Meet Your Neighbor - Marguerite Mazzitti

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Marguerite Mazzitti and I am currently a consultant for non profits. I help mostly with development and marketing. Basically telling the story and helping nonprofit how to do that.

What do you love about San Leandro?

I love that San Leandro has so much opportunity, I love that a big enough community but small enough to be involved at the local government level, the local business level and to get to know all the people who make San Leandro what it is.

You are also involved with Leadership San Leandro?

I am involved in a couple of things, Leadership San Leandro is one of them, I have been involved for about 3 years. I have been on the steering committee which helps guide the program. I think the greatest impact we have had on the 21 year old program is to have Breanna Hatcher leading it. She is really the magic that has reinvigorated the program. It is a pleasure to work with something new and fresh that so many more people are becoming aware of due to our marking efforts and due to people that are taking the class and are saying what value it has to offer.

The other things I do is I have been 3 times appointed to the board of zoning  adjustments also known as the BZA by elected officials. It is a board that reviews any items that are outside the building code, so we get a say in anything from say a local drug store that wants to change something or a resident or a new business coming to town. It involves anything in the city.

Back to Leadership, I have also been involved in Fundraising  for the leadership program and have put a lot of energy into The Taste of San Leandro which is going to be the 21st Amendment celebrating our 21st year of the program. I have got to know a lot of great restaurants and suppliers  and caterers, craft brewers and wine makers through this event which helps fund the program.

If a business like a restaurant that wants to be involved in the event how can they be involved?

It is all about trying to promote the local food, beer and wine. If you are a caterer please contact us and we will try and fit you into the program, we are limited on space.

The non catering companies, can they  be involved?

Any business or individual can sponsor The Taste of San Leandro. We have various levels. We start with the Taste tester  for $250 and it includes some great benefits, You get a couple of tickets to the taste and some other great things. We have sponsorship levels all the way up to $5000. $5000 is our presenting sponsor .

We have been very fortunate to be supported by the San Leandro businesses and individuals. I think this is an important investment in our community. We get the chance to help potential leaders form throughout this program. We have had more than several elected officials participate in the program. It's not just for people how are interested in politics. It's for people to learn more about how the city works and all the different entities that come together to form a city. It also gives you an insight into boards and commissions and what you can do for non profits. It's not just government related. Leadership also has a professional development component.

On Professional development added to the program during the last few years - The magic that has come though Breanna Hatcher. It's about communicating more clearly, it's about collaborating, it's about people coming together with opposing views but finding consensus, developing personal strengths. To me that is so incredibly valuable in comparison in trying to take courses in professional development. Leadership San Leandro raps it together with learning about your own community, and you an hopefully give back. That's why I invest so much energy into fundraising for it.

It's important for people to know who is running for office so they should get involved through leadership. It helps you get more involved in elections, know the candidates before you go to the poles to vote. It gives you a lot more information than a glossy postcard can or voting by how you like the sound of somebody's name. I am hoping people pay attention to that because we do get a chance to choose our leaders and I think that's important that we groom them from the community and that we exercise that right to vote very judicially

The Taste of San Leandro is a fundraiser for Leadership San Leandro. Can you sum up what to expect at the event?

It's a great event that runs for 3 hours. It is restaurants, our local craft breweries that we are now becoming a hub for and wine. They provide a sampling of their food and drink to a crowd of 300 people plus. It's a lot of fun, you get to network, you get to eat, you get to drink and catch up with people. That's what it is all about.

Any words of Wisdom on finishing quote?

What I would like to leave people with is we are really moving forward, I have been here over 15 years , and we are really starting to move forward in this town. Everyone can play a part in that. I would say think about what you can do to make this community better.

Thanks you so much, your energy is incredible, thank you.

Meet Your Neighbor - Jackie the House Elf

Who are you and what do you do?

I am Jackie the House Elf. My official job is to watch the children and report to Santa. I really just like getting into stuff.

What do you love about San Leandro?

I love all the local businesses and their decorated windows, it gets me in the Holiday spirit!

Final Words of Wisdom?

Be nice to each other in the parking lot.

See more of Jackie here 

Meet Your Neighbor - Lesley Christiansen and Joseph Alan McCalip

Who are you and what do you do?

