were thinking maybe a restaurant, Vhy said. Another former roommate, 29-year-old Shahad Shahad, delivers anywhere from 30 to 70 hours per week. He said that the work is dangerous, especially when its raining. This is a dangerous job all the time, Shahad said. Im looking for a different job right now. When I get a new job, Ill quit this job.

Robyn Hightman's friends Zsofia Sztana (left) and Cheylene Tattersall at the Kissena Velodrome in Flushing where Robyn raced. Scott Heins / Gothamist

Robyn Hightman

What Cheylene Tattersall, 34, remembers most vividly about Robyn Hightman is their enthusiasm. I remember being 20 and trying to act cool, act older, not be too excited about things, Robyns close friend recalled. And Robyn was just totally excited about everything. Robyn, who used they/them pronouns, was still living in Richmond, Virginia, when they were killed during their first Manhattan bike delivery shift on June 24th. (The driver, who left the scene and then returned, ultimately received five equipment violations.) In August, Robyn was planning to move permanently to New York City, where theyd found a community with bike delivery riders and track racers at Kissena Velodrome in Flushing. Robyns father, Jay Hightman, 57, said he can relate.

The fact of the matter is I was no longer with my family my senior year of high school either, he told us. For me biking became my means of transportation. It became my ability to find peace. Robyn showed so much natural talent on the track that Tattersall thinks they could have made it to the Olympics. They also played the flute and piccolo starting in elementary school, and dreamed of eventually getting a job at a Manhattan nonprofit for disadvantaged youth called the Time In Childrens Art Initiative. "Robyn wanted to help kids that were in the same situation as them, Tattersall said. They didn't want to [work] on a bike forever.

Robyns father recently turned his old racing bike into a ghost bike, and attached it to the top of his minivan. Robyns name is painted on the top tube, ride in peace and rest in power on the downtube. Its been a good opportunity for people to come up and say, Why? And to share [their] story but also to talk about cyclist safety, he said.

Hightman and his wife Lindsay Hawn, who live in Charlottesville, are also among the co-founding members of the Richmond chapter of Families for Safe Streets. Together they are supporting state legislation to mandate hands-free cell phone use while driving. In New York, Tattersall and her friends recently got tattoos of the key to Robyns Manhattan ghost bike. In order to prevent another tragedy, Tattersall believes the city has to think beyond bike lanes, which dont serve all delivery routes and are frequently obstructed. Shed like to see a dash cam requirement for all commercial vehicles, and harsher penalties for drivers who kill.

In September, Tattersall was part of a memorial ride that reversed Robyns last 350 mile ride from New York City to Richmond. Robyn did it in three days, she said. And we did it in five.

Ernest Andre Eskew. Courtesy of family.

Ernest Andre Eskew

Andre Eskew loved bicycles. His cousin Yolanda Ruiz, 57, remembers him as a kid, riding a unicycle up and down the hallways of his home in Brownsville, Brooklyn. My mom remembered that he fell off it one time and broke his two front teeth, Ruiz recalled. But he continued to ride. He still loved riding it. As an adult, biking was Andres preferred mode of transportation, especially after a car crash a few years ago left him wary of driving. According to Ruiz, He had an accident several years before he passed, a car accident, and he was afraid to drive the car again. So he would take the bicycle and go to his doctor's appointments and go to tend to his other errands.

Andre loved R&B music, and had a beautiful singing voice. In 1995, amNew York reported, he sang at the Apollo Theater for an amateur night event. Ruiz and Andre grew up together -- their mothers were twin sisters -- and she said that Andre was always happy and friendly to strangers. I've never seen him angry or upset or mean towards another person, she said. He was a very jovial, very happy-go-lucky person. He also stood out because of his personal style. Specifically, an intricately-patterned tattoo that covered his head, with an inked-in hairline.

The past year has been difficult for Andres family. Months before Andre was killed while biking on Sutter Avenue, his mother was diagnosed with stomach cancer. She died shortly after the diagnosis. That was another great loss, Ruiz said. Ruiz currently lives in Houston, Texas, where she drives buses for the transportation authority. She has noticed new protected bike lanes cropping up around the city. Some have even replaced a lane of car traffic -- part of a road diet initiative. They're very obvious that this is a bike lane, she said. And it breaks my heart because I think that could have saved my cousin.

Devra Freelander posing with her piece "Eventual Artifact" in Times Square. Courtesy of family.

Devra Freelander

Devra Freelander was an accomplished visual artist. At the age of 28, shed already had two major public installations in New York City: Fluorescent Sunrise at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City and, this past March, Eventual Artifact in Times Square in collaboration with artist Gracelee Lawrence.

The potential of what she could have done, all of the new media and areas she was experimenting with, we'll just never see, we'll never know, and that's just devastatingly sad, said her father, Rabbi Daniel Freelander. Devras art was informed by the environment, and an acute awareness of the climate crisis. So was her decision to commute by bike, between her Bushwick apartment and her studio. Devras first solo art show opened posthumously this October at CIRCA Gallery in Minneapolis, and features video of her embracing an iceberg. She was preparing for the show when a cement truck driver struck her on Bushwick Avenue on July 1st, and friends from her artist collective Material Girls traveled to Minneapolis to install the show on her behalf.

