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Long Beach Gives raises record-breaking $2.07 million for local nonprofits

More than 8,300 residents donated more than $2 million to local nonprofits through Long Beach Gives, an annual citywide fundraising campaign this year — the most money raised during the day of giving in its five year history.

The money will benefit hundreds of nonprofit groups, who serve causes ranging from childhood development to animal welfare, operating in Long Beach. Early giving began on Thursday, Sept. 14, and extended through the following Thursday, Sept. 21.

Long Beach Gives originall
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Queen Mary reopens ‘Cunard Story’ after nearly 3-year closure

After a near three-year closure, an exhibit exploring the history of British shipping and cruise line Cunard — which manufactured the Queen Mary in 1930 — is back open on the Long Beach icon.

The Queen Mary’s operators and members of the community gathered on the ship on Monday, Sept. 25, to celebrate the rededication of “The Cunard Story,” which now includes the story of Captain Inger Thorhauge, Cunard’s first female master mariner.

Thorhauge was recently named captain of Cunard’s newest ship
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Thousands take to the coast to clean up California’s beaches — and more

The 39th annual California Coastal Cleanup Day kicked off on Saturday, Sept. 23, with thousands of folks taking the coasts to volunteer for the state-sponsored event aimed at bringing nature lovers together to benefit the beaches.

More than 700 cleanups in nearly every county of the state got underway on Saturday, with the cleanup day touted as the state’s largest annual volunteer event.

The California Coastal Cleanup day is even recognized as the biggest single-day volunteer event on the plan
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Southern Los Cerritos Wetlands, in Seal Beach, set for restoration with $31 million grant

A portion of the Los Cerritos Wetlands, a 500-acre complex of critical habitat for native wild and plant life, is set for restoration with help from a State Coastal Conservancy grant — after decades of work by local advocates to preserve the area.

The state agency recently awarded a $31.8 million grant to the Los Cerritos Wetland Authority — a joint powers agency comprising the cities of Long Beach and Seal Beach, the state conservancy itself, and the California Rivers and Mountain Conservancy
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Long Beach assistant city manager Linda Tatum announces retirement

Long Beach’s assistant city manager Linda Tatum, the city announced on Thursday, Sept. 21, will retire from her position in November.

Tatum took over the assistant city manager position in June 2020 — but has been a Long Beach employee since 2015, when she joined the city as the Development Services Department director.

As the Development Services director, according to the announcement, Tatum oversaw several urban planning and development initiatives — including development in the Downtown wa
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Long Beach wants more community input on its proposed LGBTQ Cultural District along Broadway

Long Beach is looking for additional community input on its plans for a proposed LGBTQ Cultural District along the Broadway corridor — and they’re hosting a workshop to obtain it on Monday, Sept. 25.

Last June, Rep. Robert Garcia, who was mayor at the time, and Vice Mayor Cindy Allen brought a proposal for the LGBTQ Cultural District, which would officially recognize the neighborhoods in and around the Broadway corridor and their place in Long Beach’s LGBTQ history by designating the area as an
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Slow down, Long Beach: City phasing in reduced speed limits on 90+ miles of streets

Long Beach has begun changing out signs throughout the city to reflect reduced speed limits, the city announced on Friday, Sept. 21, a change that’ll impact 92 miles of city streets.

A total of 111 street segments — including major corridors including 7th Street and Long Beach Boulevard, along with smaller neighborhood streets — will be subject to the changes, the city said.

The speed limit will be reduced by five miles per hour on major corridors including Long Beach Boulevard, Orange, Easy,
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Long Beach Gives approaching goal of $2 million for local nonprofits

Long Beach Gives Day took place on Thursday, Sept. 21 — and nonprofits around the city were hoping residents opened their wallets.

The fifth annual fundraising campaign, which this year saw a record number of nonprofits participate, began a week ago when early giving launched.

But Thursday was the official Long Beach Gives Day, and nonprofits fanned out across town, hosting various in-person events to drum up support. They also did so via social media.

Long Beach Gives organizers had hoped to
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LBCC starts construction on new $75 million Performing Arts Center

Long Beach City College’s Liberal Arts Campus will soon have a new, state-of-the-art performing arts facility.

Two existing buildings on that campus, G and H, will be replaced with a 67,000 square-foot Performing Arts Center — which will house the college’s performing arts, music, dance and broadcasting departments, according to a recent press release. The project will cost about $75 million.

College leaders and students gathered at the site of the new center on Wednesday, Sept. 20, to celebra
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Long Beach sends hotel worker minimum wage increase measure to March 2024 ballot

Long Beach voters will decide next year whether to raise the minimum wage for local hospitality workers to $23 an hour — with progressive increases over the next five years.

The City Council this week OK’d placing the proposed hotel wage minimum wage measure on the March 2024 local election ballot. If approved by voters, the measure would amend a previous ballot approved by voters in 2012.

