Spotlight

As the end of the workday nears on March 16, people holding protest signs began to gather outside of Santa Maria City Hall. One man carried a camping chair with an American flag printed on the canvas and set it up among the growing crowd. A woman held a white sign with “We are essential” […]

Construction of the Santa Ynez Chumash Museum and Cultural Center is well underway, a project that Tribal Chairman Kenneth Kahn called a long-anticipated dream. But teaching others about the tribe’s culture and history, Kahn told the Sun, is nothing new for the Santa Ynez Chumash people. “The tribe had, in the 1970s, a traditional ‘tule […]

Last April, Santa Maria resident Louis Meza was tasked with a harrowing decision: Whether or not to have his wife, Melissa Meza, transferred to an LA County hospital to treat her worsening complications from COVID-19. The treatment, being placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine, was Melissa’s “last hope,” Louis told the Sun nearly […]

When the pandemic forced Bell’s Restaurant, a French-inspired bistro in Los Alamos, to close its doors in March 2020, owners Daisy and Greg Ryan were certain of one thing: None of their employees would be losing their jobs. “We made the decision that we weren’t going to furlough any of our staff, we were going […]

Before the pandemic hit, Nipomo resident Lynn Borges had an abundant social and work life. Despite her age—she describes herself only as “old, old, old”—Borges kept herself busy with two part-time jobs, attended art classes through an adult education program twice a week, and she’d often spend afternoons with her grandkids after picking them up […]

Valentine’s Day may be over, but Dignity Health is celebrating hearts for the entire month of February in recognition of American Heart Month. The health care company wants to empower people to take preventive heart care seriously, as heart disease is the No. 1 killer of men and women in the U.S. and worldwide, according […]

Local vendors will soon have a new opportunity to sell their wares in Lompoc, and the city wants to hear from the business community about the best way to bring the vision to life. The Lompoc Outdoor Community Market would revamp the city’s weekly swap meet tradition (which ended in 2014) to create a community […]

Each year around this time, Nipomo resident Riana Banks and her daughter, Kaelyn, gear up to sell as many Girl Scout Cookies as humanly possible. At just 7 years old, Kaelyn is already an established go-getter, and with two years of sales experience under her sash, she knows it’s her personal interactions with potential customers […]

NatureTrack’s mission is to foster a lifelong fascination with nature through outdoor field trips, but COVID-19 makes the logistics of these excursions more challenging. And with kids still mostly learning from home, it became more difficult for NatureTrack to reach its target audience. That’s when founder Sue Eisaguirre had an idea, a way to put […]

More than 100,000 residents and property owners on the Central Coast will start service with a new power provider this month. Central Coast Community Energy (3CE) is launching in Paso Robles, Pismo Beach, Grover Beach, and Arroyo Grande, as well as Santa Maria and unincorporated Santa Barbara County. The “flipping of the switch” for these […]

For all the parts of everyday existence that were put on pause during COVID-19, one didn’t go anywhere: the miracle of life. “Our number of in-hospital deliveries has stayed steady,” Dr. Karen Hord, deputy chief medical officer at CenCal Health, told the Sun. “We haven’t had any clinics or hospitals close for this essential care.” […]

When stay-at-home orders first came down in March, Domestic Violence Solutions Executive Director Jan Campbell expected her organization to be flooded with calls from victims quarantined at home with their abusers. At first, the opposite happened. “The numbers in the beginning just clamped down,” Campbell recalled. “It was like people had never heard of domestic […]