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RIVERSIDE, CA- The Fair Housing Council of Riverside was the site of holiday joy and the spirit of giving on Tuesday, November 22, 2016.  The Riverside Alumni Chapter (RAC) of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc. and members of its Kappa League Youth Program collaborated with the Council, community volunteers and local charitable organizations to provide turkeys, canned goods, clothing, socks, shoes and toys to families in need.
Over 400 families were served with the help of community partners, which included the Silhouettes of RAC Kappa Alpha Psi, Theta Pi Sigma Chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc., the Pi Rho Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. and Martin Luther King High School Black Student Union.
On the heels of its successful turkey giveaway, the Fraternity is in the midst of finalizing the details of its upcoming Shop with a Kappa event, which is its annual toy distribution to Riverside children.
“Every year we look forward to shopping with the children and their families, because it allows Kappa to impact the children in a meaningful and memorable way”, says Polemarch Demarius Carmichael.   Walmart Stores has partnered with the Fraternity to host the annual shopping spree, which will take place on Sunday, December 18, 2016. Participants are referred by the Fair Housing Council and other charitable organizations based on need.

SAN BERNARDINO – Redlands High School continued its winning ways as it wrapped up its record 14th San Bernardino County title in the 35th annual Mock Trial competition that was decided on December 10.
Cajon High School, which was looking for its first county title, gave a spirited and competitive performance, but Redlands’ experienced team pulled out another victory. It was the school’s third title in the past four years.
“This truly was a team effort in every sense,” said Redlands coach Donna St. George, who has been with the team for each and every one of the school’s county titles.
Superior Court Judge Charles Bradley congratulated both Cajon and Redlands for the expertise and poise each showed in the finals at the San Bernardino Justice Center.
“I have no doubt both of these teams could go onto the state competition and win. You are very, very good,” he said.
With the victory, Redlands advances to the state mock trial competition in Riverside in March.
Team members for Cajon are: Lily Bolanos; Valerie Covarrubias; Lauren Helt; Siduri Ho; Eva Henery; Natalie McGlockin; Angela Monroy; Tyler Peyton; Melody Satele; Steven Schwartz; Anna Smith; Jalen Stevenson; and Madison Thomas.
Redlands team members were: Courtney Cappelli; Emma Dixon; Vibhi Ganapathy; Tiffani Le; Bailey McKernan; Michael Moralez; Hazel Naftzger; Tiffany Rekem; Christian Valdez; Tyler Vallecorsa; and Katelyn Zabaleta.
Approximately 400 students representing 32 high school teams have participated in the Mock Trial competition this year. This event is co-sponsored by the San Bernardino County
Superintendent of Schools and the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s office.

SAN BERNARDINO, CA- On Saturday, December 10, community members and elected officials came out to celebrate the 50th Anniversary Kwanzaa Celebration. The annual celebration was held at San Bernardino Valley College. This year there was a special skit presented by the PAL Charter Academy.

SAN BERNARDINO, CA- The Mu Xi Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc will be hosting its Men of Tomorrow Rites of Passage ceremony on Saturday, December 17 from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. at California State University, San Bernardino in the Student Union, Event Room A.
The program will be in collaboration with our fraternity’s national initiative, to inspire young men to complete high school, and college.  Over the past eleven months, members of the fraternity have been mentoring a group of young men (ages 8-18) on various skills that are vital to their future success.  They have attended workshops on goal setting, self-respect, and peaceful conflict resolution, to name a few.
These young men will be honored during Saturday’s luncheon to celebrate their commitment to complete this intensive learning program they began at the beginning of the year.  To RSVP to this event, please contact Kevin Hall at khall1949@yahoo.com by Thursday, December 15. The event is free but parking is $6 for vehicles that do not have a CSUSB parking permit. The street address of the student union is 5500 University Pkwy, San Bernardino, CA 92407.

SAN BERNARDINO, CA- On Saturday, December 10, PAL Charter Academy students Jesse Hamilton, Brent Matthews, Rica Taylor, Jacqueline German, Edward Orrego and Devyn Graves attended the 50th Anniversary Kwanzaa Celebration at San Bernardino Valley College.  These students actively participated in the event by presenting a skit that highlighted The Seven Principles of Kwanzaa: unity, self-determination, working together, supporting one another, purpose, creativity and faith.

