 You tuned in to the COVID-19 community report here on KDRT LP 95.7 FM in Davis, California. I'm Autumn Lab A. Renaud. Today is Tuesday, April 6th, 2021, and we're sharing local news and resources focusing on what's impacting Davis and nearby cities in Yolo County during the COVID-19 pandemic. This is Episode 59. I'll be wrapping this show at the end of this month with the last episode airing April 27th. I started at March 17th, 2020, thinking I'd continue it for a few months. Ha! It's been purposeful work, and I hope it's been of service, and I need to begin reclaiming the chunk of time it takes to produce live public affairs radio each week. Thank you so much to all who have taken the time to speak with me, listen to the show, and provide it feedback. I'm truly grateful on many levels. This month, I'm touching base with folks in a few key sectors, business, local government, and nonprofit, to talk about what's next as we begin to emerge from this pandemic. My guest today is Heather Caswell, who's celebrating 34 years operating the wardrobe in downtown Davis. We'll talk about business during a pandemic, what she's learned in more than three decades of operating one in Davis, and what her work is centering on now, and we'll get to that interview in just a couple of minutes. I'd like to take a moment to recognize the passing of Davis icon Kathy Speck, who weathered a long battle with ALS and cancer. A musician, artist, LGBTQ activist, a community fixture loved by many, Kathy will be dearly missed. I'm sending love to her partner, her family, and her legion of friends, and her little dog, Maisie. Yesterday, UC Davis Health announced that starting today, anyone age 16 years or older will be eligible to schedule a vaccination appointment for COVID-19 at UC Davis Health, whether or not they are a patient there. Visit health.ucdavis.edu to learn more. This announcement beat the state's anticipated deadline of April 15 for those 16 and older by more than a week. Yolo County Public Health would like to offer a reminder that all the vaccines, whether the two-dose Pfizer and Moderna versions or the one and done single Johnson and Johnson dose, offer strong protection against COVID-19. The vaccines lower the risk of hospitalization and death, as well as the risk of severe infection. Residents still need to wear masks in public and physical distance, even if they've gotten the vaccine. Why? Well, of Yolo County's 220,000 residents, Public Health says approximately 70,000 have received a first dose. That's about a third of us. But that means 70% have not, and the risk remains substantial for many. And this week, the first instance of the South African variant was discovered in an unvaccinated individual in Davis. It's important to note that discovery was made possible by the genotyping and gene sequencing work done through testing via Healthy Davis together. So all of these numbers include vaccines administered not only through the county, but through various medical entities and pharmacies. And new this week, Costco and Walmart have been added as new locations to get vaccinated in Yolo County. There's one county vaccination clinic, public clinic tomorrow and look for more public first and second dose clinics starting next week. Please note the vaccine supply is still limited and may delay you getting an appointment or a vaccine. You can get more information and assistance by calling 2-1-1 or toll free at 855-866-1783. All right, Yolo County remains in the orange tier with little change in our metrics this last week. Our adjusted case rate is 2.3% and our test positivity rate is 0.6%. The state will have additional announcements tomorrow, but there's supposition we could reach the yellow tier as early as April 30th. The threshold metric for yellow is a test positivity case rate of 1%, which even our public health officer acknowledges is really difficult to reach. That changes in the state's blueprint which drive those tier assignments are coming and those are based on the health equity quartiles. That's a measurement designed to ensure that California reopens its economy safely by reducing disease transmission in all communities. If the threshold metric changes percentage, we may not actually be that far off. Stay tuned as we move through the month. Let's take a moment for music and we'll be right back with our interview. Heather Caswell has been the owner and style curator of the wardrobe, a boutique in downtown Davis since 1988. She's the founder of Save Davis and the UCD Women's Heart Health Alliance and in 2021 she's co-founded a group called the Davis Community Vision Alliance. They're launching a Make Everyday Earth Day Shop Local Shop Davis Community Awareness Campaign and Celebration on April 22nd. And finally she is my dear friend of many years and so it's a treat to get time together today. Thanks so much for joining me, Heather. Thank you, Autumn. It's been nice to be on the air with you and thank you for all the great radio coverage and interviews you've been doing this past year. Thank you. It's been a while since I've gotten a chance to interview you about anything. So because, you know, the show is primarily about COVID-19, we're going to talk about some other things, but we all know it's been a challenging year for businesses and that's on top of many challenges in this age of Amazon and big box retailers. Can you tell us a little bit about how the wardrobe pivoted and what this past year has been like for you? Sure. So the wardrobe has been down 25% because of COVID. However, the PPP and State Grants have really helped us to survive. I'm happy to say that has been, you know, incredibly valuable and instrumental to our business still being, yeah, in a place of serving the community. And did you, I know I've been into the wardrobe recently. You limited the amount of customers and did you also begin to offer any virtual services? I think you did. Yeah. I started, people could work with me via Zoom or FaceTime. Nice. And or they could work with me via text and I could help them choose some wonderful things and I created style packages. I have an email