Tag archives: covid
Since the pandemic forced its doors to close in March, Rubicon Theatre rose to the challenge by quickly pivoting in creating digital content, including taking its summer youth programs online, but also launched the nation’s first theatrical drive-in concert series. Now, as its Rubicon Goes Retro Drive-in Concert Series comes to a close this week, […]
Actor-director-playwright Ed Giron has been a very busy thespian despite the limitations of the pandemic. Although in-person appearances have been curtailed due to COVID, of course, the well-known Santa Barbara actor has found, or mostly fashioned, frequent opportunities to perform and/or direct theater events online. Giron’s lockdown list began with recording himself reading “Bedtime Stories” […]
My generation needs to be taken down a peg. Those born after 1995 are known as “internet natives” and navigate the digital world with appropriate instinct. It is this same instinct that causes us to giggle when a professor has a hard time working their PowerPoint presentation or, more often these days, struggles to use […]
“Play is the meaningless moment that makes the day memorable and worthwhile.” – Stuart Brown, MD, author and founder of the National Institute of Play In the first three months of the pandemic there was a lot of COVID-humor in our inbox. We laughed online at ourselves as we coveted toilet paper, binged on everything […]
Quarantine can heighten the risk of domestic violence, but help is available Maria Carbonell gratefully remembers the week she took refuge at a Domestic Violence Solutions safe house eight years ago. “A lot of people didn’t know I went to a safe house. I never shared it with anybody,” says Carbonell, 52, in a recent […]
Sometimes life’s big questions come with choices, not right or wrong answers. History is kind or unkind to these choices which are evaluated through the lens and luxury of Retrospect. MUS’s then-newbie superintendent, Anthony Ranii, was acutely aware of this on January 8, 2018 when he made what turned out to be one of the […]
As local students settle into virtual or distance learning, school administrators and teachers are working hard to reopen campuses, working within the guidelines set forth by the State of California and the Santa Barbara County Public Health Department. Last Friday, August 28, both Cold Spring School and Montecito Union School superintendents submitted applications for a […]
Ever since March, Montecito’s Friendship Center has been delivering monthly care packages to its senior citizen clients who have been mostly isolated at their homes from Goleta to Summerland during the pandemic. Two months ago, the center also hosted a drive-in event where clients could wave to staff from the comfort and safety of their […]
Back onshore, you can do your part to safeguard our local waterways for those animals that are still roaming free by participating in the pandemic version of Explore Ecology’s annual Coastal Cleanup. This year, instead of gathering together at beaches and sites throughout the county on a single day, the cleanups will officially take place […]
Every arts organization has responded to the coronavirus crisis in their own way and in their own time, from raiding the archives to shutting down completely to, in the case of Ventura’s Rubicon Theatre (see above), trying innovative new ways to still go live and in person despite the pandemic. PCPA Theaterfest, which in normal […]
Her faith, and the views, help her through One Summerland family that is looking forward to the changes at Lookout Park is Nancy Aviles, her husband, Rodrigo Campuzano, and their two young children, Amy and Roy. “Living in Summerland is a wonderful experience,” says Nancy, a child development specialist who works for an early intervention […]
The triple threat we face could make our country stronger than ever You’ve heard the old saying “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” No question, we are ensnared in a crisis, within a crisis, within a crisis. We have the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic with 180,000 dead in the United States as […]
As with just about everything else that might involve an audience, polo tournaments have also been barred from permitting spectators at their matches. But rather than canceling the season, the Santa Barbara Polo & Racquet Club has carried on sans the crowds, as only polo players, team associates and club staff are allowed to attend […]
For Brian McDonald, selecting You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown as the production for Ensemble Theatre Company Young Actors Conservatory this summer was a no-brainer once it became clear that COVID-19 had made his original choice – Hello, My Baby, by Montecito’s Cheri Steinkellner – impractical. Not only had ETC’s Education Director played the title […]
Julie McMurry starts her new Online COVID Family Update with a joke. “An epidemiologist, an ICU doctor, and a scientist all walk into a bar (or cafe or family gathering or get on a plane). I’m just kidding, they know better.” That joke may not get her on the Jimmy Kimmel show as a hot […]
Westmont is working relentlessly to begin the fall semester in person with flexibility and safety concerns for students and faculty as a priority while observing all Santa Barbara County health and COVID-19 guidelines. A plan to repopulate its campus is on hold until further progress is made in slowing the spread of the coronavirus in […]
Due to the ongoing pandemic, Casa Dorinda residents and staff missed out this year on celebrating the recipients of the Casa Dorinda Scholarship in person, an annual tradition dating back to 1998 when a group of Casa residents began a fund to help staff members and their families achieve their educational goals. But the pandemic […]
The Foodbank of Santa Barbara partnered with local company Kate Farms last week to support those most impacted amid the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic through accessible nutrition. On Tuesday, August 11, 15 volunteers came together to package 8,000 meals to be delivered to the Santa Barbara community. Santa Barbara-based Kate Farms was founded by […]
This week, school started for our two public elementary schools, via distance or virtual learning due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, public health officer Dr. Henning Ansorg told the Board of Supervisors that the county’s number of COVID-19 cases is below certain thresholds, and the County is now drafting guidance and forms for […]
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That’s what the Teddy Bear Cancer Foundation did. Because of COVID-19 their spring event was cancelled and also their fall fundraising event, the Gold Ribbon Luncheon. They have been operating since 2002 and hope their latest venture will add to the coffers. And it did. The […]