Lou Coleman

By Lou Coleman

Pretending to love the Lord! This is a clear reminder that you never know the true condition of the hearts of those around you. Just like the other disciples they never did figure out that Judas was a traitor until after he had betrayed Jesus. They always assumed that he was one of them… Keeping a low profile and camouflaging his hypocrisy. Well, “Undercover Brother” I want you to know that, “You can fool all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time,” and you can NEVER fool God! Jesus has warned us to examine our motivation for our good deeds and in [Matthews 7:13-28] along the same lines, He warns us that when we “hear” His words we had better respond, and respond GENUINELY. Superficiality doesn’t do us any good, and it doesn’t fool God. Genuine discipleship, however, is a gift from God to help us. But naw, we think we are so smart, we think we are able to pull a fast one on God. Well you better think again! Adam and Eve tried it to their sorrow [Genesis 2: 15-17; 3: 6, 24]. Believing the devil’s lie, they sneered at and scorned God’s law, but not with impunity. They deluded themselves, thinking they could set aside God’s law and all would be well, but the consequences surely followed and they were driven out of the garden and death came upon man. In [Joshua chapter 7] the man named Achan thought he could fool God. He concealed his sin from others but God was not fooled [READ Joshua 6: 18-19; 7: 1, 11, 20-21]. Gehazi, Elisha’s servant, tried to gain personal profit by lying but God was not fooled [See 2 Kings.5: 15-16, 20-27]. The prophet Jonah tried to run and hide from God but God was not fooled [Jonah 1: 1-3, 17]. Ananias and Sapphira tried to fool God by their lies in [Acts 5] but, the seed of lies produced the awful harvest and cost them their lives. Are you sure you want to go down this road?

You know in the Book of [Mark chapter 14 verses 10-11] it deals with a man named Judas Iscariot; a man who is without a doubt, the most notorious and most vilified of all the disciples. Every time he is mentioned in the Bible, the Word of God reminds us that he is a traitor who betrayed Jesus to His death. Judas was a failure as a disciple. Even though he was exposed to the same teaching the others heard. Even though he saw the same miracles and was involved in the same ministries. Yet, Judas never came to saving faith in Jesus Christ. He spent three years with Jesus and he died lost. While Judas was a failure as a disciple, he was the most successful hypocrite of all time. He played his part so well that no one but Jesus Himself knew that Judas was a fraud and a pretender. He was as common and as ordinary as the rest of the disciples. He was so ordinary that he never stood out from the rest. He hid behind the camouflage of hypocrisy and no one but Jesus ever realized it. I wonder just who I am talking too…. Don’t be like Judas… the man who kissed the door of Heaven but went to Hell. Jesus picked him as an apostle but he went to Hell. He lived with Jesus for three years and still went to Hell. He watched Jesus walk on the water and still went to Hell. He listened to the Sermon on the Mount and still went to Hell. He ate with Jesus, talked with Jesus, walked with Jesus, and listened to Jesus day after day, month after month, year after year. He knew Jesus as well as one has ever known Jesus and still he went to Hell. And yet, none of the disciples suspected him. Even at the Last Supper, when Jesus identified Judas publicly, they still couldn’t figure it out.

I want you to know that I truly believe in the assurance of salvation through the Word of God and the testimony of the Holy Spirit. I’m not in favor of constant introspection about whether or not you are a Christian. But there is a place for healthy self-examination in the Christian life. No one should take for granted his hope of Heaven. What happened with Judas could happen to any of us. The story of Judas is in the Bible for many reasons, not the least of which is that before we take anything for granted, we at least ask the question the other apostles asked that fateful night: “Lord, is it I?” It is my prayer that the Lord will use the lessons from this man’s life to cause us to look deep within our own souls; lest we also be found to be great pretenders.

SAN BERNARDINO, CA- Thirty-five Reading Heroes who raise the bar for literacy throughout San Bernardino County were recognized by the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday as part of the Countywide Vision project’s Vision2Read initiative.