The wage increase schedule, according to Tuesday, Sept. 19, staff report, would only apply to hotels with
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Musical Theatre West to put on ‘The Sound of Music’ for final production of the season

Long Beach’s Musical Theater West, beloved for its Broadway-caliber productions, will put on “The Sound of Music” for its last show of the 2023 season.

The Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein musical, originally released as a stage show in 1959 and later popularized by the 1965 film starring Julie Andrews, follows Maria Rainer’s journey to win over the Von Trapp family and its seven children.

Musical Theatre West’s production of “The Sound of Music,” featuring iconic songs such as the titula
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Health department Director Kelly Colopy announces exit from Long Beach

Kelly Colopy, Long Beach’s top public health official, who helped guide the city through the coronavirus pandemic and step up its efforts to address the local homeless crisis, will step down as director of the Health and Human Services Department later this year.

Colopy will leave Long Beach to take a similar post with Salt Lake County, Utah. That county’s council approved Colopy’s hiring as its Human Services Department director on Tuesday, Sept. 19.

She will start on Nov. 1. Her last day wit
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Let’s get ghastly: The Press-Telegram’s Scary Stories contest is back

Halloween may still be weeks away — but we’re ready for Long Beach students to unleash their inner monsters for the Press-Telegram’s annual Scary Stories Contest.

This chilling challenge asks students to explore the cadaverous caverns of their own imaginations — and deliver us with the most dreadful drawings and morbid myths they can conjure up.

There will be three age divisions for stories and drawings: Elementary school (K-5), middle school (6-8) and high school. Students can submit a scary
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Aquarium of the Pacific penguin, Ludwig, dies after contracting avian malaria

An Aquarium of the Pacific penguin has died, officials announced on Thursday, Sept. 14.

Ludwig, a Magellanic penguin, was 12 years old at the time of his death. He arrived at the Long Beach aquarium in 2012 after being hatched in a different Association of Zoos and Aquariums accredited facility, according to the Thursday announcement.

Magellanic penguins are native to the coasts of South America — including Chile, Argentina and Peru — and can live 10 to 20 years in the wild.

“Ludwig was a shy
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Long Beach, state commission sued by environmental group over oil drilling plans

Two plans that outline Long Beach’s efforts to produce oil over the next five years, which were recently approved by a state regulatory agency — after some revisions — have been challenged by an environmental organization in court.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a suit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court on Thursday, Sept. 14, against both the city and the California State Lands Commission, in an attempt to force Long Beach to conduct an environmental review of its oil-drilling
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Long Beach Gives hosts donation campaign kick-off; more than $176,000 raised so far

Hundreds of local leaders and nonprofit representatives gathered at the historic Rancho Los Cerritos to celebrate the start of this year’s Long Beach Gives donation campaign on Thursday, Sept. 14.

Long Beach Gives is a citywide, online campaign that was sounded in 2019 to raise money to support hundreds of local nonprofit organizations. Long Beach Gives has raised more than $6.6 million to that effect since its inception.

This year’s Long Beach Gives campaign kicked off in earnest with the sta
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Council asks Long Beach Airport to report back on noise reduction following complaints

After nearly a year of fielding noise complaints from residents, the Long Beach City Council has asked the city’s airport to provide a report detailing how it can reduce disturbances caused by flight operations.

Residents in the neighborhoods directly around the Long Beach Airport have long lived in harmony with the facility, but now, some say, noise caused by near-constant general aviation flights have severely disrupted their quality of lives.

About 100 residents gathered at the City Council
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Kindness: Taking on motherhood together with M.O.R.E. Mothers

But not every new parent has a community of people around them to offer support — be it financial or caretaking. That’s something Toi Nichols, founder of the nonprofit M.O.R.E Mothers, discovered shortly after the birth of her first son in 2018.

“I got injured giving birth. My whole life changed and (it felt like) a rug was pulled from under me,” Nichols said in a recent interview. “I was trying to care for and bond with a newborn baby. I couldn’t do things I envisioned I’d be able to do with m
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Kindness: Gay For Good’s volunteers work to better the Long Beach community

In 2008, California voters narrowly approved Proposition 8 — a ballot measure that would have outlawed same-sex marriage.

Though it was overturned by federal judge just two years later, the decision was a blow to the state’s LGBTQ community, and it prompted three Los Angeles area friends to harness their grief in the form of community action.

During a hike up to the Hollywood sign in Griffith Park, Tony Biel, Steve Gratwick and Frank Roller decided to mobilize their extensive queer community t
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Kindness: This drug rehab program serves Indegenous people in Southern California

California is home to the largest community of Indigenous people in the entire country, and Los Angeles County, by far, is home to the largest population of American Indians in the state.

But in Southern California, there’s only one substance abuse treatment center specifically designed to provide culturally competent care and community building for Indigenous people — and its headquartered in Long Beach.

American Indian Changing Spirits, co-founded in April 2000 by Cheryl McKnight and Amy Jo
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