 You are tuned into the COVID-19 community report here on KDRT LP 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Autumn Lab A-Reno and today is Tuesday, January 5th, 2021. We're sharing local news and resources focusing on what's impacting Davis and nearby cities in Yolo County during the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm back after a brief holiday break and while I'd love to tell you new year-less COVID, we all know that's not the case. I do have a lot of COVID news to report, but first, let me take a moment to express some gratitude. I'd like to thank everyone who supported Davis Media Access and KDRT during our recent fall fundraiser or through a year-end donation. During today's interview, we'll touch on how arts and culture organizations have been largely left out of relief efforts aimed at helping nonprofits. Each and every donation makes a tremendous difference in the life of this particular arts and culture organization and in our ability to be of service and carry out our mission, which is serving the community, so thank you. My guest today is Shelly Gilbride, Executive Director of International House Davis. iHouse connects people, experiences, and perspectives within a global framework. We'll get to that interview in just a few minutes. The latest figures from Yolo County Public Health for Yolo County are this. 73,603 tests have been performed with a test positivity rate of 11.2%. We've had 8,402 confirmed cases countywide, and of those, 1,205 have been in Davis. Countywide, there have been 117 deaths, a number that's gone up by eight just since last week. Health officials caution that we're still seeing spikes following Thanksgiving and we'll continue to see those numbers climb following the winter holiday travels and get-togethers. Currently, 36 people are hospitalized with the virus in Yolo County. Statewide, those numbers get pretty bleak. The latest data from January 3rd shows 2,420,894 cases, 29,633 new cases reported that single day, January 3rd. And 26,635 deaths over the course of the pandemic, averaging about 100 per day at current rates. On January 2nd, the state extended the stay home order for the greater Sacramento region because the area's four-week projected ICU capacity does not meet the criteria to exit the order. The state assesses the projection for ICU capacity twice a week, so we're looking for an update today or tomorrow. The state also rolled out its phase plan for deployment of vaccines, the timing of which will depend on vaccine availability. Phase 1A is where we are, and in it, health care workers and residents of long-term care facilities are the first recipients. Phase 1B has two tiers, the first for individuals 75 and older. The second for those at risk of exposure because they work in education, child care, emergency services, or food and agriculture. I'm sorry, that's still part of the first tier. Tier 2 centers on individuals age 65 to 74, and those at risk of exposure for work in a variety of sectors, spanning transportation and logistics, industrial, commercial, residential, and sheltering facilities and services, critical manufacturing, and congregate settings without break risk, namely incarcerated and homeless populations. And finally, Phase 1C focuses on those 50 to 64 years of age or as young as 16 if they have an underlying health condition that ups their risk. Also included here are those who work in water and wastewater, defense, energy, chemical and hazardous materials, communications and IT, financial services, government operations, and community-based essential functions. Let's take a quick break for music and we'll be right back with our interview. At the corner of Russell Boulevard and College Park in Davis sits a venerable white building. It's home to International House Davis, a nonprofit that provides opportunities to learn about and experience cultures from around the world while building connections within our diverse local community. Over the years I've rented space and hosted events there, I've attended potlucks, film screenings, and art shows. In normal times it is a vibrant and bustling place. Joining me today is Shelly Gilbride, Executive Director of I-House. A longtime Davis resident, Shelly joined the organization after serving for five years as the Programs Officer of the California Arts Council, where she was responsible for grant programs to support arts, culture, and creativity across the state. I've gotten to know her this past year through Arts Alliance Davis and it's my pleasure to welcome her today. Thanks for joining us, Shelly. Thank you so much for having me, Autumn. Nice to hear your voice. Nice to hear your voice too. Alright, so let's start with, tell us about I-House. How long has it been operating and what is your mission? Well, thank you so much for that introduction to I-House. So I-House is, like you said, it's a community organization. We're a gathering space that is dedicated to exploring the global issues at the time and getting our communities ways to engage with the world through arts and culture and humanities programs. So our programs, we do a lot of talks and lectures and music concerts and art exhibits and dance performances, workshops, language classes, dinners, all sorts of events. And we've been around for almost 40 years. I've been with the organization now over a year. I started eight months before the pandemic started at I-House. So, but the organization has been sort of a long time community organization. We're right across the street from campus on College Park. It's a beautiful mid-century modern building and, you