By Edward Henderson, California Black Media 

Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Oakland) serves California’s 18th Assembly District (East Bay). She was first elected in a special election on Aug.31, 2021. 

Bonta, who says she is guided by a long-standing commitment to educational equity, community safety, and expanding opportunities for working families, has built a legislative record focused on addressing systemic inequities through prevention-focused, community-driven solutions. 

Raised in a Puerto Rican family that valued public service, she has spent her career advocating for resources that strengthen schools, expand access to childcare and healthcare, and remove bureaucratic barriers that disproportionately harm Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and low-income communities.

Her work, she says, reflects a deep belief in uplifting historically underserved neighborhoods, ensuring families can afford to live and thrive in the East Bay, and protecting the social safety nets that help vulnerable residents meet basic needs. 

Throughout 2025, Bonta’s efforts emphasized dignity, access, and fairness across issues ranging from maternal health and immigration to youth justice reform. While celebrating hard-won policy victories shaped by community advocates and impacted families, she has also been candid about the persistence of deeply rooted challenges –particularly for young people navigating systems that too often prioritize punishment over support. 

California Black Media (CBM) spoke with Bonta about her successes and disappointments in 2025 and her outlook for the new year. 

What stands out to you as your most important achievement last year and why?  

I was proud to lead AB 1261, expanding access to legal counsel for immigrant youth. I came into the Legislature to fight for our children, and with the federal administration openly targeting young people for deportation, this bill was a labor of love. No child should be forced to stand alone in a courtroom, navigating a legal process they don’t understand, often in a language they don’t speak. That is not who we are as Californians. I’m grateful my colleagues and our governor agreed.

How did your leadership last year contribute to improving the lives of Black Californians?   

I led AB 1376 to reform our youth probation system, which for too long has kept young people trapped in cycles of law enforcement contact and contributed to the school-to-prison pipeline. Of the more than 10,000 young Californians navigating probation, 86% are youth of color. Under prior law, non-custodial wardship probation often came with as many as 50 separate requirements, each one a potential technical violation that could extend supervision and derail healthy adolescent development. Research shows that this instability leads to school disengagement, employment barriers, and repeated involvement with the system.

AB 1376 limits the length of probation and requires that conditions be individualized, developmentally appropriate, proportional, and not excessive, to provide real, immediate relief for youth across the state.

What frustrated you the most last year?  

It has been frustrating to operate under yet another Trump administration rather than one that could have been led by a daughter of Oakland. With deep cuts to health care, violent immigration raids, and rising costs, the challenges facing California families have only grown. But these pressures also make the work we’re doing more urgent.

What inspired you the most last year? 

I am constantly inspired by the people of AD-18 – Oakland, Alameda, and Emeryville. They never give up, never back away from a righteous fight, and continue to push forward even when the odds are stacked high. Their resilience fuels my own, especially in the hardest moments.

What is one lesson you learned in 2025 that will inform your decision-making in 2026? 

We are strongest when we fight together. Last year, I was especially proud of the broad coalition we built to secure funding for the RIGHT Grant, which allows community-based organizations to provide critical in-person rehabilitation services inside our state prisons. Even in a tough budget year, we were able to elevate this as a priority because we demonstrated how wide and deep the support was.

In one word, what is the biggest challenge Black Californians are facing currently? 

Trump.

What is the goal you want to achieve most in 2026? 

In 2026, I look forward to fighting to protect health care access, advancing smart and effective public safety policies, and continuing to invest in communities that have been overlooked for far too long.

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PASCO, WA – Girl’s hockey is gaining momentum, and the Junior Americans are creating opportunities for girls of all ages to engage with the sport. The organization has experienced steady growth in recent months, highlighted by their latest hockey event.

Executive Hockey Director Garrett Stephenson shared that they hosted a “Try Hockey for Free” event in October, which saw 42 girls participate. “This is the most this program has seen for a Try Hockey for Free event before,” said Stephenson.

With professional women’s hockey gaining popularity, girls now have role models to look up to and opportunities to pursue the sport. The girls’ club is continuing its efforts with tournaments scheduled for March.