Freelander described his daughter as an extrovert with people skills, who was very comfortable in her skin. Originally from New Jersey, she was named after her late uncle, David Freelander, an artist who died of AIDS two years before she was born. Devra grew up in the public eyeher mother Rabbi Elyse Frishman is a pioneer congregational rabbi and liturgistand took to it. She was modest, but very ambitious and proud of her work, Freelander said. She was also a talented alto singer, and recorded an unreleased album shortly before her death. In the months since her passing, Devras friends have spent time in her studio, organizing and cataloguing her work. Her parents have also launched a scholarship for emerging artists at Socrates Sculpture Park, which they hope will support one or two artists annually. There's no anger on our part, Freelander said. Just enormous, devastating sadness."

Alex Damian Cordero with his little brother, Aaron, at the beach. Courtesy of family.

Alex Damian Cordero

He was just getting started, Alex Corderos aunt, Clara Cordero, 56, told Gothamist. Only two years in. Corderos nephew was fifteen years old when he moved to Staten Island from the Dominican Republic to live with his father and stepmother. He was seventeen when a tow truck driver fatally struck him on Castleton Avenue on July 23rd. Alex -- his family and close friends called him Damian -- was shy and reserved, according to his aunt. He was quiet, she said. He wasn't like the center of attention or anything like that. He was just very approachable. His demeanor was just very, very humble. Alexs adoptive mother, Xiomara Caba, raised him from the age of one until he moved to the U.S. He was very respectful to his seniors as well as other children, she wrote in a message to Gothamist. Age did not matter to him.

Cordero stressed the challenges Alex faced moving to a new country and learning a new language, all during high school. It was kind of hard, you know, getting to know the language, being in ESL, trying to fit in, she said. Still, he had good relationships with his teachers at Curtis High School in St. George, some of whom came to Alexs wake in Brooklyn. That week, Alexs family had tickets to fly to the Dominican Republic for a month-long vacation. Alex was going to see both his birth mother and adoptive mother. Now it would serve as his burial trip. He ended up going, but of course not the way they were expecting, Cordero said. Alex was not a regular bike rider, and did not have a bike of his own. He occasionally borrowed his uncles bike, which he was riding the day he died. Cordero noted the horrendous traffic on Staten Island. It's just so hard, you know, to walk around, she said. It's not like Brooklyn, where you take the train, or in Manhattan. We don't have so much access to public transportation.

Liem Nhan

Liem Nhan was biking on McGuinness Boulevard in Greenpoint shortly before 4:00 p.m. on July 23rd -- hours after Alex Cordero was fatally struck -- when a box truck driver fatally hit him. Both cyclist and driver were headed south, according to an initial police report. Gothamist was not able to contact friends or family of Liem, but obtained his official Taxi and Limousine Commission photo. According to the Daily News, Liem, a Vietnamese immigrant, was killed on his first day working as a food-delivery cyclist. Prior to that he had been registered with the TLC since at least 1990, a spokesperson said. The 58-year-old was living in Flushing at the time of his death.

Em Samolewicz in her Sunset Park kitchen. Courtesy Rose Kaplan-Bomberg.

Em Samolewicz

She was an artist, and that was her number one motivation above everything else, said Rose Kaplan-Bomberg, 32, Ems girlfriend and roommate when she was fatally struck while trying to avoid an open car door on Third Avenue in Sunset Park. (That driver was ultimately ticketed for opening his door unsafely; the driver who fatally struck Em was not charged.) Ems art, Kaplan-Bomberg recalled, felt kind of like a puzzle, like a very beautiful puzzle that you would never have all of the answers to, and she felt like that as a person as well. At 31, Em was a multimedia artist and poet. Her work has appeared in two posthumous shows, including a show in Crown Heights that ran from early August to early September.

Originally from Western Massachusetts, Em moved to New York City in 2015 after getting her visual arts MFA at Rutgers University. She loved yoga, and was about to start a teacher training program at the Brooklyn studio Abhaya Yoga when she died. Now her old employer, the nonprofit Third Root, is preparing to launch a scholarship program with Abhaya Yoga in Ems honor for trans women who want to become instructors. Kaplan-Bomberg still lives in the Sunset Park apartment that she and Em shared, and still rides her bike regularly.

She was always super broke and didnt have money to take the train everywhere, Kaplan-Bomberg said of Em. She found the train very draining as someone who is very introverted. Sunset Park has a new protected bike lane on Fourth Avenue, but Kaplan-Bomberg said more bike lanes are needed in the neighborhood, particularly on Third Avenue, where Em and two other cyclists were killed this year. The city should prioritize protected lanes, which Kaplan-Bomberg thinks are more suited to casual and novice cyclists. Making biking safe here has to be for all types of people, she said. Not just people who can be very hard core about keeping themselves safe in a particular way.

Jose Alzorriz. Courtesy of family.

Jose Alzorriz

At a memorial ride for 52-year-old Jose Alzorriz on August 25th, Amanda Hanna-McLeer, his partner Irenes daughter, shared a remembrance of the enthusiastic New Yorker of 25 years who liked to lead unofficial architecture tours around Brooklyn for friends and strangers. She recently shared the text of that remembrance with Gothamist. He took naps or siestas in Greenwood Cemetery and scoffed at anyone who found it morbid to lie under those beautiful trees, Hanna-McLeer, 26, wrote. He swam in Sunset Parks public pool. A Basque hailing from Bilbao, Jose was also a triathlete and an avid cyclist for whom safety was paramount. According to Hanna-McLeer, many of his friends were injured while biking. Over the years hes quietly paid for their medical bills and had their bikes repaired, she wrote. Jose was killed on August 11th, while biking home from his weekly two-mile swim at Coney Island. An 18-year-old driver named Mirza Baig -- since charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide, among other charges -- collided with an SUV that in turn struck Jose.

