Sam Fickett

For decades, Debi Schwartz’s friends described her as the person they called to find out what’s happening on the Central Coast. Inspired by this, Schwartz turned that passion into a career. Schwartz, who lived in San Luis Obispo in the 1990s and returned to Morro Bay 13 years ago, said she frequently uses local resources to discover community events and hidden gems.

Roughly one year ago, Cal Poly President Jeffrey Armstrong sat before a congressional committee to defend Cal Poly’s fight against antisemitism, pledging that the university would pursue “continuous improvement.” In the year since, Cal Poly has both updated their policies surrounding antisemitism and faced several antisemitic incidents. READ MORE: Cal Poly’s President went to Capitol Hill.

Renee Wang says her sense of cultural belonging at Cal Poly didn’t come from the lecture halls. Instead, the public health sophomore spent hours creating sesame sauce from scratch with fellow members of the Taiwanese Cultural Organization. But they had a problem. To make the sesame noodles and honey-lemon aiyu jelly she grew up with, the Taiwanese Cultural Organization had to find authentic sesame paste that local San Luis Obispo supermarkets don’t carry.