When it comes to staying fit (and healthy), there a number of key ingredients: nutrition, reducing stress, sleep … and exercise. At Bennettfit365, which opened in 2020 in Ashland at 1154 Oak Street, owner Tyler Bennett, with eleven years of experience in personal training and nutrition coaching, is there for you.

Medford Women’s Clinic, LLP (3170 State Street, Medford) opened in 2000. Doctors Carissa Ross, Mary Strizzi, Emily Steinbis, and Jonathan Freeman provide a wide range of women-related services, including low- and high-risk obstetrics, problem based gynecology, in-office procedures, and surgeries.

Progressive Optometry (2325 Ashland Street in the Tolman Creek Shopping Center) recently celebrated 26 years in business, providing eye exams, personalized service, “extraordinary frames,” and treatment of visually related learning challenges.

Here’s a tidbit not many people know: The Ashland Family YMCA (540 YMCA Way) has been around since the 19th century! Founded in 1899, the 501.C.3 nonprofit now serves approximately 8,500 members and many more future community members.

When you stand at the corner of Talent Avenue and Wagner Street in Talent, you look across the street at total devastation from the Almeda Fire in September 2020. Behind you are two restaurants that miraculously escaped the fire—Gather and the Vintage Coffeehouse & Sake Bar, which has been serving customers for the last 18 months. Gather, of course, is the site of the old Downtown Coffeehouse, a popular gathering place in Talent, before it succumbed to the Covid pandemic.