I'm Lesley Christiansen and currently I am 100% and advocate for my youngest daughter, Audrey, who was diagnosed this summer with Autism.

I'm Joseph, I'm a photographer and a cinematographer and I specialize in weddings and I do a lot of photo shoots around the community.

 What do you love about San Leandro?

Lesley:  I think one of the things I fell in love with besides the community was when I lived in downtown San Leandro, I loved the vibe and how there were all these different events happening all the time, this was about 7 years ago, so now it's evolved and continuing to grow and I like that, I like it a lot.  I feel like there are more younger crowds moving in and it's a really hip place to be. 

Joseph:  When I was in high school  and college, a lot of people would go to San Francisco, Berkeley or Oakland and bring back those cultures influences to San Leandro. When I moved here I thought I want to be here for a while. After having Children you start think about where you want to be, what city you want to live in, this has always been a good choice (San Leandro).  The neighborhood we live in now has a very strong community base, a lot of parents that have kids hang out and get to know each other, I think that's important. You don't want to live in a neighborhood where you don't connect with your neighbors.

Lesley, let's talk about your FashionStylista Web site, When did this start?

Lesley:  It started at a very young age, one of the first gifts I bought my Mom was a pair of earrings, I think I was about 5 or 6 at the Oakland flea market . Before I got into personal styling I was a legal assistant for over 10 years. I got bored a lot. One day the idea just popped in my head to shop for someone. I asked an attorney, a friend if I could to that. She gave me her whole closet , can you redo my whole closet, Yes I will do it for free. This is the deal, If you love it and get complements refer me to people. People loved it, she threw a party, invited her friends. I came in, I told them what was in, what was out. That was the start of my personal styling business.

How can people find you?

Lesley:  I have a You-tube channel and my website  (Plus facebook )

I love the energy in the videos

Lesley:  Thank you. I try to put the contents out there for everyone, I try to base it on my personal problems that I have had with fashion. Being short, not really tall not everything fits me the way it should. I feel out there a lot of my clients have the same type of issues.

One of the things I always try to put out there is fashion is a lot more than what is on the outside and what dresses you. It always represents what is going on inside at the moment. Always.

There are always wonderful photos and the videos are well made, I am sure you (Joseph) have a lot to do with that?

Joseph: I wish we had more time to produce more of those, it's a great thing. We have separate businesses but we can mesh them together to help each other out. She helps me dress better at weddings, she helps me with business tactics. I was just an artist and wanting to please people. Her skills are in business and mine as an artist.

 Joseph's Art

Lesley:  We Complement each other

Joseph: The photos, the blog and the videos. I always think we can make something look a little better (relating to video quality).

Lesley:  We complement each other, It's funny how life works out. He definitely is part of the photography for my business and the videos. I think I complement him with my business mind and the background that I had with law, agreements and trademark, copyright and all that stuff.

Your photography has morphed into cinematography, Your videos are beautiful. Was that a natural progression for you?

Joseph:  I had a camera that she bought for me. I would take my daughters to the park and take pictures, then I started clicking buttons, Oh, this shoots video.  I had never shot video with a camera that was as great quality as the DSLR.

 I started having ideas  with what I could do. At that time I already had a business with my photos, I wasn't doing wedding photography yet, just family portraits.  When I got my first wedding I actually shot a video for them before their wedding that they showed at their wedding. After that I realized that creating a story that I saw through my eyes. I could make a great connection and not bore people. Make it exciting and energetic and draw people in.

Joseph Alan Productions

They seem personal

That's what happened with the video. These important milestones  in our lives. They are things that shouldn't be let go or just heard once. I was really driven that  people have a video they can pull out, invite friends over "Watch this quick video of my wedding". Something that lasts.

They are beautiful, not like someone has stood in the back with a camcorder

Lesley:  It's a film, it's a beautiful film.

It's funny , our first thing was photography and we were trying to find our niche. Joe had lost his job and we didn't know what to do. We thought let's just use your natural talents and got into photography, one thing lead to another. Connections play a big role, meeting people. We met some people that did video, it was an interest to him something that he had an itching to do. Next thing you know he was doing it for himself.

I know you are both involved in your school. You just did a photo shoot with part of the proceeds shared with the school.

