Archive / Dinner Parties
On New Year’s Day in 2008, Jeff Hyland and his friend Mike Tryon left Southern California on bicycles en route to Florida. They called the journey, which took them through the Southern states, “the Southern Tier.” “The purpose of the ride was to educate people about environmental conservation, and to inspire them to ride a bike more often,” Hyland explains.
For Hyland, this sort of adventure was something he could not pass up. In 2006 he spent a year in Costa Rica with famed biologist Jim Wolf, editing video on local insects and spiders. “Wolf’s dedication and passion for biology motivated me to want to do what I felt I was made to do,” Hyland recalls. Less than two years later Hyland was on the road, at work on his own documentary, at times sleeping in awkward places like horse stalls and hanging out at the Biosphere II in Arizona (minus Pauly Shore).
The journey to Florida took them over four months, and they poetically finished the ride on Earth Day. Over 170 hours of footage were compiled on the trip, which is being made into a four-part documentary series on major issues ranging from water conservation to climate change. “The environmental movement is about humans, not just polar bears,” says Hyland. “It’s about educating the future generations so that they can enjoy this planet as much as we have.” // SCOTT JONES
Come get to know your neighbors! And 25% of the bill goes to We Love Long Beach!!! We want this City to be Great!!!
Please come join us for a fun,free, summer breakfast in the park!
Come support WLLB at Baja Sonora.
25% of the bill supports further community development efforts of We Love Long Beach! Please Come Out and support the cause!!!
You are invited to get to know your Neighbor and Enjoy a great meal
We are lucky to travel back downtown to Pine Ave this month to enjoy a scrumptious buffet at George’s Greek Cafe.
We Love Downtown Long Beach!
Here is the Menu: ***This month’s dinner is just $16.00 which includes tax & tip and the following buffet choices:
- Traditional Greek Salad
- Pita
- Roasted Potatoes
- Veggies
- Kleftico (slow roasted lamb)
- Chicken Skewers
- Baklava
**Drinks are NOT included with this price***
Please only RSVP if you can make it
Questions on this please email us at info@welovelb.org
**There is free 2 hour parking behind George’s and Smooth’s w/ validation!!
Sue Beeny Photo by Jason Wilson
As a nurse, the first thing Sue Beeney would do at the beginning of her shift was to check the list of patients under her care. Tears would fill her eyes as she saw a line written through a name, because, of course, this meant that that person was dead.
After working in a veteran’s hospital for 1_ years, and continuously feeling the shock and weight that death left behind, she became restless. A vague and unformed question began to surface from the depths of her person until one day, in all its profoundness and simplicity, it faced her directly and unavoidably: What is grief?
In 1986 she enrolled into a self-paced study program about just that. Nine months later, she conducted her first grief support group of eight people in a local church lobby. But it didn’t stop there. People were still dieing and people were still falling into bottomless pits of despair and paralysis. Shell-shocked victims from all over the city began flocking to her intimate therapeutic meetings held in YMCA kitchens, psych hospitals, conference rooms of medical hospitals, and churches. She wrote books on the subject and lived through the doubt and tragedy of others, night after night – for fourteen years as she continued her full-time position as a nurse. In 1999, New Hope Grief Support Community was born. Sue finally quit her daytime job to become the president of her non-profit refuge for the hurt and wounded.
Today, New Hope has 241 volunteers logging in 6000 hours a year, and is running 35 eight-week groups of 8-10 mourners a year. Sue still personally leads as many of these groups as possible; highly trained, caring, and invested volunteers lead the rest. She and her team run weekend camps for children and teens and they even have a pet therapy dog named Cinder who lights up the world for both children and adults. Like Sue and her volunteers, he is a friend that will sit with you through your pain. No gimmicks, no sales pitches, no easy answers. Rather, a friend and comrade with whom you can slowly walk down the long dusty road of grief to a place of healing and a “new normal”.
On average, thirteen people are affected by each death. And each year over 3000 people die in Long Beach. Sue is one of these affected people and she is not holding back her tears, or her smile. Here is a link: http://www.newhopegrief.org //JASON WILSON
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