Travis Snider wants to change youth sports for the better.

As a former Major League Baseball player with the Blue Jays, Pirates and Orioles, Snider experienced the game at its highest level. But he also got to see firsthand the emotional costs that came with it.

Snider was bound for baseball stardom. He was the top Little Leaguer in the state while playing for Mill Creek Little League back in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and was one of the top-ranked high school players in the nation in 2006, when his Jackson High team won the Class 4A state title and Snider was picked No. 14 overall by the Blue Jays in the MLB draft.

But with all that success came a tremendous amount of pressure, which affected him in such profound ways that Snider was later diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder.

Now, Snider is trying to keep other kids from going through that same experience.

Alongside author, speaker and life coach Seth Taylor, Snider created a company called 3A Athletics, which seeks to help fix the culture of youth sports. The Seattle-based company offers resources to educate parents and coaches about how the intense and overbearing ways they interact with young athletes can negatively impact their mental and emotional health, and even hurt their success on the field.

Snider sees youth sports as a system that sets up kids for failure. When the only priority is success and intense training to play at a high level, it can lead to burnout or kids quitting before reaching their full potential.

Moments like the car ride home after a game or the reaction to an on-field mistake are crucial times in determining whether a child develops a love for the game or has a negative experience.

Through their resources, which include PDFs, workshops, guidebooks and videos on its website, 3A Athletics hopes to help parents, athletes and coaches learn how to approach sports in a more mentally healthy way.

“We really wanted to come alongside parents and help them start to understand how we’re really driving the industry, but also doing a lot of damage,” Snider said. “… It really starts with us as the parents, being willing to look in the mirror and become aware of these things that are happening on a daily basis in our interactions with our kids, with the organizations and teams, and coaches and umpires, and how that really impacts the overall experience and culture.”

An example of 3A Athletic’s teachings comes in a PDF on their website called, The car ride home and why it’s such a big deal.” Snider and Taylor emphasize turning these moments from an experience filled with critiques about a child’s performance into what they term a “sanctuary of love.”

“[Parents] can choose words and actions that prioritize their child’s well-being over their desire to coach or critique. Simple conversations can clarify that children often do not want postgame analysis and instead crave emotional support,” the PDF states.

Another says that young athletes “need coaches and parents who value effort over outcome and who understand that failure is part of growth — not something to be feared or avoided.”

• • •

Snider remembers how crushing the expectations could feel when he was young.

He was an All-Star for Mill Creek when he was 9, won two Little League state championships and pitched a no-hitter while hitting two homers in a state semifinal. His travel ball team won three national championships before winning the state title his senior year.

While the success was fun, the stress to keep winning was continuing to build and expectations for the team were sky-high.

“The general love for practicing and playing baseball was really cultivated and supported in that environment,” Snider said. “As we started to achieve more of these things, none of the parents or coaches had really experienced that kind of success and really understand, kind of, the nuances to how the identity formation is taking place in these 8-, 9-, 10-, 11-, 12-year-old years.”

In one big game when he was 11, Snider had an on-field panic attack when he was unable to throw a strike, one of two he’d have that weekend. In hindsight, he realizes that it was due to the pressure he felt to succeed, even at such a young age.

“It was really the first time I had experienced failure at that level, where you got thousands of people in the stands and the game just sped up,” Snider said. “My nervous system was not able to process it in that moment.”

While he never experienced that type of panic attack while playing again, he continued to battle many of the same emotional and identity issues during his 15-year professional career, in which his on-field successes didn’t live up to the hype that came with being a high first-round draft pick.

Snider spent eight seasons in the major leagues between 2008-15 and finished his career with a .244 average, 54 career homers and 212 RBI.

When he retired in 2022 after several years back in the minors, he underwent an identity crisis and has discussed going through therapy to work through the problems he faced since childhood.

“Our identity, what we’re known as, is the baseball player,” Snider said. “We get introduced in social circles and get into rooms that most people won’t get into because of what we do. So it becomes a very blurry line in terms of what makes me valuable.

