Mountain Views News, Combined Edition Saturday, February 5, 2022

Mountain Views-News Saturday, February 5, 2022 

Pasadena 
Launches 
Covid-19 
Vaccine 
Video Contest 

 
Gives Students Ages 
4-24 Chance to Win Upto $1,500

 Pasadena Public Health 
Department officials 
announced Tuesday an 
innovative COVID-19 
vaccine video contest 
that aims to spotlight 
the benefits of choosing 
vaccination, to counter 
harmful myths, and to 
promote an open dialogue 
about COVID-19 and 
vaccines through the 
sharing of experiences on 
social media. The 2022 
#VaccinatePasadena Video 
Contest invites students 
ages 4-24 (grades TK-
college) to create and 
submit artwork or share a 
short video on TikTok or 
Instagram with a powerful 
and positive COVID-19 
vaccine message.

 Students in different grade 

categories—elementary 
school, middle school, 
high school and college—
will compete for monetary 
awards for their team and 
school. Awards are funded 
by a grant through L.A. 
Care Health Plan and 
range from $50 to $1,500.

“COVID-19 has 
dramatically impacted 
kids and young adults 
on a personal level. This 

contest gives students 

a creative way to share 
with their peers and others 
in the community how 
vaccination has changed 
the trajectory of this 
pandemic and renewed 
the hope and optimism 
they have for the future,” 
says Dr. Ying-Ying Goh, 
Pasadena Public Health 
Department director and 
health officer. “We can’t 
wait to see the entries and 
showcase the winners.”

 The Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention 
(CDC) recommends 
everyone 5 and older 
get vaccinated againstCOVID-19, and everyone12 and older to get boosted. 
In Pasadena, children and 
some young adults lagbehind other age groupsin vaccination rates. Peer-
to-peer messaging can bea strong, positive influence 
among children and 
youth, and social mediais a popular medium forshowcasing young people’screativity and passion forimportant issues.

 All students ages 4-24 
currently enrolled in 
grades TK-college 
in Pasadena schools 
(including all schools in 
the PUSD school district) 
are eligible to enter the 
#VaccinatePasadena Video 
Contest. Deadline for 
entries is Feb. 17. Winners 
will be announced during 
a virtual awards ceremony 
in March 2022. Official 
rules at: cityofpasadena.
net/public-health. 

Bill to make Kids Summer Camps Safer 

Roxie Forbes 

 
In response to the wholly 
preventable drowning death 
of 6-year-old Roxie Forbes at a 
Los Angeles County summer 
camp in Altadena, as well as a 
history of traumatic incidents 
at children’s camps statewide, 
Assemblymember Chris Holden 
introduced AB 1737, Tuesday, a 
measure that establishes health 
and safety standards to protect 
millions of child campers and 
counselors.

 “When parents take their 
children to day camps 
throughout the year, it is under 
the assumption that they will 
be protected, make friends, and 
return home safely afterwards,” 
Holden said. “We want to give 
parents and guardians a peace of 
mind to ensure they know their 
child is secure in California.”

 According to Holden, AB 
1737 would clarify that day 
and overnight camps attended 
by children are subject to 
California Department of Public 
Health (CDPH) regulations 
and specifically outline the 
obligations of CDPH, local 

agencies, and children’s camps 
prior to and during operation 
of the children’s camps. The bill 
would also require children’s 
camps to include in their 
operating plan submitted to 
their local agency normal 
operation procedures, security 
and emergency procedures, 
health and safety policies, and 
indicate whether the camp offers 
any high-risk activities, such 
as swimming and horseback 
riding.

 In response to the preventable 
death of their daughter, 
Doug Forbes and his wife 
Elena launched Meow Meow 
Foundation, the nation’s only 
camp safety nonprofit. They 
successfully established new 
camp safety and drowning 
prevention laws in Los Angeles 
County and work with 
legislators and health and safety 
experts throughout the U.S. to 
establish measures that protect 
millions of children at camps 
from wholly preventable harm.

 “The camp responsible for 
my daughter’s death remained 
open the entire day she died and 

Movies That Matter ‘100 
Years From Mississippi’ 

 As part of Caltech’s Movies 
That Matter, a new film series 
curated and presented in a 
collaborative partnership 
between Caltech Public 
Programming, launches with 
a virtual screening of the 2021 
award-winning documentary 
“100 Years From Mississippi” 
directed by Tarabu Betserai 
Kirkland (pictured right). The 
film and panel discussion will 
be shown, Friday, February 11, 
at 7:30 p.m.

