Tag archives: Giving List SB

NatureTrack
By Steven Libowitz   |   June 24, 2025

Summer is often a slower season for NatureTrack, the nonprofit organization which was founded with the goal of creating opportunities for people of all ages to foster a lifelong fascination with nature. That’s because the main thrust of NatureTrack’s day-to-day activities is providing K-12 students with outdoor field trips in Santa Barbara County. NatureTrack takes […]

Savie Health
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 22, 2025

Fictional detective Harry Bosch, the star of more than a dozen best-selling books by Michael Connelly and two TV series on Amazon Prime, operates with a credo he adopted early in his career: “Everybody counts, or nobody counts.”  That’s basically the same philosophy behind Savie Health, the nonprofit free clinic in downtown Lompoc. It’s the […]

National Disaster Search Dog Foundation
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 24, 2024

Thirty years ago this coming April, FEMA-Certified Canine Search Specialist Wilma Melville and her black lab Murphy spent a week rummaging through the rubble of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing in Oklahoma. What stood out was just how few other rescue dogs were on site to search for survivors. When Melville realized only […]

Santa Barbara Museum of Art
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 3, 2024

When Amada Cruz took over as Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s new Robert and Mercedes Eichholz Director and CEO about 13 months ago, she had a clear idea of how she viewed the museum’s evolving role in the community.  “I see a lot of value in the arts beyond the aesthetic,” she said in these […]

Sansum Diabetes Research Institute
By Steven Libowitz   |   November 12, 2024

Last month, Sansum Diabetes Research Institute (SDRI) reached a major milestone with its year-long $20 million capital campaign to facilitate the renovation of the nonprofit’s current building, breaking ground on the 18,000-square-foot building renovation project. The work is to transform the building, located near Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, into a state-of-the-art diabetes research facility that […]

Santa Barbara Foundation
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 15, 2024

For almost a century, the Santa Barbara Foundation has been a catalyst for change in Santa Barbara County, analyzing issues to identify challenges that burden people, and then convening community stakeholders to build coalitions and partner with nonprofits and other leaders working on the front lines to solve problems. While issues, approaches, and methods might […]

Exceptional Plants Auction: Lotusland’s Horticultural Hoedown
By Steven Libowitz   |   August 13, 2024

Crossing Encephalartos horridus with Encephalartos woodii might sound like the formula for developing the world’s next deadly disease. But horticulturalists will realize that it’s actually a unique cycad hybrid – one that results in super spiny and glossy green leaves. The Lotusland-created specimen will be among the hundreds of rare and specimen plants available at […]

RiteCare Childhood Language Centers
By Steven Libowitz   |   July 23, 2024

There are 19 RiteCare Childhood Language Centers across California, a program of the California Scottish Rite Foundation that provides life-changing speech therapy, language skills, and literacy services to more than 2,300 children at no cost to the families. The highly effective centers in many ways more than fill the gaps between what the public schools […]

Connecting Doctors to Underserved Communities and Career Fulfillment Across the Globe
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 23, 2024

World Telehealth Initiative had a very lofty goal when the nonprofit began in 2017: use modern medical robotics and engage volunteer physicians to make an impact in healthcare disparity across the globe. With half of the world’s population lacking access to essential health services, statistics show that nearly nine million people die every year from […]

PATH
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 23, 2024

A significant number of nonprofits and other organizations have been working to end homelessness in Santa Barbara and across California. PATH has had a jump on nearly all of them, as its mission is built right into its name – which is an acronym for People Assisting the Homeless. PATH started small and simply with […]

Granada Theatre
By Steven Libowitz   |   April 2, 2024

Are you wondering why there’s a whole lot of hoopla about the Granada Theatre 100th birthday beyond merely marking a major milestone? First, perhaps, pivot over to Hattie Beresford’s comprehensive column The Way It Was (page 22) in this issue. That piece traces the history of the grand old theater – from its vaudeville days […]

New Beginnings
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 26, 2024

New Beginnings’ Safe Parking program turned 20 earlier this year, a milestone you need to celebrate. On the other hand, I wish it didn’t even exist in the first place. In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be homeless people living on the streets or in their cars. The latter is what the Safe Parking program […]

SBCC Foundation
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 19, 2024

It was Geoff Green, the longtime CEO of SBCC Foundation, who created and spearheaded the organization’s SBCC Promise, the program that provides all recent local high school graduates with the opportunity to attend the community college full-time free of charge for up to two years. The Promise is comprehensive and robust, covering virtually everything a […]

AHA!
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 20, 2024

Roxana Petty is understandably proud that AHA! is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2024, marking a quarter-century since the nonprofit’s founding as a small summer program just a few months after the infamous Columbine High School massacre. In an effort to reduce the possibility of such a tragedy happening in Santa Barbara, AHA! (which stands […]

Sansum Clinic
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 12, 2023

The Montecito Journal’s 2024 Giving List book for Santa Barbara was just published last month in time for Giving Tuesday, but already the two-page spread about Sansum Clinic is out of date.  Not the part that takes note of the fact that Sansum’s breadth of services are so pervasive in the area that it’s likely […]

The Giving List Santa Barbara, 2023/24 Edition
By Steven Libowitz   |   November 28, 2023

Montecito Journal Media Group launched The Giving List back in November of 2020 as a way to connect two very important communities in the region: the thousands of nonprofit organizations, totally perhaps more per capita than any other county in the country, and the vast and deep philanthropic community, which supports the organizations working hard […]

Sansum Diabetes Research Institute
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 24, 2023

As recently as the early 20th century, a diagnosis of diabetes meant the certainty of a shortened life plagued with complications that would ultimately prove fatal. But thanks in large part to Santa Barbara’s Sansum Diabetes Research Institute (SDRI), the outlook has brightened considerably over the decades.  SDRI’s founder was Dr. William Sansum, a pioneer […]

AHA!
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 17, 2023

AHA!’s (Attitude. Harmony. Achievement.) multi-faceted programs have been rapidly expanding nearly a quarter-century after the organization’s founding in response to the shooting at Columbine High School back in 1999. The proof is in the post-pandemic pudding, which emerged late last month when some of AHA!’s after-school programs got underway.  “The demand for what we’re doing […]

SBC Food Action Network
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 10, 2023

It was back in 2011 that UCSB environmental studies professor Dr. David Cleveland published his white paper indicating that 99 percent of the produce grown in Santa Barbara County was being exported elsewhere. That statistic alone wouldn’t be so startling given that agriculture and food is the number one industry in Santa Barbara County. The […]

Santa Barbara Education Foundation
Love of Literacy Luncheon
By Steven Libowitz   |   September 26, 2023

Having books in the home has been proven to positively benefit children in many different ways. One 20-year study found that the mere presence of a home library, no matter how small, not only increases children’s vocabulary development and literacy, but also leads to increases in attention, academic success, and, eventually, job attainment.  The Santa […]