“These are the kind of core points we’re hitting on with parents in those developmental years is, kids are looking for the things that say, ‘I’m safe and I’m loved and I’m valuable.’”

The A’s in 3A are Awareness, Activation and Achievement, the three pillar concepts of Snider’s mission. Awareness of the issues facing youth sports, activation of an athlete’s potential through supportive coaching and parenting practices, followed by achievement in their chosen field.

Some of 3A’s content is free, while the “premium content,” such as access to books and video workshops, requires a monthly subscription. The resources are limited to baseball, softball and soccer, but they plan to expand to other sports.

Through the resources that 3A has for parents and coaches, Snider hopes to teach those around youth sports that it’s OK to simply let the kids play for fun, without subjecting them to endless criticism and undue pressure.

3A Athletics has also partnered with local organizations like Driveline Academy to help spread their message through athlete training sessions and journaling.

Deven Morgan, Driveline’s director of youth baseball, has seen many parents act problematically during his time at the company and admits he was too intense about his teenage son’s on-field performance in the past.

He remembers one moment of intensity that caused him to reevaluate his approach.

“Something’s got to change, because I can’t be the reason that this kid doesn’t want to continue playing in this sport,” Morgan recalls thinking. “So I started to get my head screwed on straight.”

In Morgan’s mind, teaching athletes and their parents healthy coping skills and how to grow from their failures, rather than get angry about them, goes beyond just helping them figure out how to succeed in sports.

“I think that’s one of the ways where we can help all these kids get value out of the experience, in a way that informs the rest of the way that they approach their lives, right?” Morgan said. If you can provide context to failure, and you can actually get better from it and you can make adjustments to it, then that’s just like a life skill, that’s not a sports skill.”

With three kids of his own, Snider knows that all parents want their child to succeed.

But he stresses that parents placing too much importance on athletic accomplishments and trying to live their dreams through their child can be harmful.

“Ultimately we want the experience to be the kid’s experience,” Snider said. “Not the parents’ experience and not the coach’s experience, but the actual people who are on the field playing these sports. To really have a chance to experience and find out what they like, what they don’t like, and decide, ‘Is this what I want to pursue?’ and be able to help them build a healthy relationship with success and failure.”

© 2026 The Seattle Times. Visit www.seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

The Wenatchee Parks, Recreation & Cultural Services Department will host its annual Bundle Up Fest – Youth Sports & Activities Fair at Pybus Public Market later this month.

Once again the event will feature a wide array of activities for people of all ages, including hay rides; a petting zoo, kids carnival; and arts-and-crafts.

This year’s event will also feature 22 local sports and activities organizations offering more information about their services.

“We’ll have information on everything from dance to soccer to flag football, lacrosse, and baseball,” says Parks & Rec spokesperson, Caryl Andre. “Pretty much anything that your kids might want to participate in, come to the Fair and you can find out more about it and maybe even get signed up.”

Andre adds that event-goers can also sign up to participate in a family-friendly 5k fun run, and says there’ll be a variety of vendors and even a bonfire where folks can gather to stay warm with a hot cup of cocoa and a s’more.

The event will be held on Saturday, Jan. 17 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

For more information, you can see the Wenatchee Parks & Rec Department Facebook page or call 509-888-3284.

SALT LAKE CITY — It appeared that nothing could erase the pure exuberance from the few dozen children as they ran out onto the new Utah Jazz-themed basketball court at the Northwest Recreation Center to secure a ball.

Soon after, the rambunctious bunch — clad in purple shirts — eagerly dribbled around the court before taking in some instructions during a Junior Jazz hoops clinic. It was a fun way to break in the new surface at the recreation center in Salt Lake City’s Fairpark neighborhood.

This is now the 26th “community court” that the Utah Jazz have sponsored across northern Utah, but the first of eight renovations planned through an initiative partnership with Delta Air Lines to refurbish eight courts over the next seven years, said Chris Barney, president of revenue and commercial strategy at Smith Entertainment Group.