know, we're a social gathering space. And so this has been tough for a space dedicated to social gathering. Normally, we support a lot of the international scholars and international families that are here in our community and provide ways for them to really feel integrated into the community here in Davis and in Yolo County. Yeah, and that's important because oftentimes someone will come to study here at UC Davis, come from another country, and their family is kind of left, you know, to their own devices. And I-House gives them a place to plug in, in normal times, a place to plug in and meet people and, you know, not feel so alone. And that's a lot. As you mentioned, I've been thinking about you a lot because you joined I-House, you know, a little over a year ago. And then you plunged headlong into steering it through this pandemic. And it's just, that's got to be extra crazy to be relatively new and to have to get your footing in that way. Yeah, I think I'm probably not, I'm not alone. We've all been going through this pandemic and trying to figure out how to move forward. And it's also given us a chance to really think about what the role of social gathering is and really what our fundamental role is. And so when you mention, you know, we still are providing networking opportunities and gathering opportunities for international families through our international parent network, which is an amazing program that's run by two local community members. They meet on Friday mornings now via Zoom, and they talk about issues about, you know, what it is to be an international family or, you know, try to parents in these times. So that's still going on. We still are, we're having language classes via Zoom. Often our English classes, our English conversation classes are ways for people to practice their English, which is a really great way for people who are isolated and learning English here to meet people. So we are still providing various ways for people to connect to one another. And that is what I think has become really, we recognize how fundamental human connection is in those times, and that even though we are closed to physically gather, and we all miss that, that we need to provide the ways for people to connect with one another to celebrate culture and community. And so we still are, we are doing some virtual programming, not as much as we'd like, but we are still dedicated to making sure that people have ways to connect with one another, ways to express themselves. You know, there's this great quote that while first responders heal our communities, or first responders, what's the quote? I'm looking for it right now actually, that first responders are the ones that they respond for second responders, second responders like arts and humanities. We are the ones that are putting our communities back together. We're giving people ways to reflect on what is happening in the world right now, ways to express yourself, ways to connect with other people, ways to combat mental health issues. So that's what we're really still dedicated to, is making sure people have ways to connect with one another and for positive self-expression. Definitely. As you know from your work on the Arts Council and from the work we've been doing together in Arts Alliance Davis the past year, we've talked a lot about this concept of artists and arts organizations as second responders and you're right. It's like they're the people who are right there in the immediate crisis, but the way I've described it to people, I've had someone say to me, I'm only supporting food and shelter right now. I'm sorry, I can't support the arts. And I said, okay, just to offer some perspective, when summer comes and you're looking for camps and activities for your kids, what's going to happen when all the arts organizations aren't there or when you need to get your word out or you need to collaborate on a creative project that brings meaning to your life and could bring meaning to others, you know, where people are going to be. So that's the idea of behind second responders. As you said, we kind of bring those layers of meaning and I would say discernment to whatever comes after the pandemic or even now as we're moving through it. And so we are therefore essential and we're working really hard to change the dialogue and the state recently recognized in the latest round of small business administration funding. They said that arts and culture nonprofits are going to be a priority. We're going to see how that pans out. We are. We hope that it happens. Right. To our listeners, Shelly and I are both moving through that grant application process right now and so far. We're not seeing that reflected in the application itself just to be clear. Well, yeah, and I really hope I mean the governor did say that cultural organizations and places of arts and humanities and culture will be prioritized. And that's because I do think that he really recognizes this need for reflection and recovery and rebuilding and vibrancy and color and music and all of those things that make us feel good and better. And I think we're seeing it too with the way in our how people are relating to one another that the arts and culture and communication. This is how we bridge some of these differences that feel so divided is that we talk to one another and we celebrate difference and we recognize that being different from one another, having different rituals, having different foods, having different music. That's what makes life good. Yeah, all those things are so important. That's what makes it interesting. So it's even more