A unique affordable housing project in Sebastopol is combining a new co-housing community with the self-help or "sweat equity" approach to building it.

Tom Kuhn, the Sequoia Village project manager for Burbank Housing, explains the co-housing aspect of the development.

As future Sequoia Village homeowner Lee Logan sees it, this co-housing process has been different than most.

Sequoia Village in Sebastopol, a new family co-housing development offered through Burbank Housing Development Corp, was facilitatied by the late Michael Black (left)   who was the architect for the Two Acre Wood co-housing project in Sebastopol (pictured below). 

To learn more about co-housing, visit  Planning for Sustainable Communities here.

The Geneva Conventions are not a conference, but an international treaty signed by every established nation in the world. And there are four of them.

Miller talks about the Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that applied the Geneva Conventions to the U.S. detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

Tim Miller

The local Red Cross offers a free class to educate the public about the Geneva Conventions four times a year. Upcoming classes will be held September 20, and November 15, 9 to1 each day . For further information call (707) 577-7600, or to register online, click here .

For the direct link to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, about the Geneva Convention, click here.

What does the future hold for the swath of vacant land that was once meant to hold an extension of Highway 12 through Santa Rosa's east side?

 Julie Combs of the Neighborhood Association of Bennett Valley describes the present state of the Highway 12 right-of-way lands:

After CalTrans was unable to build a planned extension of Highway 12 through Bennett Valley and over Spring Lake (above)  because of community resistance, the future of the land that was acquired for that project (see overhead view and map below) has remained in limbo.

On September 16^th, the Neighborhood Association of Bennett Valley will  to discuss transportation issues as they pertain to the land that was meant to be a continuation of Hwy 12, at their regular monthly meeting.

To visit their website and read more about their upcoming meeting, click here.

Job training, social work and gourmet food all converge in chef Evelyn Cheatham's unique Worth Our Weight culinary apprentice program.

Chef Cheatham explains the origin of her program's name.

Luke, one of the current students in the WOW program, talks about what he hopes to get out of it.

 Worth Our Weight is currently open Fridays and Saturdays from 9 to 4, and serving Sunday Brunch from 9 to 1.They also have a catering service and a tent at the Santa Rosa Farmers Market on Saturday mornings.

The new location is at 1021 Hahman Drive, next to the Boys and Girls Club, between Montgomery Village anMontgomery High School.

The dining area at Worth Our Weight includes this long, single plank table for shared meals.

A traveling half-scale replica of the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial from

Washington D.C. is visiting Santa Rosa for a few days,

eliciting memories, mourning and emotion.

"The Wall That Heals" is a project of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund.

The United Veterans Council of Sonoma County took the lead inbringing the wall to Santa Rosa.

Below is an aerial view of the full size Viet Nam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.