In February, the Vision2Read campaign asked the public to identify people in the community who go above and beyond the call of duty to motivate others to read and improve literacy skills and nominate them as Reading Heroes.

“I’m pleased to learn that so many sectors in our community are collaborating to improve literacy in this county,” said James Ramos, chairman of the Board of Supervisors. “These Reading Heroes come from private business, public schools, libraries, and community organizations. Several of these Reading Heroes are spending their own personal time to make sure our children and adults are learning what they need to succeed in life.”

Claire Smith

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) congratulates member Claire Smith for being named the recipient of the 2017 J.G. Taylor Spink Award. The award is given out annually by the Baseball Hall of Fame to a journalist for “meritorious contributions to baseball writing.” Smith will be the first woman in the award’s 55-year history to receive this top honor.

“On behalf of the entire NABJ family, I congratulate my dear friend Claire for this tremendous honor. She is such an inspiration as she continues to knock down doors for women in sports journalism. She is to be commended not only for being a talented reporter, but also for being steadfast in fighting for equality and paving a way for those who will follow in her footsteps,” said NABJ President Sarah Glover.

Smith, 62, has written about sports for more than 30 years, for publications including the Philadelphia Bulletin, Hartford Courant, New York Times, and Philadelphia Inquirer. For more than 20 years, her beat was Major League Baseball. In July 2007, she went in a new direction and new industry when she joined ESPN as a news editor, working with the production teams on MLB game broadcasts. She is the author of the autobiography “Don Baylor – Nothing But The Truth: A Baseball Life.”

A trailblazer for women in sports media, Smith has fought for equal access during her entire career. She often refers to a defining moment that came in the 1984 National League Championship Series between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres. She was physically removed by players from the Padres clubhouse after Game One. While the situation was eventually resolved, thanks to then-Baseball Commissioner Peter Ueberroth, it left scars for a number of years.

For sensational singer and actress Vanessa Williams and her gorgeous daughter, Lion Babe’s Jillian Hervey, fierceness runs in the family—but so does staying true to who you are at any age. In the cover story, Vanessa + Jillian, the stunning duo chat with Essence about being in the business, the sacredness of family and loving the skin you’re in. Plus, visit Essence.com to see a bonus solo cover for each star! Essence’s January 2017 issue hits newsstands this Friday.

“You have to go through the fire. Avoiding the pain is why most people never resolve it. You have to dig deep, sit in it and ugly-cry. Pretending it’s not there and keeping busy are a way of avoiding it,” Williams states.

“I never saw myself as always having that hair. Ever. That wasn’t the plan,” Hervey stated. “That was the label. They were like, ‘You need the hair, you need the hair, you need the hair!…” When the duo signed to Interscope Records, the label loved her video look so much that it insisted she wear it everywhere, even to radio interviews. Hervey, a self-described people pleaser didn’t have the heart to say no. “My hair was supposed to represent this freedom, and then it almost became a trap. You can’t even see my face sometimes because the wig is so big.” These days Hervey was found the strength to put her foot down and has the freedom to ‘transform,’ she says. That might mean donning braids or wearing her hair free and natural…”

SAN BERNARDINO, CA- For the first time, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians lit up The Arrowhead in memory and tribute to the 14 lives lost in the December 2 terrorist attack in San Bernardino one year ago. The iconic Arrowhead is a natural formation on the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains that can be seen for miles throughout the valley. The brilliant lighting of the Arrowhead formation will stand as a memorial to each life lost on December 2 and a symbol of solidarity and hope for this proud and strong community. 

“Even as we struggle to make sense of those events from a year ago, we remain strong in our commitment to the values that make us a strong community,” said Lynn Valbuena, Chairwoman of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians. “We are proud to join with the San Bernardino and our community partners to shine a new light in memory of those we lost.” 

The Arrowhead was lit on Thursday, December 1 and will remain lit until December 15 from 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The Arrowhead formation is located in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, just north of San Bernardino’s Wildwood Park (40th Street and Waterman Avenue). Lit up with over a dozen 120,000-lumen arc lights, it can be seen from nearly anywhere in the cities of San Bernardino or Highland.