fundamental where we are, we need the arts and culture and words and communication and music and dance to bring us together really. So as nonprofits, we've all had our various pivots to use a word. I'm really starting to loathe, but we've had to adjust staffing. We've had to close our community centers to the public, et cetera. You had to take your wonderful, vibrant IFEST and turn it into a virtual event this year. And that was very different. But I have noticed and I've learned through our conversations that IHouse is continuing. I wouldn't call this a pivot so much as a continuation of your work in multiculturalism and you're moving towards this YOLO anti-racism initiative. So I want to give you a few minutes to talk about that because it hasn't just been the pandemic. We're weathering, of course, but the social and political uprising as well and a lot of ugliness in the last year and out of it, a lot of awareness and forward momentum. So what is IHouse's piece of that going to be this year? Yeah, so when I started at IHouse now a little over a year ago, I did a really informal kind of listening tour and I asked people, both people who had been to IHouse, people who loved IHouse and people in our community, if we are here to explore the global issues of the time, what are the global issues that we should explore? And consistently the two issues that rose to the top were and are racism and climate change. And so those are the two issues that IHouse is going to address moving forward. And so we had already started that ball rolling to address these two issues and figure out what it means to address these two issues and in what ways we're going to do that. And then the pandemic hit and we really saw this reckoning with the Black Lives Matter movement and protests and some work in our own community, the Davis Solidarity Space and the leaders of that space, the community leaders of that space, really creating this wonderful space to reflect and come together to think about the role of race in our community. And so IHouse, we have started embarking on an anti-racism initiative. We started really with IFEST this year. We did a virtual international festival and we really intentionally focused and supported BIPOC, Black, Indigenous, People of Color artists. And while IFEST has always celebrated cultural diversity this year, we were really intentional about supporting those artists particularly because they have very little going on right now, right? There's very little opportunity for those artists to work and be out in the public and be seen and heard and celebrated. So we focused on BIPOC artists through IFEST and we built a part of our website called the Cultural Commons, which is a space, a virtual sort of market site for those artists. We're still building that out, figuring out how to support the artists that are part of our Cultural Commons. And then the other parts of the anti-racism initiative are working with the Davis Solidarity Space, giving some administrative support to those community leaders to make sure that the physical space that is in Central Park for the Solidarity Space is able to continue and also giving them sort of a virtual conceptual space to continue thinking about what it means to be in solidarity with Black Lives. And then the other piece of it that we're really excited about is we are embarking on a training initiative with Advocates for Action, which is a local Sacramento-based consulting company, to work with our nonprofit leaders in the community to do some in-depth training on anti-racism within the nonprofit structure. And we are starting that, we're going to start some listening tours and serving our communities of nonprofit leaders. And by nonprofit leaders, we mean volunteers, boards, staff, people who have decision-making power within our nonprofit community, both all volunteer organizations and some of our long-standing nonprofits to embark on a workshop program. It's going to be five sessions in which we all get together to think about the ways that we can make change and really build an anti-racist community and what that means and how we're going to change our processes and our protocols and the ways that we work in order to build a more anti-racist community and do that here locally. And the City of Davis has invested in this initiative with a grant from the Arts and Culture program, which is huge. That the City recognizes this, recognizes the need and really the opportunity to make some real lasting change. Through this program, and I think the initiative is starting with these trainings for nonprofit leaders and we're hoping that it will then build out from there potentially building a coalition of people that can go and train maybe we'll bring the training to the business community. We're really hoping to work. The Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion on campus is doing great work in this vein as well and to bridge the campus and community and making sure that's collaborative and really work beyond Davis too in the whole of the county to make, you know, to really, well, we don't know what an anti-racist community looks like. It's never, we never had one. Sadly that is true. You know, if we can be on the forefront of that and explore that, I think we're going to do something pretty powerful and that will be a wonderful thing to come out of this time, you know. Yeah, you know that that piece is so exciting to me because as someone who also runs a nonprofit, we don't have time very often unless we're incredibly intentional to focus on things that aren't 100% mission related or 100% critical