Leorah Gavidor

1 month ago | eastcountymagazine.org | Leorah Gavidor

By Leorah GavidorMarch 13, 2025 (Campo) -- When Urban Timber partners Jessica Van Arsdale and Dan Herbst learned they had just a few months to move their well-established tree salvage business, the couple had to scramble to find a place to move hundreds of tons of logs that they had saved from the landfill. The company that saves trees from urban displacement was itself facing displacement. After a few weeks of major stress and uncertainty, Urban Timber found its rural salvation in East County.

2 months ago | sandiegomagazine.com | Leorah Gavidor |Cole Novak

Foods that purportedly induce that lovin’ feeling might have little empirical evidence to back up the claims, but humans have been consuming so-called aphrodisiacs for thousands of years. To be fair, science says that , like zinc, which affects testosterone levels. , a mood enhancer. Capsaicin in chiles increases blood flow and elevates heart rate, for a sweat that will turn up the spice level.

Nov 6, 2024 | sandiegomagazine.com | Leorah Gavidor |Grace Kiehnle

“I didn’t think I was an inventor for years,” says robotics engineer Danielle Boyer. But the 23-year-old Ojibwe creator embodied the title long before she embraced it—she designed her first robot at 17. That initial prototype became EKGAR (which stands for “Every Kid Gets a Robot”), a $20 remote-control car kit that teaches Indigenous students technical skills. She 3D prints them from recycled plastic in her home studio and has shipped more than 11,000 at no cost to recipients.

Oct 30, 2024 | sandiegomagazine.com | Leorah Gavidor |Grace Kiehnle

Donna DeBerry moved to San Diego from Austin to “hang at the beach and have a good time,” she says. After a successful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) career spanning several cities and prominent corporations—Indeed.com, Starbucks, Nike, Wyndham—DeBerry thought she was ready to retire. But the beach would have to wait. “I decided that something was missing from my life at that moment, and once more I needed to give back,” DeBerry says.

Oct 30, 2024 | sandiegomagazine.com | Leorah Gavidor |Grace Kiehnle

“The goal is always to create spaces of belonging, where all guests can feel respected, be themselves, and form connections, while cultural learning is happening,” says Lauren Garces, the creative mind behind event production company Social Artistry. “I constantly ask myself, ‘How can I intentionally build these spaces?’”The daughter of Filipino immigrants, Garces grew up in Hawai‘i.