Less than a month after Joses death, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced plans for safety upgrades in the area, including new painted bike lanes near Coney Island Avenue. But Hanna-McLeer and other advocates are demanding a protected bike lane on the avenue itself because, as she put it, the only way forward in preventing traffic casualties is a one hundred percent protected and connected bike path. Hanna-McLeer is not a stranger to violence on the streets. In 1994, her grandmother and aunt were both killed by a hit-and-run driver in Bay Ridge. Some would say tragedy striking my family twice is bad luck, she wrote in her remarks for Jose. I say its a systemic, cultural problem.

Charles Cheeseboro

Charles Cheeseboro was the only cyclist to die this year whose crash did not involve a vehicle. The 43-year-old Harlem resident was riding an e-bike on East Drive along Central Park on the afternoon of August 26th when he collided with a pedestrian crossing at 74th Street, according to police. He sustained head trauma and succumbed to his injuries two days later. Charless sister Tara Cheeseboro declined to speak to Gothamist about her brother, after what she described as negative reporting in the aftermath of his death.

Donald Roberts

Shortly before 6:00 a.m. on September 2nd, police say 47-year-old Donald Roberts and a driver, 41-year-old Korey Johnson, got into an argument. Donald had allegedly tried to break into Johnsons Jeep, which was parked on Marcus Garvey Boulevard in Bed-Stuy. He then allegedly struck Johnsons girlfriend in the arm with a screwdriver. When Donald tried to bike away, Johnson got into his car and drove after him the wrong way on Marcus Garvey, fatally striking Donald. Johnson was charged the next day with murder and manslaughter. Donalds death is not included in the Department of Transportations total for 2019 traffic deaths, because it is a murder case. Donalds mother, Evelyn Roberts, declined to speak to Gothamist about her son at her Bed-Stuy home this month.

Abul Bashar

Abul Bashar, 62, was working as a delivery cyclist for Kanan Indian Restaurant in Gowanus when a garbage truck driver fatally struck him while he was on his e-bike on the night of September 8th. (Streetsblog reports that the driver was ultimately ticketed for failure to yield.) Abul sustained head trauma, and succumbed to his injuries ten days later. He was one of the most friendliest guys. Whenever you asked him for something he never hesitated, said Rick Tang, a Kanan staffer. Its very sad for us, all of us. Abul, who lived in the Bronx, had started working full-time for Kanan in June, according to his former manager. Attempts to reach his wife and son were not successful. According to the Daily News, Bashar and his family immigrated to the U.S. from Bangladesh.

Mario Valenzuela's friends stand with Mario's father, Mario Sr. (bottom left), sister Rocio (right of father) and mother Martha (left of friend in pink) outside of Mario's Astoria home. Scott Heins / Gothamist

Mario Valenzuela

Mario Valenzuela wanted to be a soccer player when he grew up. At 14, the sport was his favorite after-school activity. The eighth grader from Astoria had lots of energy, his mother Martha Valenzuela, 47, said. Movies were not his idea of fun. He didnt want to be sitting for so long, she explained. A truck driver fatally struck Mario on Borden Avenue on September 21st, and his family says they did not hear from city officials after the crash. We havent received any phone call or message from the city. Nothing at all, Valenzuela said. Mario was born and raised in Queens, and spoke Spanish and English at home, where his chores included cleaning his room and washing dishes. He had two older sisters in their 20s, and liked to listen to rap music. He loved McDonalds, but at home his favorite foods were quesadillas, Mexican rice with tomato sauce, and steak, but "with no grease," Valenzuela noted.

Mario had lots of friends, and they liked to meet up to ride their bikes to Gantry Plaza State Park in Long Island City. They called it Pepsi Cola Park, after the parks signature sign. Mario was with three other friends on bicycles when he was killed, according to his mother. Since that day, some of his friends have stopped riding their bikes at all. Nearby Vernon Boulevard has bike lanes, but Borden Avenue does not (though neighbors and local City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer have called for them this year). Thats what kids want to do, right? Go play at the park, Valenzuela said. Many of the friends are not using the bikes. They freak out, you know? They are scared. They are afraid something will happen to them, too. And its not good.

Ada Martinez's daughters Natasha (left) and Liza, with their father Rodolfo inside the family hardware store in Bed-Stuy. Scott Heins / Gothamist

Ada Martinez

On September 27, the day she died, 66-year-old Ada Martinez had a typical early-fall date with her husband Rodolfo of 47 years. The couple lived in Far Rockaway, and spent most summer weekend nights dancing to live music at Low Tide and Caracas, the arepa bar. That evening they rode their bikes to a favorite spot to watch the sunset, at the NYC Ferry terminal. My dad had brought fruit and crackers and a can of ginger ale, her favorite, Adas daughter Natasha Martinez, 44, says. They sat there waving to the people boarding the ferry. Once the sun had set they got on their bicycles and headed home.