in terms of operations. And so it really does take an opportunity and an awareness of, okay, we need to be intentional about this now. We need to come together to do this work and we need support for doing this work because it's not just about, you know, a one hour training once a year on implicit bias. It is, this has to be, this work has to be deeper. It has to be more meaningful so that it can be more impactful as we move on. So really, I've been really excited to watch this unfold and, you know, to hear it, to hear about it from you as you've been developing it and really hats off to iHouse for taking this initiative too. It's really needed. Let me take a moment to also give some props to the all volunteer organizers of the Solidarity Space, which if you don't know what we're talking about, it's that area around the Oak Tree in Central Park near Farmers Market that has been a hub for gatherings, for marches and protests and for artwork. It's been lovingly curated by volunteers. It's been vandalized. It's been rebuilt and so, you know, they're giving them support and just giving them some props right now is important too. Yeah, it's really a special, special sort of grassroots, really organic thing that started and Kate Mellonani Baba and Suleyani Baba really spearheaded it and we're just hoping that iHouse can lend some support so that it has a little bit of backbone to keep going, really. Some administrative backbone to keep going and really, hopefully, the idea is not that it becomes an iHouse program but that we are just there to support the community leaders to continue doing what they're doing. Part of the same fabric. Well, Shelly, let's wrap by telling us how we can get more information about iHouse. Sure, so really right now I'm telling everybody to go to our website. It's internationalhousedavis.org. There you can find information about our virtual classes. We don't have information about our anti-racism training yet, but that is coming soon. But our virtual classes, our language classes start next week. We have Spanish, German, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese. So if anybody wants to practice language and we have a really strong English program, we also have our international parent community meeting. Connections is meeting. So you can find out about everything we're doing on our website right now. Our building is closed and we will be until it's safe to reopen. Well, as Reverend Beth Banks has fond of saying, the building is closed but the church is open. That's in reference to the Unitarian Universalist Church. And I feel that way about, you know, DMA too. Our community center here is closed, but we are very much open and serving. Shelly Gilbride, Executive Director, Davis, International House Davis, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us. I really appreciate it. Good to hear from you. Thank you so much, Autumn. And thank you for everything that you are doing for our community and for keeping your community report going. All right. Thanks so much. Take care. Bye, you too. It's always, it's a good reality check for me to speak with other executive directors. And I do a lot of networking in that arena and we're providing a lot of support to each other during this strange time. Okay, a few more items here. One of the big pieces of news reported last week in the Davis Enterprise was allegations that management at Davis Ace Hardware had ignored multiple employees reporting positive COVID tests. I'm not going to get into the weeds there. The story is detailed on the enterprise website. But instances like this are one reason for the recent passage of Assembly Bill 685, which went into effect January 1st. California employers are now required to provide detailed notices to employees within one business day of receiving a notice of potential exposure. A notice of potential exposure means any of the following. Notification from a public health official or licensed medical provider that an employee was exposed to a qualifying individual at the work site. Notification from an employee or his or her emergency contact that the employee is a qualifying individual. Notification through the testing protocol of the employer that the employee is, you guessed it, a qualifying individual or a notification from a subcontracted employer that a qualifying individual was on the work site. You may well be wondering what the heck is a qualifying individual. It includes a person who one has a laboratory confirm positive test for COVID-19 or a positive COVID-19 diagnosis from a licensed healthcare provider or is ordered to isolate by a public health official or has died from COVID-19. I think that last one would be pretty conclusive. You can learn more about AB 685 and both employer and employee rights at ca.gov, the state's website. But I think this is good news in the realm of, you know, protection and just keeping everybody on the right path here. I'm going to wrap this week with information about where you can get tested locally. OptumServe Testing Center from January 5th to January 30th out in Woodland in a portable by the Juvenile Detention Center. LHI.Care slash COVID testing and the county continues its free Avalino testing sites throughout the month. These are the ones that require proof of county residency. YoloCounty.org and finally Healthy Davis Together offering free saliva test to Davis residents appointments are required. Visit HealthyDavisTogether.org. I'll be back next week. And until then, this is Autumn Lab Aranel and you've been listening to the COVID-19 community report here from the KDRT studio.