Joseph:  That was my wife's idea. I like to share what I love to do, I love being involved in my daughters' school in any way that I can. There are a lot of families here, let's do photo shoot, it's fall time, people love to  share their family photos during Christmas.

Lesley:  I am on the PTA board for Roosevelt Elementary School. The idea just popped and I pitched it to the president, she shared it with board and the board said lets go. It started last year . 15% of everything we make on the shoot goes to the Roosevelt PTA.

The PTA serves a great purpose, I didn't realize how much the PTA does until I became a member and sat there at the meetings. They buy laptops, computers, iPads, field trips and even helping with salary for teacher assistants. It's amazing, so why not give back to that. It's our children who benefit.

Where do you see your businesses going in the future?

Lesley:  Honestly, I am not too sure. Right now I am 100% an advocate for my child and her education. She has been diagnosed with autism. I have been trying to figure out what I want to do with that. It takes so much of my time I have not been able to put too much time into my fashion business. I may morph those together . Bring it together and see who out there can relate and start following me. It's not all about fashion, there are tons of different things I do. I am a business partner (with Joseph), I am a mother, I love fashion and style. I'm thinking of bring them together and being more of a blogger and seeing what happens after that.

Click to read Lesleys Blog article on these changes in her life MY DAUGHTER HAS AUTISM AND IT’S NOT IN THIS SEASON!

Joseph: With weddings, photography and the future I hope to build a staff. It can be really tough alone. I want to document what is happening here in San Leandro in any way that I can. I am talking to a lot of new businesses that come here. Help them shoot the right video to promote their business. I have a friend we are working on a video right now that is getting pitched to A&E for a reality show, their t-shirt company is a different thread (laughs) . They do gorilla marketing , I hope they get picked up. More videos, maybe commercials for some businesses here. More corporate.

Any words of wisdom?

Joseph:  With God all things are possible. We could not get where we are if we were not faith based. We have prayed a lot about things that we should be doing, ideas, new ways of handling our business, where we should move next. It's always here in San Leandro. Faith Driven.

Lesley :  I have one quote from Theodore Roosevelt "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are"

Thank you guys

Meet Your Neighbor - Michelle and Leo Sheridan

Who are you and what do you do?

Michelle and Leo Sheridan and we are the president and vice-president of San Leandro Girls Softball.

What do you love about San Leandro?

We love the tight knit community,  anything you want to do,  people you want to know, you see them at one sport you see them at another, you see them in the coffee shop. It's just wonderful to have such an tight knit feel to a community.

Girls softball is a brand new league, why was that need?

We have an 8 year old daughter we have been coaching her in soccer and in softball and we have seen there are no girls sports in San Leandro. We have had tons of interest. People came up to us as say "Why don't we have girls sports in San Leandro?" We totally agree, why don't we? So we decided to start a league.

When will it start, When can you sign up and is there a Facebook page and Web site.

LEO - Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/Sanleandrogirlssoftball and website is http://www.sanleandrogirlssoftball.com/

MICHELLE - Registration is open now, it opened on Friday. Opening day is March 4th 2016. Girls can register online until the middle of January. We will also have 2 or 3 registration sites available.

What are the Ages?

LEO - Girls from 4 to 14 of all playing abilities.

And a travel team?

San Leandro is the home of the Nitro. We are excited to do a competitive team. Usually competitive teams are after rec. So rec teams first, then have tryouts for the Nitro to bring a competitive team to San Leandro.

Fields Yet?

MICHELLE - No official fields yet, we have an unofficial home.

LEO - The city has been working with us and is helping to find us a home.

You are also very involved in the your girls school

MICHELLE - I am PTO president of James Monroe Elementary, Leo is Dads Club President. We have been doing that since our daughter was in kindergarten. Leo is also on school board.

LEO - We are very involved in the community.

MICHELLE - We just want to make our community better, we want to make it better for our kids, specifically girls because we do not have enough activities for them.

LEO - In San Leandro the Diamonds are dominated by boys, we don't have an equitable share of girls on these fields.

MICHELLE  - We want to give the Girls softball.

You also work in San Leandro?

MICHELLE - I work for Bank of the West, I am a security investigator. I have worked for Bank of the west for 15 years. Leo works at San Leandro Color so we are completely into the san Leandro community

Any words of Wisdom?

