The 2024 San Diego Heart & Stroke Walk was held this morning in Balboa Park. Participants raised over one million dollars this year, supporting the American Heart Association and its many important programs!
I visited the event and took these inspiring photographs. Teams walking through the park and past the finish line were being encouraged by students from San Diego State University. There was a fun dog costume contest, a photo booth, roses for participants, a community board showing who walkers walk for, a small farmers market, and more. Heart disease and stroke survivors could ring a bell to celebrate life!
The American Heart Association supports medical research and educational programs. Projects, according to their website, include:
Up-to-the-minute research into doctors’ hands so they can better prevent and treat heart disease among patients. Groundbreaking pediatric heart and stroke research that is key to saving babies’ lives. Providing life-saving information that can save a life – like how to eat better, how to recognize the warning signs of heart attack, and how to talk to a doctor about critical health choices.
If you’d like to support the American Heart Association with a donation, or if you’d like to participate in a future walk, click here!
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Are you a gamer with heart? Would you like to improve the lives of hospitalized kids? Gamers Outreach is a charity that would appreciate your help.
The two cool people in the above photo are raising money for Gamers Outreach during TwitchCon in San Diego. I spotted them today grilling hot dogs at a tent on Harbor Drive. Look for them near a dancing hot dog!
Their objective: help fund programs that brighten the day of sick kids in hospitals, including San Diego’s own Rady Children’s Hospital.
Let me share two paragraphs from Gamers Outreach literature:
WHO WE ARE
Gamers Outreach is a charity that empowers hospitalized families through play. Our goal is to build a world where activity is easily prioritized as part of care. Video games are our tools of choice.
WHY WE DO IT
Being in the hospital can be scary and isolating. Games give kids access to adventure and opportunities to socialize. Sometimes healthcare staff even use games to assist with treatment!
Gamers Outreach has several programs. Click here to check out their GO Karts (Gamers Outreach Karts), which are portable video game kiosks built specifically for hospitals. Kids stuck in bed can play!
The Player 2 program encourages volunteers to distribute, manage, and play games with hospitalized kids! This role is particularly great for college gamers!
The Save Point program provides hospitals with high-tech vending machines that distribute items such as toys, game codes, and fun swag to kids receiving care . . . as they progress through treatment. Make getting better a fun goal! Curious hospitals should check this out!
Gamers Outreach helps thousands of children per year in a multitude of hospitals. Interested in learning more, and perhaps helping this effort? Visit their website by clicking here!
If you’re in San Diego for TwitchCon, head over to the fundraising tent on Harbor Drive across from the convention center, near the Gaslamp trolley station. I spun their prize wheel and got a free hot dog!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
As I entered Balboa Park for a late Sunday morning stroll, I noticed tents and a stage coming down on the grass near Sixth Avenue. I then spoke to smiling people who had worked to organize the event.
When I was told about the Walk in Remembrance With Hope, I wanted to help in a small way with my blog.
The walk was a memorable way to celebrate the lives of loved ones lost to suicide & to raise awareness about suicide prevention. Funds raised stay in San Diego County for suicide outreach & prevention and survivor support services.
If you’d like to read more about the organization, find comfort, or help spread human compassion, please visit the Survivors of Suicide Loss San Diego website by clicking here.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Some trolley riders smiled. Others slept. Some unabashedly sang along. Others stared at the unexpected spectacle with suspicion or disbelief. We all were riding a San Diego trolley to Destination JOY!
A special event was held today in San Diego. Trolley passengers could experience bright smiles and joy at certain stations and, perhaps unexpectedly, while riding the Blue or Orange lines! Destination JOY was the name of this first time event, and I experienced a bit of it myself!
Sustainable transportation, climate change mitigation, health and well-being, and civic engagement were the central themes of the event, which was presented by Way Outside the Lines in partnership with many community organizations and the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS). The mood of the event was happy and optimistic–full of good vibes!
At the Iris Avenue Transit Center, both registered participants and ordinary transit users could listen to poetry readings about human love in a sometimes difficult world, see colorful artwork, listen to live music, and even learn how to beat the summer heat. The theme at this station was the Sound of Joy…
Anyone could walk up and try their hand at painting. This is local artist David Gomez, who also had a small gallery of his artwork on display.