blast that also helped them stay informed of what was available and how things were proceeding in terms of, you know, our practices and, and yeah, we, you know, we've managed to stay in relationship and in business with the community. And my staff has also been quite amazing and even one of the staff members made over 100 masks that we made available for sale and, you know, all my bookkeeping started to become virtual in terms of, you know, changes that the wardrobe started to put into place. And, and yes, and so we've, you know, managed to offer fashions in creative new ways and take advantage of a patio and a tent that we have now. So several of our racks are outside and Healthy Davis Together, you know, was a wonderful program too that kept us inspired to and even helped fund some of the things that we needed to recreate our business model. Yeah. Nice. Good to be flexible. Well, so one of the outcomes of this time is that you've, you've been increasingly focusing on the needs of small businesses in downtown Davis and you're part of a new effort called the Davis Community Vision Alliance. What is this effort? What do we need to know and why should we all care about it? It's building vibrant community together and as a result of recognizing that the community's voice needs to be better heard and better understood. And so basically the voice of the small businesses and I think the grassroots community at large. And so this all came together post-measured be just a wonderful, wonderful group of people that I can't thank enough. Several people that were very active with the Measure B awareness campaign and we just all came together. I want to actually say thank you to some of them because they have been instrumental in in helping form this wonderful and alliance and and they all are. Yeah, so I would like to give thanks to Nancy Price who was a farmer planning commissioner and Larry Gunther, Sunny Shine, Karen Beardsley. We have high school students and Rebecca Blum and Lily Moss and yeah, the wonderful group of people that again have been very committed to to helping sustain our community and recognize and help the community learn about the value of small business and we're going to have a website called The Davis Community Vision.com that we're launching on Earth Day, the 22nd of this month and this website will offer a shop local shop Davis awareness campaign on the value of shopping locally and how money stays in our community and actually specifically when you shop at locally owned businesses you need three times as much money in the local community as when you go into a chain store such as Target or Walmart and more than 10 times when you shop at Amazon. So again more than 10 times when you shop at Amazon and and so again shopping locally is in my opinion a way of not only supporting your community but practicing you know making Earth Day every day Earth Day and so our alliance will be celebrating something called Make Every Day Earth Day on Earth Day in front of the wardrobe on 117 D Street from 5 to 8 p.m. and we'll be featuring keynote speakers at 6 p.m. and we'll have free music and a wonderful local band called Boko Zaria will be playing and yeah we're really seeing this as our first public opportunity to kind of become better known and supportive to the community and the idea of inspiring community to become informed shoppers and to shop with intention and care. That sounds like an ambitious effort and knowing you I'm not at all surprised by the level of detail and attention that's that's going into thinking this but I do I do have to ask how does this effort differ from the work being done by say the downtown business association or even the Chamber of Commerce because those are two active groups that are focusing on business here in Davis. Yes that's a fantastic question and I'll be my best to answer it. Let's see so I definitely appreciate all the things that the two organizations do for our community but especially in the the transition out of COVID and the reinvention on the revitalization of our community it seems as though we we need you know an organization that's bringing new vision to the community and quite frankly I think that they've become too institutionalized at times and unable to properly you know represent the voice of the community so we're we're trying to again offer you know more transparency and offer an opportunity for playing a partnership role and playing a role of being an advisory at Lyon and really being in touch with the community and in a way that will hopefully affect grassroots change and it seems like that doesn't really easily come from existing institutions like I mentioned even the city of Davis and so we're excited to be again offering a new way of looking at things. So are there other business owners joining you this in this effort? I know I asked that question because a lot of the names you tossed out as far as I know they're not downtown business owners so I'm curious about that point. Yeah there are for many small business owners I got in much closer connection with at least 30 of them and and so I would say that yes we have a growing number of small business owners that aren't formally active at times some are a little more active but are definitely engaging with our work and I have a book on how to build a vibrant community that I've been making available to like dozens of business owners and community members and I've been getting even a little coaching from Quince Shooters team that helps write the book and so I'm you know feeling like I'm getting the support needed to help be a voice and spokesperson for again hopefully a third way. Okay so the word vision is literally in the name of your organization Davis Community Vision Alliance and you're getting ready to launch um it sounds like a several things on April 22nd on Earth Day so I want you to think forward a year out. What is your vision for what your first year of work with this organization will accomplish? Can you tell us about one or two hoped for outcomes? Very very interested in maintaining and strengthening vibrancy and I think that comes