An ambulette driver fatally struck Ada at the intersection of Beach 94th Street and the Rockaway Freeway, after her husband had safely cleared the intersection. Ada was riding in a bike lane when she died, but the lane crosses traffic and her daughter says there should have been a stop sign or light at the intersection for cyclists as further protection. If they do not address it, unfortunately enough there's going to be another incident there. And that's what's scary to me, Martinez said.

Ada was born in Puerto Rico and moved to New York City as a child. She and Rodolfo had three children, who they raised in Midwood and Richmond Hill. For thirty years they also ran a hardware store in Bed-Stuy called Safeway Locksmith, where Ada was Miss Ada or the key lady to her customers. She and her husband sold art supplies to students at nearby Pratt University, and taught their children how to cut keys. When a neighbors home caught fire, Martinez remembers them bringing over recovery supplies: candles, flashlights and blankets. When she died, Ada had seven grandchildren, including Martinezs five-year-old twins. She was petite and fit, and took three yoga classes a week on the beach. She and Rodolfo did not have a car, and loved to ride the ferry to Manhattan.

Rodolfo, who had just put in for retirement when Ada died, has since moved in with his daughter in an apartment over the hardware store. The shop itself is closed until further notice. I havent been able to actually face the world yet, Rodolfo told Gothamist. I havent been able to go back to the apartment where we lived.

Dalerjon Shahobiddinov Stephen Nessen / Gothamist

Dalerjon Shahobiddinov

At just 10 years old, Dalerjon Shahobiddinov was the youngest person to be killed in 2019 while riding a bicycle. Earlier this year, we reported that he loved to ride his bike and play video games. Dalerjon was struck by the driver of a Ford SUV on October 5, as he biked a short stretch of Foster Avenue between Abu Bakr El Seddique Mosque and his Kensington apartment. Driver Victor Mejia, 29, was charged with failure to yield, failure to exercise due care, and operating without a license. On the day of the crash, Mayor de Blasio tweeted that the Department of Transportation was clearing parking spaces from the intersection to improve visibility and assessing the need for speed humps. Rizwan Ali, who taught Dalerjon at the mosque, spoke to Gothamist/WNYC shortly after the crash, and noted how many local children play on the sidewalks in the neighborhood. The cars are coming down pretty fast and the kids are kids, you can tell them to stop today, but theyll start tomorrow again, Ali said. So, we cant stop them but we have to do something so they can be safe in front of their own house.

Read more:
2019 Was An Extremely Deadly Year For NYC Cyclists. Here Are Their Stories - Gothamist

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Last year, giving to nonprofits was up by an average of 4.5% nationwide. But here in Santa Cruz, donations to the nonprofits participating in our holiday giving campaign Santa Cruz Gives grew by 19% in 2018 over the previous year.

The message has come through loud and clear: people in Santa Cruz County care about improving and uplifting their community, and they have chosen Santa Cruz Gives as a vehicle for being a part of that positive change.

So we are thrilled to announce that for 2019, we have expanded the number of local nonprofits accepted into the campaign. In previous years, we were wary of growing too fast, and overreaching beyond what this fledgling charitable project was capable of sustaining.

But you have sustained this effort, and driven it far more quickly than we imagined when we first conceived it. If we reach our goal of raising $300,000 between now and the end of the campaign at midnight on Dec. 31, then Santa Cruz Gives will have raised more than $1 million for local nonprofits in its first five years. That is an incredible testament to the spirit of giving in Santa Cruz County.

The bold growth of this program would not have been possible without our partners at the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County and Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, and our business sponsors Santa Cruz County Bank, Wynn Capital Management and Oswald.

Most of all, it would not be possible without you. So please give generously to our participating nonprofits. Read about all of them hereboth their mission statements and the projects they will fund with the money raised through Santa Cruz Givesthen go to santacruzgives.org, our easy-to-use website that lets you give conveniently and securely to all of your favorite causes.

Organization Mission: We create and support one-on-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth. We have served more than 7,000 local at-risk children, providing a crucial foundation at a critical time in their lives. Mentors make Santa Cruz County a safer and healthier place by helping children make better decisions, which increases their chances of staying in school and decreases their challenges with substance abuse, teen pregnancy and the criminal justice system.

Transgender Matching Program and LGBTQ+ Service Expansion

Our local agency, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Santa Cruz County, is the first and only agency in the entire nation to have a Trans Matching Program. We began matching transgender youth with volunteer transgender adult mentors in 2015. The program now serves as a national model.

Using our proven mentoring model, volunteers receive in-depth training on how to support these youth, who routinely face pervasive injustice, bias and mental illness in their daily lives. Research shows a quality mentoring relationship reduces the risk of suicide in the trans population by 50%.

We want to expand our efforts in the LGBTQ+ arena through training, roundtables and enhanced match support for all of our mentors, our matches and for other youth-serving organizations in the community. Discrimination and bias often begin in childhood, as LGBTQ+ youth explore their gender identites. They are at high risk of harassment, physical and sexual violence, and suicide. We work with this underserved population in close partnership with other agencies.

We grasp that gender identity can be fluid, and providing deeper support for all LGBTQ+ program participants will improve outcomes for youth we serve. Our volunteers are trained when first matched, and many matches last for well over five years. We must update our training so that long-term volunteers are prepared.

Organization Mission: The Bird School Project aims to inspire and equip both students and teachers to love, study and steward their local environment.

