Alameda Cub Scout Pack 2 held its Blue and Gold Banquet last Saturday, Feb 21. What is the Blue and Gold Banquet? That’s easy! It’s a ceremony that celebrates the beginning of the Cub Scouts, which dates back to 1930. It is also a celebration of when Webelos (the highest ranking Cub Scouts) become Boy Scouts. The scouts performed skits and ate a potluck feast at First Presbyterian Church at 2001 Santa Clara Ave.
Soli Deo Gloria (SDG), Alameda’s well-established choral group, will present a preview performance of Joseph Haydn’s masterwork featuring more than 60 voices and a 30-piece orchestra Saturday, March 7, at 4:30 p.m.
As a part of its European tour this coming July, SDG will perform this concert along with other choruses at St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Austria. The July event will celebrate the 650th anniversary of the historic mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna founded during the Hapsburg Empire.
Rhythmix Cultural Works (RCW) is displaying a gallery of works from the Canvas Peace Project, an idea created by the HOPE for Ariang Foundation to raise money to support educational opportunities for women and children in South Sudan. Tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 27, RCW will be host to an art auction to support two nonprofit organizations, HOPE for Ariang and the Valentino Achak Deng (VAD) Foundation.
One of the event’s organizers, Julie Stonehouse, lives in Alameda and has connected the VAD Foundation with the Canvas Peace Project and RCW.
A strong employment report has helped send mortgage rates higher. Freddie Mac’s Feb. 19 Primary Mortgage Market Survey showed that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose 7 basis points from last week’s 3.69 percent to 3.76 percent. In the third week of February 2014 the 30-year fixed averaged 4.33 percent.
The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage stood at 3.05 percent on Feb. 19, down 6 basis points from Feb. 12, when it averaged 2.99 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year fixed averaged 3.35 percent.
Famous pugilist Jim Corbett lay asleep in his bed when the sound of an explosion awakened him at 7 a.m. He was in town with his brother Harry training with J. C. Croll. Jim was staying in a house on Railroad Avenue (today’s Lincoln Avenue) near Sixth Street. He thought little of the noise, rolled over and went back to sleep. “I thought it was an earthquake,” he later told Harry.
