At 100 years old, San Mateo resident and former teacher Irene Hudson zips through writing thank-you notes and stuffing envelopes as a volunteer for the nonprofit Samaritan House. As she passed the century mark Dec. 2, she was honored by the nonprofit and Assemblyman Jerry Hill, and has been told she will be on a future “Today” show. Why did you start volunteering for Samaritan House? Well, my husband was a pastor of a church here, and the women had a young man from Samaritan House come and talk about Samaritan House, and I decided that I’d look into it. Read More

Laurie Wishard is the president of Peninsula Family Service, a nonprofit that provides children’s programs, loan services, career assistance and other services to help families become self-sufficient. The agency’s volunteers recently hosted a Holiday Toy Store in San Mateo to hand out donated gifts to parents, and the event was bigger than ever. How did the Holiday Toy Store work? [Parents] pick out a gift in the store for their children and then the gift, as well as a book, is wrapped up by volunteers. Read More

An arm with a blotchy red rash popped up on Dr. Toby Maurer’s computer screen at San Francisco General Hospital. The photo, from a physician at a San Mateo County clinic, came with questions: Is this from poison oak, and am I treating it correctly? Poison oak indeed, Maurer confirmed. She wrote back telling the physician to continue an oral steroid to help knock out the rash. Maurer, a dermatologist, pulled up another photo of a lesion that wasn’t healing properly. It looked potentially cancerous, and Maurer said the patient should come back for a biopsy. Read More

A huge former federal government warehouse — now privately owned and providing a much-needed tax boost to local agencies — has bagged an online fashion retailer as its first tenant and says there are more to come. The owners of the SFO Business Center announced that in November Tobi.com, formerly located in downtown San Francisco, finished moving its corporate headquarters into their 571,000-square-foot building near the intersection of U.S. Highway 101 and Interstate 380. Read More

Reports of seasonal flu are way down so far this fall compared to last year, though local health officials say residents should still get vaccinated before the peak flu season hits in the next few weeks. In the first five weeks of flu season, which officially started Oct. 9, two cases of influenza infection have been confirmed in San Mateo County based on tests of people who were hospitalized or needed antiviral medication, health officials said Friday. Read More

First it was South San Francisco, then San Francisco. Now, Burlingame officials are ramping up their efforts to make their city the next biotech hot spot on the Peninsula. A potential boost could come from a proposal for a 730,000-square-foot life sciences office complex along Burlingame’s Bayfront, which both the city and developer Millennium Partners hope will catalyze growth in the city’s biotech field. Read More

A political research firm hired by the San Carlos School District has been working the phones this week to gauge whether residents are willing to stick with a parcel tax that brings in $1 million annually for local schools. The district is hoping to convince voters to renew the 7-year-old Measure D parcel tax, which costs property owners $110 a year, before it expires in June. Read More