Creating Leaders for the Environment

In 2020, Bird School Project aims to unify youth leadership around a vision for lives that are relaxed, mentally resilient and less distracted.

The Bird School Project provides educational experiences to students directly on their schoolyards, making nature and a bit of wilderness easily revisited, leading to appreciation, inquiry and stewardship. Students grow an appreciation for the unexpected and a love for nature.

The main goal is to deliver a four-week, eight-lesson life science unit on birdingincluding guided, on-campus bird walks; use of binoculars; close examination of museum specimens; and the use of a field journal in which students learn to record their observations creatively.

Students build skills in focus, direct observation, meaning-making, arguing from evidence, and collaborating with peersand benefit further from the research-based, proven healing effects of time spent outdoors. Observations of real-time happenings in nature generate a sense of connection with other living organisms and lower stress about school, peer groups or family life among diverse youth.

We provide programming countywide, but focus in the Pajaro Valley on middle school students. Their school schedules allow for few opportunities for field trips, and programs like ours are needed to connect students with their environment.

Organization Mission: CASA of Santa Cruz County advocates for children, providing court-appointed volunteers so each child in the Dependency Court system feels cared for and connected with the people, families and resources they need to heal and flourish into adulthood. CASA empowers volunteers to directly influence life-changing decisions affecting children in dependency (foster) care.

Be the Voice for a Child in Foster Care

CASA of Santa Cruz is seeing more children under the age of 3 entering the foster-care system. This is where CASA comes in: We recruit, screen, train, and supervise volunteer advocates to work one-on-one with children and their families to support reunification or permanent placement into a safe and healthy home. Advocates get to know their childs situation and needs, help caregivers access resources to meet those needs, and advocate for the childs best interests in court, community and school settings.

They build strong relationships with the family and work with a CASA advocate supervisor to create an advocacy plan for their child. They provide regular reports to the court, which the judge relies upon to inform life-changing decisions for children in foster care.

Our advocates understand that children experience great trauma as a result of entering the foster care system, provide them with a warm layer of support, and connect them to resources to benefit their development and well-being. CASA is the only organization with volunteers officially sworn in by the court, acting as advocates for our areas youth.

When a case opens in Dependency Court, the focus is on the parents/caregivers gaining resources to help meet their case plan, but a CASA volunteer focuses on the child. While they may support the entire family, their priority is the child. Advocates are assigned to the childs case until the child is placed in a safe, permanent home and the case is dismissed.

CASA children have a higher rate of adoption than those without an advocate, are less likely to return to the system, are substantially less likely to spend time in long-term foster care, and are more likely to become healthy adults who break the cycle of abuse.

Organization Mission: The Coastal Watershed Council was formed to address the declining health of watersheds connected to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, with a mission to preserve and protect coastal watersheds through community stewardship, education and monitoring. Since 1995, CWC has educated thousands of volunteers and thousands of students to monitor water quality, enhance habitat and protect the natural resources along our Central Coast.

San Lorenzo River Health Days

Santa Cruz formed because of the San Lorenzo River. The river remains our primary drinking water source, and is designated as a critical habitat for threatened and endangered species of fish.

Most locals agree that our community deserves a healthy river ecosystem surrounded by safe and inviting parks. With your help, we can make further progress toward a vibrant riverfront.

CWC is asking for support for River Health Days. We will engage volunteers, including youth groups and corporate teams, to remove invasive species and replace them with native plants.

In addition to improving ecosystem health, these community work days reintroduce families and youth to the river through meaningful, positive experiences in nature. Last year, 674 CWC volunteers contributed 1,782 hours of work and planted 2,120 native plants, replacing 6,450 square feet of ice plant.

Organization Mission: Community Bridges envisions a thriving community where every person has the opportunity to unleash their full potential. We believe that when we work together, anything is possible. Our family of 10 vital programs across 20 sites meets the needs of nearly 20,000 local children, families and seniors each year with essential services, equitable access to resources and as advocates for health and dignity across every stage of life.

Food Stability for Homeless Seniors

In 2017, 39% of homeless people in Santa Cruz County were over the age of 50, and 70% of homeless deaths were people over the age of 50. For the past five years, Meals on Wheels (MOW) for Santa Cruz County, a program of Community Bridges, has seen an increase in homeless senior participants at Louden Nelson Community Center.

While MOW has been providing meals five days per week to eligible older adults (more than 650 warm, nutritious meals per week), to address food insecurity among the vulnerable homeless population, we have begun to assemble weekend meal packs that provide at least two nutritious meals.

We are asking Santa Cruz Gives donors to join MOW efforts to ensure that no senior goes hungry, and support our goal to ensure that homeless seniors attending Louden Nelson will have nutritious meals on the weekends in 2020.

Funding will provide participants two shelf-stable mealsmeals they will not be able to receive otherwise because most dining facilities are closed on weekends.

Organization Mission: To create lasting oral health for underserved children and adults.

Give Kids a Smile Day

There is nothing quite like a toothacheit is all-consuming. Toothaches are the most common reason low-income children miss school, and theyre largely preventable. You can help make prevention more common than treatment, so that children are able to focus on school instead of a toothache.