“These community courts matter. They create access, remove barriers and give kids a safe, high-quality place to play, learn and grow through sports,” he said, adding that the project will ultimately improve the “landscape” of youth basketball in the region.

The newly designed court isn’t quite like the Delta Center, but the children took to it as if it were the next best thing. It features a purple baseline with Utah Jazz logos, topped with a J-Note similar to the home court at the Delta Center. A pair of Jazz-themed murals with the “mountain basketball” motif is plastered by the entrance of the gym, adding to the experience.

Jazz Bear made a special appearance to cap the NBA feel, blasting the crowd with confetti after cutting the ribbon to celebrate the new court.

The new design might help kids connect with the county-run recreation center and with their community, said Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, who attended the ceremony. The county has partnered with the Junior Jazz program for decades, accounting for some of the 2 million youth who have participated since it was established in 1983, while over 50,000 volunteer coaches have come from the county since the program started.

In addition to helping finance the new court, Delta covered the costs for a few hundred Junior Jazz players, which helps families manage spending, she said.

“Basketball … builds identity, of who we are as individuals and what we’re capable of,” added Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall, later pointing out the importance Junior Jazz had in her family after her father’s death.

“Our story is actually part of hundreds of thousands of stories, of families who would otherwise couldn’t have afforded or wouldn’t have known how to access a competitive team that cost a lot of money, and was hard to get onto,” she said.

From the frozen ponds and lakes to the packed indoor rinks serving as community hubs, hockey is uniquely celebrated and cherished in Minnesota like no other state in the country.

“It’s something that we play all year round both in the city community organization, but then all the way through AAA hockey as well,” said hockey dad Jimmy Mullen.

Kids often learn to skate not long after learning to walk, fueling a potential passion for the winter sport. 

“My youngest is in mites and my oldest is a squirt,” said hockey mom Kristina Hill of Andover. 

Hockey is the sport Hill grew up in, something many Minnesotans can relate. 

“It’s just kind of woven into the fabric,” said Jeremy Reed, executive director of Minnesota Hockey, the governing body of youth and amateur hockey in the state.

How many kids in Minnesota play hockey? Reed said the latest numbers show 54,921 as of Dec. 17, 2025. The numbers he shared for this year include adults ages 19 and up, of which there are about 8,000. 

For the previous 2024-2025 season, Minnesota Hockey had 50,597 participants ages 18 and under playing for local associations and recreation leagues. 

That’s most of any state in the country by a longshot. Massachusetts comes in second at around 40,120 kids ages 18 and under. New York was third with 36,180, followed by Michigan with 24,391. In Wisconsin, there were 17,986 kids last season.

What’s led to such high participation in Minnesota? 

“Part of that is because the way hockey is delivered in the communities with the community support and the support for the rinks and the public-owned rinks,” said Reed.

There are over 230 indoor ice rinks in Minnesota, according to Rinkside Advertising Network. Come winter, hundreds more form outdoors so long as Mother Nature allows.

“We live just two minutes from our rink, and we’ve got a handful of outdoor rinks in Andover,” said Hill.

“We get a chance to skate with people from Florida, people that come up from Chicago. They always tell us real quick about how close the rinks are [in Minnesota],” said Mullen.

What’s the time commitment parents new to hockey can expect?

“It’s a lot, it’s definitely a labor of love getting the kid to the rink early on the weekends,” said Hill.

“We skate, you know, probably two hours a day at some points, during the weekends we’re twice a day,” said Mullen, admitting his family is on the high side of the spectrum in terms of time commitment.

Reed said how much time a family spends going to rinks for practice and games will depend on the level of competition they’re seeking. The state’s rec league program, which has just one night of practice and one day of games per week, offers an easy entry for families new to the competitive side of the sport.

“The nice part is it’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. You can certainly tailor it to how you want,” said Mullen.

More than 14,000 girls under 18 played local association hockey in Minnesota last year. That ranked number one in the nation.

Minnesota Hockey created a guide for parents new to the sport on what to expect, including budgeting. Click here to learn more.