Institute for Public Strategies was at the Iris Avenue Transit Center educating people about how to beat the summer heat.
These musicians weren’t playing when I happened by, but they gave me the thumbs up!
A group that signed up for the full 4 hour Destination JOY experience prepare to board a random Blue Line trolley. They and surprised passengers would be entertained by a musical trolley show!
At the E Street Transit Center in Chula Vista, the roving group would enjoy more outdoor activations. The theme here was Art of Motion. Anyone who happened to come by the trolley station could participate in yoga and other healthy activities.
Smiles from the Yoga Lab!
I then headed off on my own to check out the activations at the 24th Avenue Transit Center in National City. Expression of Color was the theme at this station, and much of what I saw, including more colorful artwork, concerned protecting our natural environment.
I learned that a new project called Mundo Gardens is planned for National City. The Interstate 805 ramps for 43rd Street will be coming down creating an open space for the community.
From the 24th Street Transit Center I rode a Blue Line trolley back into downtown San Diego, missing the final Orange Line activations at the Euclid Avenue Station & Jacobs Center.
I did find friendly folks from the Urban Collaborative Project inside UC San Diego Park & Market near the trolley station of the same name. They aim to make Southeast San Diego a more vibrant, informed, connected, and empowered community!
The following stone was painted by Elie Kennedy, who had a table nearby. Visit my blog post concerning her work spreading love in San Diego by clicking here!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
If you live in downtown San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood, or anywhere near the County Administration Center, you’re in luck! The new outdoor recreation area in Waterfront Park opened last week!
This community resource had been a work in progress for a very long time, and now it can welcome those who like to play sports, exercise, or walk their dog in the San Diego sunshine. You can see photographs of the area under construction here and here.
The recreation area occupies the northeast corner of Waterfront Park. It includes one basketball and two pickleball courts, five exercise stations, a ping pong table, plus a fenced off-leash dog area with agility equipment. Pickleball paddles and balls, table tennis paddles and balls, basketballs, and TRX suspension equipment can be freely checked out from a nearby information booth, which is open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. during the summer, and from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. from fall to spring. A sign on the booth’s window indicates there’s also a bocce ball set and chess set available for loan.
I’m happy to see that the 1.25 acre area spared some of the old garden where it was built. And there are benches to sit in the shade of newly planted trees, and even a Little Free Library box near the information booth with books that young or old might enjoy reading.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X.
Today is Bike Anywhere Day in San Diego! The event, promoted by SANDAG, occurs smack dab in the middle of May, which is National Bike Month.
The sun broke through the “May gray” this afternoon, and more than a few people took advantage of the mild weather as they rode bicycles around the city. Bike Anywhere Day encourages people to enjoy the outdoors on two wheels–whether they are going to work or simply having some healthy fun.
Early in the morning I walked around downtown to visit some of the many Bike Anywhere Day pit stops. The one I found, at the foot of the Broadway Pier, was just getting set up. Some bikes were already present, and I received a big smile from a friendly gentleman representing the Port of San Diego!
In the late afternoon, as I walked home from work, I spotted more bicycles on the move!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
The 29th Celebration of Champions was held today in San Diego at Embarcadero Marina Park North!
Families from around the region gathered for relay races, a circle of life, and happy activities celebrating kids who fight childhood cancer. The event benefits Rady Children’s Peckham Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders, which offers one of the nation’s top pediatric cancer programs.
Young kids played and romped during the festival, and families remembered loving children who had tragically passed away.
Generous sponsors ran relays with individual families and children, everyone cheering encouragement. The San Diego Padres and Gulls were present, as were SDSU cheerleaders and Star Wars cosplayers and Batman with his cool Batmobile! I almost forgot the pony rides and carnival!
What an inspirational event. An immense crowd had gathered in the San Diego sunshine. Faith in humanity restored. You had to be there.
If you’d like to help out Rady Children’s Hospital, click here!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
A new mural in City Heights was unveiled this evening. The intent of the mural is to raise awareness about tuberculosis in San Diego, Mexico, and our border region.