Give Kids a Smile Day provides free dental care for uninsured kids who would otherwise fall through the cracksfamilies who dont qualify for public insurance and cant afford expensive or even discounted dental care. The need in Santa Cruz County is huge. Two out of three people with public insurance (and many more low-income, uninsured residents) are not receiving dental care.

Dientes aims to create healthy habits and positive experiences with the dentist. With your generosity, we can prevent expensive treatment in the future and help kids continue good oral health throughout life.

Your support is needed to get rid of toothaches, so local kids can get back to being kids.

Organization Mission: Farm Discovery empowers youth and families to regenerate healthy food, farming, nature, and community in the Pajaro Valley. We improve personal and community health and our impact on the Earth by building collaborative agricultural, ecological and social systems.

Farming and Environmental Education Internship for Local Young Adults

Many local farms cannot find skilled labor locally and must hire workers from outside the area, even while the Pajaro Valley is home to the largest family-owned organic farm in the U.S. In addition, our most food-insecure members often work in agriculture or are the children of agricultural workers.

We address both issues by offering Santa Cruz County youth an opportunity to learn to grow healthy food through a 10-month paid internship that inspires them to pursue careers in agriculture or environmental education. The students gain a unique set of skills aligned with Next Generation Science Standards.

Interns will spread their knowledge in the community by teaching thousands of local youth through our field trips and summer camp programs, passing on the skills to grow their own produce, along with cooking and preserving, tackling two major skill sets to benefit younger students and their families.

The interns finish the program with various levels of mastery of skills, such as propagation, cultivation, soil fertility, pest management, and post-production that Farm Discovery is uniquely suited to provide with access to Live Earth Farms 150 acres of organic productionan inspiring learning space.

Organization Mission: Food, What?! is a youth empowerment and food justice organization. At FoodWhat, youth cultivate their well-being, liberation and power by engaging in relationships with land, food and each other. Youth from Watsonville to Santa Cruz join the FoodWhat Crew through our spring internship, summer job training and fall project management programs. Within the supportive space of FoodWhat, youth grow, cook, eat, and distribute farm-fresh, organic food while addressing local food justice issues.

Youth-Powered Farm Stand For Community Health

In our project, FoodWhat youth gain real-life work experience by running a prescriptive farm stand in partnership with Salud para la Gente and Lakeside Organic Gardens. Salud health care providers prescribe patients with diabetes a voucher to the youth-run farm stand stationed right outside the clinic.

Some of the produce at the stand is grown and harvested by FoodWhat youth, and some is donated by our partner farm. At the farm stand, clients choose from an abundant selection that includes rainbow carrots, broccoli, chard, cucumbers, cauliflower, peppers, and tomatoes.

We cannot overstate the importance of this aspect: Local youth combine training with their lived experience to address needs in their own neighborhoods.

The new project increases FoodWhats distribution by over 2,000 pounds to those with the highest need, and is an opportunity for youth to support patients as they build strong habits around accessing healthy food, integrate this food into their familys diets, and create a community space at the intersection of youth power and community health.

Organization Mission: To inspire all girls to be strong, smart and bold, and to respect themselves and the world around them. Girls Inc. serves 1,700 girls in 41 schools with trained professionals (often older teens), who mentor them in a safe environment. Girls are inspired to pursue secondary education, develop leadership and decision-making skills, serve their communities, and acquire the ability and wisdom to lead healthy lifestyles.

Growing Together

The relationship between a girl and her mother is so powerful, it affects everything from her health and self-esteem to setting the stage for all relationships throughout her life. Communication can be a common challenge for young girls and their mothers. As girls go through puberty and related physical, mental and emotional changes, the challenges can escalate.

We hope to assist by supporting girls and their mothers or another significant adult with our new program: Growing Together. Its designed to increase positive communication between girls ages 9-12 and their mothers, or possibly a sister, aunt, grandmother, or father.

Your gift will support girls in Santa Cruz County for a weekly get-together for four weeks to share activities aimed at learning about values, body changes, health and hygiene, nutrition and exercise, goals, problem-solving strategies, conflict resolution and positive communication.

Girls Inc. teaches girls to set and achieve goals, boldly confront challenges, resist peer pressure, see college as attainable, and explore nontraditional fields.

Organization Mission: Local and vital, Grey Bears promotes nutrition, activity and social connection as a recipe for healthy aging. Our vision is that all seniors live healthy, meaningful lives. Grey Bears has evolved into one of the most efficient and resourceful food distribution, reuse and recycling nonprofits in the U.S.

Engage at Every Age

Grey Bears is a nutritional lifeline for 3,800 low-income seniors, families and veterans, delivering weekly brown bags full of fresh produce and healthy staples to Santa Cruz County aging adults. Additional daily food distributions and 40,000 hot meals served annually nourish thousands more. It all adds up to more than 2 million pounds of food distributed each year.

Hundreds of volunteers enjoy more than 20 volunteer opportunities. Their service makes our programs possible while cultivating social support systems and health benefits for both volunteers and participants. Weekly classes include tech help, Spanish, cooking, chair yoga, fix-it clinics, and luncheon events designed to keep seniors active and socially engaged, and help them age with joy, grace and dignity.

