It was another beautiful Saturday when more than 100 Open Government activists, county officials and coders came together to develop and present 24 applications to used by the people of Alameda County.

Oakland City Hall recently hosted a city-wide Volunteer Day where more than 50 organizations participated - organizations, which focus on food and environmental justice, housing and homelessness, education, the arts and stewarding the parks.

Out of the 500 attendees, about half were tabling volunteers who also were interested in many of the groups in attendance.

The reasons classroom sizes are smaller in Dublin than in Oakland go beyond the ability of Dublin parents and property owners to spend more on education.

An 11-year-old girl from Berkeley who was cajoled by relatives to sell her body on the streets for money is one rescued victim. An abducted 15-year old from Oakland is another. A 16-year-old from Colorado who befriended a pimp and wound up trapped in an Oakland hotel by day and forced to work the streets by night – until police rescued her – is another.

These young girls and others have been rescued from human traffickers and life on the streets through a collaborative effort by the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, the Oakland Police Department, a half-a-dozen nonprofit agencies, the county’s Family Justice Center and law enforcement in nearby cities.  So crucial has collaboration been at catching traffickers and bringing safety to their victims that the county D.A.’s office launched a campaign, H.E.A.T. Watch - HEAT stands for human exploitation and trafficking - to widen the collaboration to include businesses, neighborhood groups and law enforcement across multiple jurisdictions.