 The virtual screening is 
followed by a panel discussion 
of the film and its impact, 
featuring the director, Barry 
Shabaka Henley; one of the 
film’s producers; and Danielle 

L. Wiggins, Caltech assistantprofessor of history in the 
Division of the Humanities and 
Social Sciences. 
“100 Years From Mississippi” 
tells the true story of one 
family’s flight from Ellisville, 
Mississippi under threat of 
lynching in the early 20th 
century and the aftermath 100 
years after the events, all seen 
from the point of view of the 
family’s young daughter. 
Mamie Lang Kirkland (pictured 
left) was seven years old when 
she fled Ellisville, Mississippi 
in 1915 with her mother and 
siblings as her father and his 
friend, John Hartfield, escaped 
an approaching lynch mob. 
John Hartfield returned to 
Mississippi in 1919 and was 
killed in one of the most 
horrific lynchings of the era.

 Mamie’s son, Tarabu, had 
grown up hearing stories of 
John Hartfield, but didn’t know 
if his mother’s stories were fact 
or folklore until one day in 
2015, when Tarabu discovered 
an article describing Hartfield’s 
murder before a crowd of 
10,000 spectators.

 For over 100 years, Mamie 


vowed never to return to 
Mississippi. After Tarabu made 
his remarkable find, he urged 
his mother to finally confront 
her childhood trauma by 
returning to Ellisville. Mamie 
was 107 when they began the 
journey to connect her story to 
the larger impact of America’s 
legacy of racial violence, which 
echoes today from Ferguson 
to New York, Atlanta to Los 
Angeles.

 Like many of the 6 million 
African Americans who left the 
Deep South during that period, 
Mamie’s story is a testament to 
the courage and hope of her 
generation. Her indomitable 
will and contagious joy of living 
is exceeded only by her ability 
to tell her story now, 111 years 
later.

 “100 Years From Mississippi” 
has won many awards at 2021 
film festivals across North 
America, including Best 
Documentary at the Harlem 
Internation Film Festival, Best 
Documentary Feature at the 
National Black Film Festival, 
Best Documentary Narrative 
at the Indianapolis Black 
Documentary Film Festival, the 
Audience Award at the Buffalo 
International Film Festival, 
and the Jury Choice for Mid-
length Documentary at the 
Montreal International Black 
Film Festival.

 For more information about 
the film and to reserve a spot 
visit: events.caltech.edu/series/
movies-that-matter. 

every day thereafter,” said Doug 
Forbes, Father of Roxie Forbes 
and CEO of Meow Meow 
Foundation. “Camp owners 
emailed thousands of parents 
telling them they wanted ’to 
keep the day as normal as 
possible,’ and they prevented 
those parents from picking up 
their traumatized children. 
I contacted Holden because 
nothing is normal about 
affording camps the latitude 
to inflict such harm without 
accountability. I will stop at 
nothing to keep children and 
parents from similar suffering,”

 “Children should not worry 
about their own safety, it is 
the responsibility of the adults 
providing supervision while 
their parent or guardians are at 
work,” Holden said.

 Roxie Forbes drowned at 
Summerkids camp (pictured 
above) in Altadena in 2019. 

South Pas 
LibraryVirtual Book 
Discussion

 The South Pasadena 
Public Library is set to host 
a virtual book discussion of 
"A Contract with God" in 
celebration of Will Eisner 
Week. The discussion 
will take place on Zoom 
on Thursday, March 3 at 

7:00 p.m. Registration is 
required. 
Will Eisner Week, taking 
place March 1st through 
7th, is the annual literary 
celebration of Will Eisner, 
a pioneer in the field of 
sequential art whose career 
spanned more than 70 
years. A Contract with God 
is a semi-autobiographical 
work containing four 
interwoven stories of 
the Jewish residents of a 
tenement building in New 
York City. This graphic 
novel, originally released 
in 1978, revolutionized the 
comic book medium and 
is often deemed the first 
modern graphic novel.