Organization Mission: Groundswell restores coastal ecosystems using nature-based solutions. We are a constructive group of ecologists, naturalists, educators, and community dedicated to designing and building habitat that makes our coast better for nature and people. We prioritize restoration that increases biodiversity, coastal resiliency, and expands community outreach. We harvest local seeds, grow native plants, then plant at degraded habitats in need of stewardship. We are small but mighty, making this work happen by pulling together an amazing group of committed volunteers, teachers and K-12 students from all over Santa Cruz County to participate in the full cycle restoration process. Groundswell has rebuilt habitat resources and restored over 11% of the Santa Cruz coastline, including well-loved beaches like Seabright, Natural Bridges and Davenport Landing.

Saving Santa Cruz Monarchs

Monarchs are on the verge of collapse, and have declined 99% on the West Coast since the 1980s. Santa Cruz is a monarch hotspot where Lighthouse Field State Beach Park is home to the second-largest overwintering population of monarch butterflies in California.

To save Santa Cruz monarchs, we want to continue to lead the community in enhancing this critical habitat. We can do this together by building nectar resources, optimizing overwintering grove conditions and curbing predation. We steward the grove ecosystem and have led students and community volunteers in this effort.

We need your help to continue this critical work, as well as to expand to other overwintering sites in Santa Cruz. Monarchs are at the heart of our community and an important part of our tourist industry.

Organization Mission: Our Mission: In the soil of our urban farm and garden, people find the tools they need to build a home in the world. Our Vision: We envision a thriving and inclusive community, workforce, and local food system. We Value: The capacity of every individual for growth and renewal, the joy that comes from growing and sharing healthy food, the well-being created by vibrant social and natural ecosystems.

Two Steps Closer to Home

The Homeless Garden Project (HGP) is building a new, permanent home, Pogonip Farm. Located within the City of Santa Cruzs Pogonip greenbelt, our new 9-acre farm will triple our capacity to transform lives and build community connections. Serving as a national model, Pogonip Farm will be the heart of HGPs dynamic agriculture program for people who are experiencing homelessness. We help to transform lives by finding homes, providing job training, teaching skills, providing volunteer opportunities, and stewarding land through organic farming.Last year, 100% of our trainee graduates obtained stable employment and stable housing, and more than 7,000 pounds of fresh, organic produce were distributed to nonprofits throughout Santa Cruz County, feeding 2,500-plus people. Strong bonds are formed by our community of volunteers, interns, customers, and trainees that break down the profound sense of isolation felt by many people experiencing homelessness.

Please consider making a gift toward one-time costs to build the Farm Center at Pogonip: an administrative and kitchen building, a barn, and greenhouses.

Organization Mission: Homeless Services Center partners with individuals and families to create pathways out of their homelessness into permanent housing.

Youth Rapid Re-Housing

The number of young adults experiencing homelessness in Santa Cruz County has grown more than 30% in the past two years. Many homeless young adults were emancipated from our foster care system, and have little or no familial support.

Imagine prepping for your first day of school or a job interview without a place to call home. With your support, we can help 100 homeless young people ages 18-24 get off the streets and into permanent housing.

All of our programs operate with a housing-first methodology: to quickly move people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing, while providing support and services to help them stay housed as they work on achieving goals. Our programs save the county millions of dollars in emergency services every year, while also saving lives.

We believe our community is innovative enough, committed enough and compassionate enough to build a future in which every young person has a home. Your gift can help us guide more youth to develop good lifetime habits.

Organization Mission: The all-volunteer Live Like Coco Foundation helps local kids grow up healthy and with opportunities to pursue their dreams. Our foundation is named for and inspired by Coco Lazenby, a self-described book lover, cat petter and environmentalist, who was killed in a car accident in 2015 at age 12. To honor Cocos bright spirit and big heart, our foundation works in four areas that made a difference in her life: literacy, nature, health and wellness, and funding for extracurricular activities.

See the article here:
Santa Cruz Gives 2019: A Guide to Holiday Giving - Good Times Weekly

Certainly this was no quick fix. She went through a yearlong process of trying supervised weight loss, driving an hour and 15 minutes every month to meet with a physician, a dietitian and a mental health specialist. I would have to take that entire day off school, my mom off work, she said. We had to do this once a month for a year before we could be referred to a bariatric center.

After she had the surgery, at 16, her hypertension and prediabetes got better. She was honest with her college roommates, not wanting them to see the small meals she needed after surgery and think she had an eating disorder. She had to navigate other problematic college food situations, she said, with cookie deliveries and late-night pizza expeditions. But from a weight of around 270 pounds (she is 5 foot 8), she has now stabilized around 190. Im still technically from a B.M.I. category considered overweight, she said. Im comfortable and Im happy with my body. She is serious about fitness and works out four or five times a week.

Perhaps the most sensitive question the policy statement examines is: How young is too young? Most of the studies involve older adolescents, though some international research looked at 12- or even 10-year-old patients. There is no lower age limit in the policy statement because the researchers could not find evidence drawing a firm line to mark a lower age boundary; the decision should rest with a whole team, including the child and the family, the pediatrician and the surgeon.

There are major disparities in access to bariatric surgery. Childhood obesity disproportionately affects children of color and those in low-income populations, Dr. Armstrong said. Those getting access to surgery are almost exclusively middle- and upper-class white adolescents. The biggest barrier is lack of insurance coverage; many private payers will not cover the surgery for those under 18, and almost no public payers will.