MICHELLE - It's super important for everybody to get involved. You hear in other communities that people like to complain, they want changes but they are not willing to man up and to really get involved. You have got to get involved, that is the only way you can make change. That's what Leo and I practice and preach.

Thanks you so much

Meet Your Neighbor - Lord Blood-Rah (Frank Wallace-Ailsworth)

Who are you and what do you do?

     My full name is Frank Wallace-Ailsworth.  I'm 52 and was born and raised here in San Leandro.  I'm married to my wife Chris and have two sons, Gavin, who lives in Boston and is the drummer for popular art rock band Bent Knee, and Ben, who lives at home and teaches drums and bass as well as performing all over the Bay Area and recording with musicians like Jay Lane formerly of Primus.

    

     For the last 6 years I have hosted Horror and Sci-Fi films at various venues all over the Bay Area.  I started at the Chouinard Winery in Castro Valley in 2009.  My wife and I are close friends with the winemaker, Damian Chouinard, and his family.  Damian was interested in showing movies at the winery, specifically older genre films.  We put a show together with someone else hosting and, though the show came off well and was well attended, there were some quirks that made Damian not want to rehire the host.

     The next day, Damian, my wife and I were sitting in my kitchen having a glass of wine when he said he wanted to do a series of movie shows every September, but didn't want to use the previous host.  I said I really didn't know of anyone else to suggest, whereupon my wife Chris turned to me and said "Why the hell don't you do it?"

I had no answer, so the following year in '09 I began hosting the shows under the title Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Theatre. 

     I became Lord Blood-Rah, the High Lord of Geekdom, (a self proclaimed title):  A proud Geek who loves nothing so much as sharing these great old classic and craptacular horror and sci-fi films with like minded Geeks. 

     This last September marked the sixth year of Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Theatre at the Chouinard Winery which runs every September weekend. 

     Soon after, I began hosting shows at other venues across the Bay Area including The Bal in San Leandro, The Parkway in Oakland, The Rheem in Moraga and, most recently, the Peirano Winery in Lodi.

    

     Three years ago, I was approached by Sujoy Sarkar of KCTH Comcast 27 out of Chabot College to do a TV show, basically a Creature Features type horror host show.  I dove in and began filming episodes on a set I built in my home. 

     Just a few months later, a good friend of mine in Peoria, Il. Bryan Wolford, who works at WAOE My59 TV, said their station wanted to run a horror host show and to send a sample episode for consideration.  I met Bryan while submitting material for his horror themed podcast Drunken Zombie. 

     I sent a link to an episode on Youtube and within a couple of hours I was told they wanted to run the series!  Shortly after, two other mid-west stations. WISE MyTV Fort Wayne in In. and WHTV My18 in Lansing Mi. picked up the series.

     You can find episodes of my show, as well as the first appearance of Lord Blood-Rah at the ever at the Chouinard Winery from 2009 on youtube.com/lordbloodrah.

    

     My connection to Bryan also lead to me hosting the Drunken Zombie International Film Festival in Peoria for the last four years.  It's an independent horror film festival that features submissions of short and feature length horror films from all over the world.

    

     Lord Blood-Rah's Nerve Wrackin' Theatre is now in it's 5th Season and airs locally on KCTH Comcast 27 Friday Nights at 10:30pm and Saturday nights at Midnight, and on Comcast 28 10pm Wednesday nights and 12:30am Saturday Nights as well as the afore mentioned mid-west stations.

     The show can also be found on various online horror host sites such as Kreepykastle.com and The Vortexx at horrorhost.net.

      I have also made numerous pop culture and comic book convention appearances and next year will be the Master of Ceremonies at the 2016 Con-volution Convention at the Hyatt Regency SFO, as well as presenting a panel on the connection between Tiki Culture and Monsters at the 2016 Tiki Oasis Convention in San Diego.

     This Halloween Night I'll be hosting the Werewolves of London Halloween Party at Trader Vic's in Emeryville.  We're having a Bay Area's Best Werewolf Contest with some great prizes supplied by Trader Vic's and myself!

     All this and a day job make life quite busy!

What do you love about San Leandro?

