Community News

This year don’t just give thanks for their service, let’s celebrate their contributions by having a great time, toasting our Veterans on their day, listening to some great music, remembering those who have paid the ultimate price for freedom and raising money for a great cause. The Lighthouse, located at 30 Pier Ave. in Hermosa Beach, will host the Toast Our Vets Benefit Concert to raise money for disabled veterans Saturday, Nov. 10, beginning at 11 a.m. This is an organization dedicated to helping Disabled Veterans and works with local VA Hospitals in the rehabilitation of Veterans. They work with organizations like Wounded Warrior Project. Tickets are $25 and come with this year’s Toast Our Vets T-shirt. For more information, visit www.thelighthousecafe.net.

Manhattan Beach can now add another notch on its belt of distinctions after being named as one of the nation’s 12 most beautifully painted neighborhoods and towns by the Paint Quality Institute. This year’s “Prettiest Painted Places in America” contest honored Manhattan Beach, “a colorful coastal community near Los Angeles where the beautiful landscape is punctuated with artful, individualistic paint color.” The purpose of the competition is to give recognition to places that use paint to express pride in their communities and highlight how an attractive exterior paint treatment can enhance the curb appeal of virtually any home, building or exterior structure. Nearly 200 nominees from 48 states and the District of Columbia submitted color images of beautifully painted homes, buildings and exterior murals. Manhattan Beach and Tubac, Ariz., were chosen as the winners in the Southwest Region. The city will be rewarded with a nationwide publicity campaign with HGTV and USA Today.

The International Beach Tennis Championships, which will pit the world’s top-ranked players against each other for one of the largest prizes in beach tennis, will be held on the Hermosa Beach Strand Friday through Sunday. Started in Italy more than 30 years ago, the beach sport came to the United States in 2005. In California, Hermosa Beach was the very first city to set up a beach tennis court. The sport, which has grown faster than any beach sport in recent years, involves players using beach tennis paddles and a special tennis ball. The ball is volleyed back and forth without hitting the ground and each team or player can only hit the ball once to get it over net. The atmosphere is far removed from traditional tennis tournaments. Music plays during the competition and a dance party often breaks out on the court when the games are complete. Play begins Friday at 9:30 a.m. with the singles division and runs until Sunday. All matches will be played along the Hermosa Beach Strand just north of the Hermosa Beach pier.

California’s home sales are forecast to increase for the third consecutive year and the median price will rise for the second year in a row, according to CAR’s “2013 Housing Market Forecast.” The market has improved moderately over the past year, and is expect that to continue into 2013, The California Association of Realtors (CAR) reported sales in the housing market will gain 1.3 percent in 2013 while the median home price will rise more, by 5.7 percent. Sales will be stronger in higher-priced areas, where there are more equity properties and a somewhat greater availability of homes for sale. The median price remains well off the high of nearly $595,000 back in May of 2007, but that makes for great affordability. Housing affordability has never been stronger – with record-low interest rates and favorable home prices, combining to create a once-in-a-generation opportunity to buy a home in California. The often conservative CAR forecast predicts mortgage interest rates will edge up to 4 percent in 2013, despite the recent Federal Reserve’s announcement to keep interest rates low with $40 billion in additional monthly mortgage securities purchases. “The wildcards for 2013 include federal, monetary and housing policies, state and local government finances, housing supply, and the actions of underwater homeowners – not to mention the strength of the overall economic recovery,” said CAR Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young.