Often, childhood obesity is seen as the parents fault, and some worry that bariatric surgery is being offered as a quick fix. Dr. Armstrong noted that in many cases, the parents themselves have struggled with their weight most of their lives and want nothing more than to have their kids not go through this. She added, Most of them have tried everything they were capable of doing to help their children lose weight.

The impulse to keep trying with diet, nutrition and behavioral modifications runs deep in pediatrics, but the evidence suggests that if an adolescent needs bariatric surgery, its better not to wait too long, Dr. Armstrong said. Watchful waiting for extended periods of time can actually lead to less effective surgery and surgery with more complications.

Weight loss surgery generally reduces B.M.I. by about 10, so if the patient is a 16-year-old with a B.M.I. of 45 (anything over 35 generally meets the criteria for severe obesity), the B.M.I. going into adulthood after surgery is likely to be around 35 still obese, but much less severe. On the other hand, if the same child waits until the age of 19, when the B.M.I. may have gone up to 55 you can do the math.

See the original post here:
Weight-Loss Surgery for Teens Who Cant Lose Weight Any Other Way - The New York Times

Its important to keep abreast of new health research. (Photo: Liz Weston, StockSnap)

Its hard to keep pace with the news these days. It can be difficult to find time to read up on the latest sports or health news. The best way to stay informed is to have someone make it easier on you. With that in mind, I thought Id share some recent articles and research I find interesting.

Less sittingA study by Finnish researchers set out to find if office workers who lived sedentary lifestyles could change their habits with counseling and assistance. In total, 133 office workers were studied for one year. They were separated into two groups, with one group serving as the control group, meaning they didnt receive treatment by the researchers. The second group was given tailored counseling sessions in order to discuss strategies to reduce sitting at work and leisure time.

Initially, the second group was able to decrease their leisure time by 21 minutes per day, and their active time and breaks in sedentary time increased. After a full year, this same group was down to eight fewer minutes sedentary leisure time, but the control group increased their own time slightly.

The cholesterol and cardiovascular disease biomarkers for the intervention group improved, and the leg muscle mass of this group was maintained. At the same time, the control groups muscle mass decreased by half a percent.

Those changes might not seem like a lot, but over time, these differences can add up. I think of it the same way I think of weight gain. On average, people gain 1 to 2 pounds a year from early adulthood to middle age. Its the sort of thing that sneaks up on us, and we dont realize how much has changed until the change itself seems massive.

So, although this research is preliminary, its worth noting if for no other reason than as a reminder we should work to maintain our muscle mass. I, for one, would like to still be walking around in my old age.

Unusual treatments for depressionAnyone suffering from depression should go to their primary care doctor and explain their symptoms and feelings to them. That should always be the first option, because he or she can then refer you to a specialist (if needed) to help deal with the problems youre facing. (Anytime I discuss improving depression symptoms, my suggestions are always a supplement to what your doctor prescribes.)

With that said, a recent article in U.S. News discussing unusual treatments for depression caught my attention. The author, David Levine, does a good job of explaining some techniques you may not have heard about, putting them into a context of claims versus actual results. Context with these options goes a long way. The treatments include cuddling, transcranial magnetic stimulation, bouldering, probiotics, ketamine, hallucinogens and lithium.

Thankfully, the drugs and medical procedures involved arent going to happen without your doctors approval, as there can be severe side effects related to their use. Most of these methods probably wont be the secret cure you may be searching for, so its important to always be cautious before trying anything new.

The best way to improve your depression symptoms remains a combination of better diet, consistent exercise and following your doctors advice.

Consistency key for weight lossIf youre looking to lose weight, you should first focus on getting your mind right and not ignoring the mental aspect of this process. However, a new study reminds us of what we may already know, even if we dont want to believe it.

The study was published in the journal Obesity, and its conclusion is that the key to achieving your weight loss goals is consistency. Since we usually gain about 1 or 2 pounds a year, its a bit silly that when we try to lose weight, we hope to lose that same amount about once a week, isnt it? Nobody likes to wait for the results we want, yet crash and fad diets almost never work.

Researchers followed 183 overweight or obese adults who participated in a weight loss program that provided counseling on their diet and exercise. Their weight was tracked and measured every week.

What they found was that the participants whose weight fluctuated the earliest in the program had the hardest time maintaining their weight by the end of the year. Essentially, the people who lost the most weight the fastest set themselves up for failure because they tried to do too much all at once.

The quick, early weight loss they experienced set them up for failure in the long term. The participants whose weight fluctuated less in the beginning were more likely to control their weight and lose more weight over the long term.

Moderate consumption of fats, carbohydratesThisnew studytries to get at the heart of what a good diet really looks like.

The research involved more than 135,000 people across five continents, and while the results may not surprise you too much, such a large study needs to be paid attention to. Essentially, the best diet includes a moderate intake of fat, fruits and vegetables, and involves avoiding too many carbohydrates.

As I continue to stress, moderation remains the key. Not all fats are bad, and fruits and vegetables are an important part of any proper diet. However, a high consumption of carbohydrates and added sugar (more than 60 percent of your diet) is dangerous and linked to a higher risk of early death.

Jay McKenzie loves soccer, history and feeling great. Hes on a quest to eat better and exercise more, and he wants to share his experiences along the way. You can email him at[emailprotected]with comments or questions. The opinions expressed in this column belong solely to the author, notNooga.comor its employees.

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Fresh and Fit: 4 new research articles you should read - Nooga.com