     As I said, I was born and raised here.  I love the convenience of living here.  Everything is quite easily accessible and there is a great small town vibe to the town, even though San Leandro has grown quite a bit since I was a kid here!

Tell me about the BAL?

I did a series of shows at the Bal theatre featuring classic films.  We showed the original Frankenstein and Dracula there, an evening of Gamera films, Psycho, a tribute to Creature Features, etc.  The shows were great fun and drew a small, tight attentive audience, but the financial realities of the Bal at the time, owned by Dan Dillman, made continuing there impossible.  We just were not drawing the numbers he needed to see to make it viable.

     The first CreaturesCon, the Creature Features convention, was held at the Bal.  It was a great success, but even at that first event we could feel that CreatureCon was outgrowing the venue.  CreaturesCon now is a part of the Big Wow Comic Book Convention which next year will morph into the Silicon Valley ComicCon.

     The Bal looks to be doing primarily music now.  I may perhaps approach Dan again with a pitch for a show, but with the TV show and other live shows lined up, it's hard to tell when.

Finishing Words of Wisdom

     To quote the great Bob Wilkins of Creature Features, "Watch Horror Films, Keep America Strong!"

Meet Your Neighbor - Tom Blinn

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Tom Blinn and I am a retired teacher and businessman and I work in a youth program in Oakland.  My spare time goes to the San Leandro Historical Railroad Society.

Very Cool.  What do you love about San Leandro?

I just love it because they (the City of San Leandro) are so open to new ideas and they are really supportive of us as a railroad museum but also our approach into the schools in training kids on how to be safe around railroad tracks.

There was something fairly recently when somebody got hit in San Leandro on the railroad tracks.

We generally get involved when there is an accident and we go to the schools and talk to the kids, and sometimes the counselors will get involved, but we are part of a larger organization called Operation Lifesaver which is all around the United States and was started by Engineers in 1949.  We have thousands of people that are presenters, like myself, and we go to schools to speak.  On October 14 we will be presenting to the 6^th grade classes at John Muir School here is San Leandro.

Oh, very cool!  Now you guys have your museum at Thrasher Park.  The building that you are housed in has a little bit of history.  Please tell us about that.

The building we are in was built in 1898 and it was built with heartwood grade redwood, full dimension so a 2X4 is a 2X4!  The building sat on the corner of Davis St. and the railroad tracks for a long time.  It was 22 years ago that we moved it over to Thrasher Park.  We bought it from the railroad.  We had enough money to move it and the City of San Leandro allowed us to place it at Thrasher Park.  We sold it to the City and we lease it back from them on a 20 years lease.  We generally have 2000-3000 people coming in every other month so we have a lot of community involvement.  Most of our visitors are young people.  Some kids don’t have a long span of attention but around trains they do!  So for parents, sometimes the worst part of the visit is trying to take their kids home because the kids want to stay and they cry. 

Right!

But we have a museum, we have a HO scale display and we have an outdoor display for larger trains.  We also have an area just for the kids.  They can go run trains, they can crash them and do anything they want!  They have fun doing that.

You do special Halloween and holiday events?

Yes, we have a special Halloween event on 10/27.  We will have trains with Halloween cars on it and the whole place will be decorated up!  We really look for kids to participate and they will have a great time

.

Great.  What are your normal hours of operation?

Saturday mornings starting about 9:30am until about 1pm.  On Tuesday nights we are open 7:30pm until 9:30pm.  We have about 35 members and we are all very avid about trains.  Sometimes we ask ourselves why we like trains and we don’t know but we really like trains!  (Laughs).

That’s wonderful!  My son and I have visited and we really loved it.  Do you have any last words of wisdom?

Well, our passion is to our trains but even greater than that is that people are not hurt by trains.  A lot of people don’t give enough attention to trains and the tracks and always be aware that the train can come at any time.  We want no one to be hurt.

Thank you for your time today Tom.

(thanks to Patricia Minnis for Transcribing the interview)

Meet Your Neighbor - Paul Francisco

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Paul Francisco, I am an athletic trainer and therapist. I also coach my daughters under nine soccer team.

What do you love about San Leandro?

I love San Leandro's location. It's proximity to San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Silicon Valley. Having BART is a huge benefit that many towns do not have.

Words of wisdom?

Patience is a virtue

Thanks Coach!