The offspring of Hailey’s Comet are about to put on quite a show in the skies of Culver City. Earth will pass through a stream of debris from Halley’s Comet, which will give us the benefit of the annual Orionids meteor shower. The shower should be at its peak the night of Saturday, Oct. 20, until just before dawn on Oct. 21.  South Bay residents should check out Rocket Ship park in Torrance. or head down to the beach. Orionid meteor shower peaks at 9 PM. So what makes this shower so cool? First of all, c’mon—it’s a show of shooting stars. With the second-fastest entry velocity of all the annual meteor showers, meteors from the Orionids produce yellow and green colors and occasionally produce an odd fireball.

he SKECHERS Pier to Pier Friendship Walk, which is presented by Nickelodeon,  is anticipating 10,000 participants at this year’s event.Traveling from the Manhattan Beach Pier to Hermosa Beach Pier and back, the 3.4-mile walk will include performances from local school bands, cheerleading teams and free activities for the entire family.  Today they announced that legendary Hall of Fame baseball manager Tommy Lasorda, Dancing with the Stars co-host Brooke Burke-Charvet, and fitness expert Denise Austin will host. They aim to surpass the $600,000 fundraising total from 2011. Since its 2009 launch, the walk has raised $1.2 million to help retain vital educational programs, maintain smaller class sizes, upgrade school technology, as well as support The Friendship Circle – a non-profit organization that assists children with special needs and their families through one-on-one peer mentoring and social programming. Visit the event website www.skechersfriendshipwalk.com

Come an join us for our once a year event at 710 Pier Avenue on the Hermosa Beach Playhouse lawn at the Community Center This event will feature at least a thousand pieces individually made by the glass artist putting on the event.  This event brings northern & southern California regional artists together for a two day event. 10% of the proceeds will go to the Hermosa Arts Foundation.  Prices for the glass pumpkins range from $15-$200. A distinguished group of regional glass artists are teaming up again to display and sell thousands of colorful hand-made glass pumpkins. The Great Hermosa Beach Glass Pumpkin Patch event is spearheaded by Bryan Ousdahl, a glass artist residing in Redondo Beach, CA. See the event website for details and photo gallery: Click Here

The third annual Taste of the Pier will take place on Sunday, Oct. 14, from noon to 6 p.m. This popular event will include a variety of small bites, live music, free balloons, face painting, arts and crafts, and more while touring the pier and boardwalk. Tasting tickets are $1 each. Receive one entry to win pier prize giveaways when you purchase 10 tickets. Each restaurant will feature a different menu item and non-food retailers will offer other discounts and items. Event proceeds benefit the Redondo Beach Educational Foundation and Cancer Support Community-Redondo Beach. For more informationvisit www.redondopier.com.

Technology, Entertainment, Design, has been a much-talked-about acronym over the past few years. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to “ideas worth spreading.” TED gets leaders in various subjects from around the world to give short speeches. The speeches are videotaped and put online for anyone to view for free. TEDx is a program of self-organized, hyperlocal events, a smaller branch of TED. TEDx Manhattan Beach will be on Saturday, October 13th, has held more than 20 events over the past few years, bringing in more than 1,000 people. This year’s conference theme is “Journey to Purpose: Dream. Educate. Thrive,” bringing leading-edge thought leaders and educators together to share their ideas on how to define and find purpose and its effect on the human mind, spirit and well-being. For all the details and to purchase tickets visit the site www.tedxmanhattanbeach.com

The 8th Annual Jimmy Miller Memorial Foundation Family Surf Fiesta will be held this Sunday, Oct. 14 on the beach at 42nd St. in Manhattan Beach. It’s a family friendly surf contest with all ages and skill levels encouraged to participate. The JMMF provides free of charge its unique program of Ocean Therapy to the United States Marine Corps. Wounded Warrior Battalion-West, as well as the Veterans from the West LA Veterans Hospital and youth from several care and shelter facilities for abused and foster children. Surfing begins at 7:30 am. The finals will be about 4:30 pm. The after-party/awards start about 6 p.m. at Verandas (the old Orville & Wilburs). There is all-day parking at Verandas. For the first time ever, the silent auction will be at the beach, with incredible items from SBYKE, Body Glove, Spyder, ET, trips to Nevis and Park City, Sector 9 Skateboards, Trilogy Spa, Kai Candles, Wine Packages, and private surf lessons with Dayton Silva and other top South Bay Surfers.