Bay Area
JPMorgan Chase Bank Hosts Backpack Giveaway in Oakland
To help prepare for the year ahead, JPMorgan Chase hosted a Back-to-School event at its Oakland Community Center branch on Saturday, Aug. 19. The event featured school supplies giveaway, activities for the whole family, financial health workshops, and more.

By Selina Pichardo
With the school year kicking into gear, JPMorgan Chase wanted to stress the importance to parents and their children about learning money basics to navigate the world.
To help prepare for the year ahead, JPMorgan Chase hosted a Back-to-School event at its Oakland Community Center branch on Saturday, Aug. 19. The event featured school supplies giveaway, activities for the whole family, financial health workshops, and more. Multiple families joined the financial literacy workshop led by Chase Community Managers while over 300 backpacks were given to children to help celebrate the new school year.
The financial literacy workshop discussed laying the groundwork for earning and saving and explained how by helping children understand money management, they are being set up for success on a journey toward financial independence.
The Chase Oakland Community Center opened in 2021 as only one of 12 among Chase’s 4,800 branches nationwide. It is a community-inspired model led by Chase Community Managers with free financial health resources like skills training, local pop-up shops and ‘fintech’ innovation for local residents and small businesses.
“The goal of the Community Manager is to improve financial health among residents, businesses and the community through identifying programming, resources, and collaboration opportunities that address local needs,” said September Hargrove, executive director for Community Banking at JPMorgan Chase. “It’s events like our back-to-school giveaway and other events our community managers attend that helps advance our mission to go beyond banking to community building and show up in other ways to help our local communities grow.”
If parents are interested in learning more about Chase’s suite of family banking solutions and resources, they are encouraged to visit chase.com/StudentBanking. Parents and entrepreneurs are also encouraged to visit the Chase Oakland Community Center located at 3005 Broadway in Oakland.
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U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Rep. Lateefah Simon to Speak at Elihu Harris Lecture Series
The popular lecture series is co-produced by the Oakland-based Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Peralta Community College District. Jeffries’ appearance marks the 32nd lecture of the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series, which has provided thousands of individuals with accessible, free, high-quality information.

By Scott Horton
United States House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY-8) will be a speaker at the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series on Friday, Feb. 21.
The event will be held at the Henry J. Kaiser Center for the Arts, 10 Tenth Street in Oakland, at 7 p.m.
The popular lecture series is co-produced by the Oakland-based Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Peralta Community College District. Jeffries’ appearance marks the 32nd lecture of the Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series, which has provided thousands of individuals with accessible, free, high-quality information.
The overarching goal of the lecture series is to provide speakers from diverse backgrounds a platform to offer their answers to Dr. King’s urgent question, which is also the title of Jeffries’ latest book: “Where do we go from here: Chaos or Community?”
In addition to Jeffries, Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) will also speak.
“Certainly, now is a time for humanity, in general, and Americans in particular to honestly and genuinely answer Dr. King’s question,” said Dr. Roy D. Wilson, Executive Director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center and Executive Producer of the lecture series.
“Dr. King teaches that time is neutral but not static. Like the water in a river, it arrives and then quickly moves on,” continued Wilson. “We must urgently create conditions for listening to many different answers to this vital question, and generate the development of unity of action among all those who struggle for a stronger democracy.”
In his book, Jeffries shares his experience of being unanimously elected by his colleagues as the first African American in history to ever hold the position of House Minority Leader.
In January 2023 in Washington, Jeffries made his first official speech as House Minority Leader. He affirmed Democratic values one letter of the alphabet at a time. His words and how he framed them as the alphabet caught the attention of Americans, and the speech was later turned into a book, The ABCs of Democracy, bringing Congressman Jeffries rousing speech to vivid, colorful life, including illustrations by Shaniya Carrington. The speech and book are inspiring and urgent as a timeless reminder of what it means to be a country with equal opportunities for all. Jeffries paints a road map for a brighter American future and warns of the perils of taking a different path.
Before his colleagues unanimously elected him Minority Leader in 2022, Jeffries previously served as Chair of the House Democratic Caucus and as an Impeachment Manager during the first Senate trial of the 45th President of the United States.
Jeffries was born in Brooklyn Hospital, raised in Crown Heights, grew up in the Cornerstone Baptist Church and he is a product of New York City’s public school system, graduating from Midwood High School. Jefferies went on to Binghamton University (BA), Georgetown University (master’s in public policy) and New York University (JD).
He served in the New York State Assembly from 2007 to 2012.
Admission is free for the Feb. 21 Barbara Lee and Elihu Harris Lecture Series featuring Congressman Jeffries. Please reserve seats by calling the Martin Luther King Jr. Freedom Center at (510) 434-3988.
Signed copies of his book will be available for purchase at the event.
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