What's happening
Early days, and the courtyard comes first
01 / Right now
Where the project stands
We're stabilizing the site, completing environmental assessments, talking with arts and cultural organizations, and planning community programming.
The courtyard is being prepared for interim events, so neighbors can use the space while full renovation is planned.
- Stabilizing the site to keep it safe and protect the historic structure
- Completing environmental assessments to understand the building's needs
- Exploring partnerships with arts and cultural organizations
- Planning community programming that reflects neighborhood priorities
02 / Progress
- DoneAcquire and protectLandmark status secured; property acquired August 2025.
- NowStabilize and assessSite stabilization, environmental assessments, partner conversations.
- NextPlan and open the courtyardPartnership development, program planning and interim courtyard events.
- LaterFull renovationThe school reopens as a community cultural center.
03 / Last event
Better Get Together · Saturday, September 5, 2026
A Saturday at the school
On Saturday, September 5, the gates of the Old North Sacramento School opened for the Better Get Together, a neighborhood party hosted by the Old North Sacramento Community Association. For an afternoon, the arcades and courtyard were full of people again.
The building looked different. In the weeks before, Ten Blair and her crew, with ONSCA volunteers and Sacramento artists, covered the boarded windows with art: “We the People” posters donated by Shepard Fairey himself, alongside new work by local artists. For a building that has sat empty since 2008, it was a big change.
“The building looks like it’s loved now.”
Kim Scott, ONSCA
Under the arcade, a table held newspaper clippings about the school, pulled from more than 300 articles that ONSCA’s Gordon Lew tracked down, so visitors could read a century of the school’s life in North Sacramento. Live local jazz played in the breezeway. Local vendors set up under tents on the lawn, and KUTZ 95.7, a community radio station that hopes to make its home at the school, had a table.
People came from up and down the neighborhood: longtime residents, Woodlake gardeners, local organizations, and many people who had never been to an event at the school before.
The day also started something. New planter boxes went into the courtyard, with help from Sierra Service Project volunteers, as the beginning of a community garden. Since then, Woodlake gardeners have come back on their own to fill them with soil.
In ONSCA’s words, the day “felt like what community should be.”
Thank you to everyone who made it happen, including Councilmember Roger Dickinson, NeverBoard, the California Climate Action Corps and California Volunteers, Office of the Governor, and Keep California Beautiful, whose Climate Action Event Microgrant supported the day.
There’s more ahead, and the best way to be part of it is to come.
04 / From above
Fly over the school
A one-minute drone flight over the campus, the arcades, the courtyards and the bell tower, filmed in September 2025.
05 / Updates
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