Davisville

Twice weekly at 9:30 p.m., volunteers bring food donated by Davis restaurants and stores to tables in Central Park. Anyone who wants the food is then free to take what they want; the cooked food usually goes first. This is the Davis Night Market, created by students at UC Davis to reduce food waste in Davis and to get food to the hungry. The market serves about 30 people on an average night, and the founders would like to build it into a daily operation. Any food left over goes in the “freedges”—community refrigerators like the tiny libraries you see in front yards around town.

Today we talk with two of the Night Market founders, Valerie Weinborn and Ernst Oehninger, about why they do this, the reaction they’ve had, and what they hope to achieve. She’s a veterinarian from Chile who has a doctorate in Food Science; he’s a PhD student in Natural Resource Economics and comes from a family of farmers in Brazil.

Biotechnology is changing lives, products and expectations, creating both possibilities and risks. The changes are enormous, and more are ahead. My guest today is Jim DeKloe (pictured), founder and director of the Industrial biotechnology program, and a professor of biological sciences and biotech, at Solano Community College. We talk about the center in Vacaville, its unusual (for a community college) bachelor’s degree, biotech, the creation of a ”life sciences corridor” between Sacramento and the Bay Area, the need for ethics and laws to keep up, and how a product he knew from his time at Genentech saved his 4-year-old son’s life.

Helping kids grow up well is a challenge that doesn't end. The question occupies parents, teachers, maybe almost everyone, and we address the subject today, not in a broad policy sense, but through one conversation with one person engaged in the work. Gemma Miner, the academic coordinator for volunteer engagement for the California 4-H, has 33 years of working with youth to help them develop confidence, leadership and life skills, plus degrees in recreation and experience as a pediatric registered nurse. We talk about the 4-H program (the photo shows her with some of her materials), what kids and youths need, how to reach them, what not to do, and how adults can make their experiences interesting to a child.

(This program first aired in October 2018) American life is full of conflict – political, social, economic, all types. Today’s guest is Kara Hunter, executive director of the Yolo Conflict Resolution Center, who knows a lot about the subject. We discuss the center, what it does in Davis, who uses it, the results they get, and also about conflict overall.