from connection it comes from celebration and so we will be again involved with a celebration of Earth Day and we plan on having a annual festival that's going to hopefully take place this October and going forward annually and it would be called the spirit festival and so those are ways I think to strengthen vibrancy and also we we are playing with the art in relationship to building vibrancy and there will be I think some very fun endeavors coming forward. We even made the hummingbird I guess part of our symbol and we're looking at a mosaic project perhaps as well to beautify and to inspire the community so we also hope to make a difference for the elections and have something to a voter's guide that would be valuable to help people become greater informed and we are seeing the possibility of gatherings and even in front of the wardrobe on a monthly basis for again people to be engaged in the conversation and the exploration of raising the civic IQ. That's an interesting phrase raising the civic IQ I like it so let's talk for a minute about gatherings and celebrations because I know you've been very conscious in your language about that currently under you know public health guidelines gatherings are are not allowed but small-scale celebrations are if they're outside and socially distant and all of that so you're very carefully describing the event on the on the 22nd as a celebration but more than that I just I just want to circle back to the fact that you've been in business here in Davis for 34 years and that's not only an incredible accomplishment it's you know there are very few businesses here who who can claim that redwood barn is is one coming up past 30 years you know but there aren't a lot of others of you around that have have weathered all the storms and all the economic the recessions and everything so first just let me pause to congratulate you on that it's significant um thank you a lot I might appreciate it yeah thank you the second is that and I know this first hand because Davis media access has partnered with the wardrobe to bring Amy Goodman to town I've partnered with you personally to bring author Heather Ashamara to town you you have really set up the wardrobe to be a gathering spot for many years so I don't think for you personally I don't see this as new it's just kind of an evolution of your own personal ethos around business and and community yes I think that's a beautiful way of saying it and I do see small businesses as instrumental in individually and collectively again rebuilding and making our community as vibrant as possible and I'm just thrilled to again be in a location that's allowing me to do it safely and joyfully great okay one more time let's let's give the website for the Davis community vision alliance the coming website yes it's the davis community vision dot com and it doesn't have the actually it's davis community vision dot com okay and again it will be going live by Earth Day the 22nd with very valuable information on the value of shopping local as well as some other fun information and visuals okay sounds good and then lastly the url for the wardrobe in case people want to find out more about what you do there and yes um it's so we are the wardrobe dot com and people can even join us and sign up for an email if they'd like to stay in touch with us that way as well okay yeah thank you all right thanks so much for joining me for a chat today and for all you do for our community and I will stay tuned and keep an eye on what you've got cooking up now oh I so appreciate it and thank you again for making time to um help inspire the community to know more about this wonderful group all right thanks so much take good care all right thank you bye wrapping up that interview with Heather Caswell a long time small business owner in davis as the owner and style consultant at the wardrobe I'm going to take just a minute for music and come back with a couple more updates for you all right Heather mentioned the healthy davis together effort which is so famous we were profiled in the new york times and I always like to to share some information about them we are a partner in the effort as well when it comes to covid 19 symptom free doesn't necessarily mean virus free and asymptomatic individuals have helped this virus and its new variants spread fast and far which is why healthy davis together urges weekly testing if you come into contact with others the collaborative effort between uc davis and the city of davis provides free saliva based asymptomatic covid 19 testing to anyone who lives or works in davis I want to know it if you are symptomatic the county will help you out with testing there healthy davis together offers testing sites at margary at montgomery elementary and south davis the mondavi center at uc davis the davis senior center and the veterans memorial center also both in davis testing is quick easy and painless you can find out more at healthy davis together dot org in addition federally qualified health care center communicator serves as a key conduit for getting vaccines to the county's hardest to reach populations including the uninsured undocumented and low income residents communicator serves as many as one out of every seven county residents providing primary behavioral dental and prenatal care regardless of insurance status or ability to pay and last month communicator and healthy davis together partnered up healthy davis together is providing staffing and administration for a communicator vaccination clinic that opened in west sacramento which if you don't know it's home to some of the most culturally diverse and disadvantaged communities in our county and really our region for again for info on any of these services visit healthy davis together dot org i do think it's pretty wonderful that we've healthy davis together has been able to expand beyond and out into some other areas in the county all right you have been listening to the covid 19 community report on kdrt in davis california i'm otam lab bay reno and i'll be back next week with yolo county supervisor don sailor thanks so much for tuning in