Tag archives: The Giving List

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 […]

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 […]

Santa Barbara Symphony
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 13, 2024

For the Santa Barbara Symphony, the 2023-24 season expresses a number of the outreach efforts in its mission: to enrich residents’ lives by producing and presenting the highest quality musical experiences, performed with artistic excellence and accessible to the entire community – as well as inspire a passion for symphonic music in the next generation […]

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 […]

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 […]

Legal Aid Foundation
By Steven Libowitz   |   July 4, 2023

You might wonder how a chowder festival has anything to do with providing free, high-quality legal services to low-income and other vulnerable residents in order to ensure equal access to justice. The answer is, not much, except that prior to the pandemic, the decade-old Santa Barbara Chowder Fest had become the single largest fundraiser for […]

Santa Barbara Symphony
By Steven Libowitz   |   May 3, 2023

The programming for the Santa Barbara Symphony’s milestone 70th anniversary has resulted in a sensational and supremely successful season, a nine-month musical journey that has weaved together a variety of collaborative explored genres and cultural traditions. Concerts have cut a wide swath across and beyond what is traditionally considered classical music, including such uniquely Santa […]

National Disaster Search Dog Foundation
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 21, 2023

Over the last couple of months (and as recent as this week), Montecito residents have been repeatedly reminded of the deadly debris flows of Jan. 9, 2018, as atmospheric rivers have resulted in torrential downpours bringing back memories of massive floods that claimed 23 lives and is still being cleaned up today.  But a couple […]

Dunn School
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 14, 2023

Dunn School’s Kalyan Balaven, head of school for the private co-ed college prep boarding and day school in Los Olivos, had no idea of the floodgates that would open when he decided to find a way to help a student from the Ukraine who early last year was initially only seeking a few extra days […]

World Telehealth Initiative
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 28, 2023

It took a little while to reach Sharon Allen of the World Telehealth Initiative (WTI) to arrange an interview last week. That’s because the cofounder and executive director of the barely 5-year-old nonprofit was over in Ukraine, in the midst of a week-long visit to the war-torn country as part of a special expansion of […]

Common Table Foundation
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 31, 2023

While the world enters its new “normal,” the need to break bread with one another, both metaphorically and literally, is more welcome than ever. The sharing of conversation over food is a bonding act between people as old as civilization itself and with State Street now a bustling pedestrian thoroughfare, it is the ideal time […]

CAMA
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 24, 2023

Community Arts Music Association of Santa Barbara, aka CAMA, is deservedly well-known and cherished for its commitment and ability to bring the finest classical musicians from around the world to Santa Barbara, a cultural coup of musical riches that would normally be beyond the means for such a small community.  It helps that it all […]

C.A.R.E.4Paws
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 17, 2023

Back in 2009 when Isabelle Gullö co-founded C.A.R.E.4Paws, she knew there was a desperate need locally for programs that reduce pet overpopulation and intervene before animals suffer and/or end up homeless among the low-income, senior, disabled, and unhoused pet family population in town. As a volunteer at the Santa Barbara County Animal Services shelter, she’d […]

Giving Back
By Gwyn Lurie   |   November 29, 2022

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”  – John Wesley Of all the places I’ve lived or spent any significant […]

World Business Academy
By Steven Libowitz   |   November 1, 2022

To get a clear picture of what the World Business Academy does, it’s a good idea to zoom out far above the Santa Barbara nonprofit’s home base – maybe to around 30,000 feet, suggests founder and president Rinaldo Brutoco.  “With the exception of Direct Relief International, which is a massive charity that’s based here, we […]

STESA
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 18, 2022

The Winnie the Pooh characters Tigger and Eeyore normally wouldn’t come up in a conversation about sexual assault and consent. But at Standing Together to End Sexual Assault (STESA), any method that helps the nonprofit reach youth to achieve its goal of eliminating all forms of sexual violence is worth trying, including referencing the beloved […]

Sansum Clinic
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 11, 2022

Sansum’s excellence in imaging stands out in October October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, an annual effort to raise awareness about the impact of the disease on women, their families, and their communities. Breast cancer remains the most commonly diagnosed form of cancer in women in the United States, with approximately one in eight women […]

State Street Ballet
By Steven Libowitz   |   September 6, 2022

It’s no accident that Rodney Gustafson landed in Santa Barbara to launch his State Street Ballet dance company almost three decades ago. The company’s executive and artistic director had targeted returning to town ever since he’d performed as a dancer with the famed American Ballet Theatre (ABT) at the Arlington Theatre many years before. “I […]

Santa Barbara Library Foundation
By Steven Libowitz   |   August 30, 2022

The Santa Barbara Library Foundation’s director Lauren Trujillo is in a celebratory mood.  The foundation’s $5.4 million capital campaign to revitalize the historic plaza at the Santa Barbara Library, a once bustling pedestrian thoroughfare that had fallen into disrepair, has been fully funded. The organization raised nearly 60 percent of the dollars from private contributions […]

Santa Barbara Symphony
By Steven Libowitz   |   August 2, 2022

The Santa Barbara Symphony is proud of its upcoming 2022-23 season, which marks the organization’s milestone 70th anniversary. Understandably so, as the season’s nine concerts boast an impressive list of guest artists including pianist Alessio Bax, jazz saxophone legend Ted Nash, Sinatra crooner Tony DeSare, and two different Grammy-nominated violin soloists in Guillermo Figueroa and […]