 Upon request made no 
later than four (4) business 
days before the event, 
the City will provide a 
reasonable accommodation 
for a qualified person 
with disability to have 
equal access to the event. 
Please call (626) 4037312 
or fill out the City’s 
request form available 
at: southpasadenaca.gov 
and email the form to 
Human Resources at HR@
southpasadenaca.gov. 

Pasadena Senior Center to hold 
Carnegie Cosmic Cocktail Hour 

 In the early eons of cosmic 
time, how did the universe 
transform from slow-moving 
clumps of dark matter to large 
and complex galaxies, such as 
Andromeda and our own local 
Milky Way? 

 For the Carnegie Observatories 
Cosmic Cocktail Hour 
presented by the Pasadena 
Senior Center Wednesday, Feb. 
23, at 4 p.m. via Zoom, Dr. 
Ivanna Escala will discuss what 
studies have revealed about the 
building blocks of galaxies in 
the broader universe. 

 Escala is a Carnegie-
Princeton postdoctoral fellow 
whose research at Carnegie 
Observatories includes galactic 
archeology, stellar spectroscopy 
and galaxy formation. She uses 
ground-based telescopes to 
measure chemical abundances 
of individual stars in nearby 
galaxies and learn about their 
formation history. She earned 
her undergraduate degree in 
physics with a specialization 
in astrophysics from the 
University of California 
San Diego and her PhD in 
astrophysics from Caltech. 

 The cost of Cosmic Cocktail 
Hour is only $7 for members 
of the Pasadena Senior Center 
and $10 for nonmembers 50 
and older. To register, visit: 
pasadenaseniorcenter.org and 
click on Lectures & Classes, 
then Special Events or call 
626-795-4331. Everyone who 
registers will receive an email 
link to access this Zoom event. 
Neither Pasadena Senior Center 
membership nor residency in 
Pasadena is required. 

 Then pour your favorite 
beverage, sit back and enjoy the 
astronomical trip. 

 In addition to online classes, 
onsite events and other 

Dr. Ivanna Escala 


activities, members and 
nonmembers of the Pasadena 
Senior Center are encouraged 
to visit the website regularly for 
a monthly magazine, COVID 
updates specifically for older 
adults and more. 

 The center, at 85 E. Holly 
St., is an independent, 
donor-supported nonprofitorganization that has served 
older adults for more than 60 
years. During the pandemic, 
doors are open Mondays 
through Fridays from 8:30 a.m. 
to 4:30 p.m. for social services 
and other critical services for 
older adults in need as well as 
limited occupancy for events, 
the library, fitness center and 
computer lab. Masks and social 
distancing are required. Rooms 
are sanitized after each use. 

 In accordance with Los 
Angeles County Public Health 
Department guidelines, proof 
of COVID vaccination is 
required for everyone who uses 
the fitness center or attends 
onsite activities indoors. 
All onsite instructors and 
presenters are required to meet 
minimum COVID protocols. 

Playhouse to Perform theTranslation of Uncle Vanya

 Pasadena Playhouse 
Producing Artistic Director 
Danny Feldman announced 
Tuesday the Los Angeles 
premiere of the Richard Nelson, 
Richard Pevear, and Larissa 
Volokhonsky translation 
of Uncle Vanya by Anton 
Chekhov. Performances are 
scheduled from June 1 through 
June 26. 

 This exhilarating revival 
pairs one of the greatest plays 
ever written with the world’s 
most celebrated translators 
of Russian literature. After 
years of caring for their 
family’s crumbling estate, 
Vanya and his niece receive 
an unexpected visit from his 
brother-in-law and his alluring 
wife. When hidden passions 
and tumultuous frustrations 
come to a boil in the heat of 
the Russian summer, their 
lives threaten to come undone. 
Comic, cutting, and true to 
life, this translation of Uncle 
Vanya provides an up-close, 
conversational-style encounter 
with a classic drama that every 
theater-lover must see.

 “In addition to producing 

American musicals and new 
works, boldly re-envisioning 
classic plays is core to our 
mission at the Playhouse,” said 
Danny Feldman, Producing 
Artistic Director. “This new 
translation of Uncle Vanya 
breathes new life into a 
theatrical masterpiece, making 
it perfect for fans of Chekhov 
or people experiencing his 
work for the first time.”

 Tickets are on sale now, starting 
at $30 at pasadenaplayhouse.
org, or by calling 626-356-7529. 


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