www.montereycountyweekly.com march 2-8, 2023 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 15 It was a pretty festive Zoom meeting on Monday, Feb. 27. And why wouldn’t it be; on the call there were 198 people representing a huge cross section of the local nonprofit community there to receive $11.2 million from the 2022 Monterey County Gives! campaign. The mood was celebratory as Dan Baldwin, president and CEO of the Community Foundation for Monterey County, Nancy Enterline, vice president of philanthropy at the Monterey Peninsula Foundation and Bradley Zeve, founder and CEO of the Weekly, congratulated nonprofit volunteers and executives on the success of the annual year-end fundraising initiative. Last year, 2022, was the biggest year ever in the history of Monterey County Gives! The $11.2 million raised was 15-percent more than the previous year, which was itself a high water mark. In total, MCGives! has raised and distributed over $56 million to local nonprofits since 2009. In 2022, 201 local nonprofits participated, and the median amount raised was a little over $33,000. Each group received matching funds of 11.2 percent, turning $33,000 into $36,700— that’s a pretty impressive return. This grand scale of fundraising through Monterey County Gives! shows just how generous this community is, and how you, and your friends and neighbors, rally behind causes you support. The money is stunningly big, and the impact that flows throughout our community is far greater, with funds supporting organizations whose missions cover a wide spectrum, from providing music education to volunteer gardening efforts to low-cost medical care and much more. The Community Alliance for Safety and Peace is a coalition of public agencies and nonprofits that work to reduce youth and gang-related violence in order to build a better future. Eleven of its member organizations took part in Monterey County Gives! in 2022. Those groups include Community Parternship for Youth, Rancho Cielo, Sun Street Centers, Monterey County Rape Crisis Center, Harmony at Home and United Way, among others. By my calculation, the CASP groups raised over $1 million in MCGives! That amount of money in the hands of these dedicated people will create real and lasting positive impacts. MY Museum is the county’s children’s museum in downtown Monterey and it is a lively, colorful space where hands-on activities provide opportunities for children to play to learn, and grown-ups to learn to play. Their Big Idea for MCGives! was to raise money to bring a traveling pop-up STEAM exhibit (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) to the Del Monte Center mall to increase access for the broader community. They raised $44,673 and the exhibit, Potter the Otter, opens Friday, March 3. Meals on Wheels of the Monterey Peninsula serves a different clientele. Reducing food insecurity for people who are homebound is their mission. Unfortunately, their services are in great demand and growing. Last year, volunteers drove over 160,000 miles to deliver 276,000 meals to 1,100 seniors, veterans and people with disabilities. The need for Meals on Wheels is matched by the tenacity of the organization. MOWMP raised $311,516 in Monterey County Gives! and is going to put that money to use, building a second commercial kitchen in Seaside so they can increase their output to 10,000 meals per day. This is but a snapshot of a few of the groups that are vital parts of the local nonprofit mission-driven economic force that provides services throughout our county. There were 36 arts organizations in MCGives! that raised over $1.5 million, and 23 environmental groups that raised almost $1.3 million. (All of these funds were partially matched.) The match is thanks in large part to support from the Gunde & Ernie Posey Family Foundation, Neumeier Poma Investment Counsel, David & Lucile Packard Foundation, Cannery Row Company and the Colburn and Alana Jones Foundation of the CFMC. While we’re celebrating the good work of philanthropists and local nonprofits, it would be appropriate to take a moment and thank another group vital to the success of Monterey County Gives!—that’s you. There were 12,067 individual contributions made by donors during the campaign. Whether you gave $5 or $5,000, thank you for your local philanthropy. Erik Cushman is the Weekly’s publisher. Reach him at erik@mcweekly.com. The Great Give Yet again, Monterey County Gives! sets new records in local philanthropy. By Erik Cushman Buzz Off…Where Squid lives in an undersea lair, there are no mosquitoes to contend with. Sure, sea stars can be annoyingly slow-moving, but it’s nothing compared to those terrestrial pests. Squid does not envy the humans deemed responsible for mosquito control, but that is the job of the Monterey County Mosquito Abatement District and the board that oversees them. Sometimes a public servant takes great interest in mosquito control, however, as happens to be the case with James Tashiro, who has served on the district board since 2009 with a nearly 100-percent attendance rate at meetings. He applied to be reappointed to another four-year term. But Tashiro was going to have to fight for the role if he wanted to keep it. The Salinas City Council was set to consider reappointing him on Feb. 21, but Tashiro faced a challenger in Chris Barrera, a local real estate broker and the president of the local chapter of LULAC. During councilmember comments, it seemed like it was less about mosquitoes than process; councilmembers Andrew Sandoval and Anthony Rocha said it was essential to get new representation on boards and raised questions about term limits. The ordeal took over 30 minutes. “I had no idea how this request would draw so much attention,” Barrera said, then announced he was withdrawing his application. Squid’s not sure if there’s a winner in this saga, and if it’s mosquito or human. Seek, find?…As a doting relative, Squid is on occasion called upon to squidsit for a brood of hungry squidlets. And as anyone who has catered to youngsters of almost any species will tell you, children can be picky eaters. So Squid turned to the internet for help. In response, Yelp offered guidance on restaurants with the best children’s menus within oozing distance of Squid’s lair. The “sponsored content” at the top of the page should have given Squid pause. On one attempt, Whisky Club popped up. The next time it was the Fieldwork, a beer garden. (Not either establishment’s fault; Yelp sets the algorithm.) The proper list, once Squid scrolled down, proved no better. According to Yelp, the second-best kids menu at a Monterey County restaurant is Old Fisherman’s Grotto, known for its motto of “no strollers, no high chairs, no booster chairs.” The Fisherman’s Wharf destination does not even have a children’s menu (and to Squid’s chagrin, it does serve calamari). Number six on the list, Monterey’s Fish House, earned its top 10 spot based on this from a Yelp post: “Small downside was no kids menu.” In fact, at least four of the top 10 in Yelp’s “best kids’ menu” search offer nothing of the sort. Squid wonders how we found reliable information before the internet. the local spin SQUID FRY THE MISSION OF MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY IS TO INSPIRE INDEPENDENT THINKING AND CONSCIOUS ACTION, ETC. The scale shows just how generous this community is. Send Squid a tip: squid@mcweekly.com
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjAzNjQ1NQ==