I haven’t had a chance to photograph the finished mural yet, but will try to swing by tomorrow to check it out.
The mural is titled Los Colores acTBistas.
Why has this artwork been painted in City Heights, on a wall at Super Cocina (where, incidentally, many other great murals can be found)?
The Americas TB Coalition will conduct an international ‘ArTBtour in the United States – Mexico Border’ from March 9th to 26th, 2024. The tour will include murals, talks, and interviews to raise awareness of tuberculosis, its comorbidities with HIV and diabetes, and its impact on migrant populations and at-risk communities in Tijuana, Mexicali, and San Diego. The initiative aims to promote collaboration and understanding among different communities and stakeholders to end TB in the US/Mexico border region.
The murals on both sides of the border will be created by Alan Vazquez, a highly acclaimed ecological artist designated by the Mexican Ministry of Health as an ambassador for the fight against tuberculosis in Mexico, with the participation of local artists and affected communities.
UPDATE!
Here are photographs of the finished mural!
(I spoke to a couple of people who’d parked nearby. They loved the art, but didn’t perceive the mural’s message concerning tuberculosis.)
ANOTHER UPDATE!
I’ve learned a plaque will be added to the mural, conveying important information about tuberculosis!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
It’s a museum-like place that the public can tour, whose mission is: Advancing knowledge of the brain and mental health through research, education, and the arts.
I enjoyed a look inside the Brain Observatory recently and much of what I saw was astounding. I was shown about briefly and learned about the unique facility’s history and mission.
The Brain Observatory houses a fully-functional research laboratory. Students and visitors can learn about the brain by utilizing authentic, state-of-the-art scientific equipment and by exploring real data, including samples from a large collection of donated human brains.
Founded in 2005 by Dr. Jacopo Annese, the Brain Observatory began as a brain research lab at UC San Diego. Ph.D. scientists from around the world, including a Nobel Prize winner from the Salk Institute, are on the Advisory Board.
The Brain Observatory uses MRI and microscopy to understand the biological basis of normal brain function and neurological disease. Advanced scientific equipment is also used to educate youth who take part in school programs.
Curious? The public can tour the Brain Observatory by reservation. In addition there are lunchtime lectures. Learn about these great opportunities by clicking here.
Dr. Jacopo Annese enthusiastically talked about his endeavors during my short visit. He has big plans. My own brain tried to assimilate so much information.
Brain Observatory tours and lectures, and the programs for students, are certain to be very stimulating!
A look inside the Brain Observatory in downtown San Diego. This space was last occupied by the SDSU Downtown Gallery.The fascinating Brain Observatory uses scientific equipment to slice brains and conduct microscopic investigation.Education is a focus of the Brain Observatory. Student artwork hangs on one wall.Photos of people who donated their brains to science.
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
Dozens of sculptures are scattered around Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. Together they constitute the amazing Wolfstein Sculpture Park!
I walked around Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla recently and took photographs of many sculptures. There are dozens all together, and it turns out I missed several. You can see all of the art presently on display and read plaques that include artist information by clicking here.
What you see here is one of several Wolfstein Sculpture Parks! Another smaller sculpture park can be found around the Scripps hospital in Encinitas. Last year I checked out those sculptures and posted photographs here.
Why are these parks named Wolfstein? Nathan Wolfstein developed the process for purifying the blood thinning anticoagulant drug Heparin. Countless lives have been saved as a result of his discovery. Ralyn and Nate Wolfsteindonate art to healing and educational centers and to help promote Arts for Healing Programs.
If you’re ever in La Jolla near Scripps Memorial Hospital, a very pleasant walk can be enjoyed outside the hospital and around nearby medical buildings!
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Thanks for visiting Cool San Diego Sights!
I post new blogs pretty often. If you like discovering new things, bookmark coolsandiegosights.com and swing on by occasionally!
I live in downtown San Diego and love to walk around with my camera! You can follow Cool San Diego Sights via Facebook or X (formerly known as Twitter)!
Cool San Diego Sights! 