Farm To Table: A 10th Anniversary Celebrated In Style!

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One of the night’s honoree, Kacey Fitzpatrick (in red).

On Sept. 23, GreenTown celebrated its 10th Anniversary at the Fourth Annual Farm-to-Table Dinner & Auction. More than 100 movers and shakers from Los Altos and Los Altos Hills came together celebrate local environmental heros and raise money to support the important work GreenTown is doing in our communities.

Honoring Environmental Heroes

The night wouldn’t have been complete without our special honoree, GreenTown’s founder Kacey Fitzpatrick, sharing a recap of the genesis of GreenTown Los Altos. Folks new and old to GreenTown thoroughly enjoyed her tale! Two incredible volunteers were also honored as our Environmental Heroes for 2017: Barbara O’Reilly and Linda Ziff.

Barbara O’Reilly

Barb O’Reilly receiving her award from GreenTown Los Altos’ Kris Jensen.

Barbara O’Reilly, a.k.a. “Garbage Girl,” is one of GreenTown’s most passionate and enduring volunteers. Barbara has been with GreenTown since the very  beginning. She has led efforts to increase community awareness of overflowing landfills and immense plastic gyres in the ocean. She spearheaded GreenTown’s twice yearly creek cleanup and this year’s Farmers Market recycling and composting efforts. Don’t let the white hair fool you, Barbara O’Reilly is a true force for sustainability in our community!

Linda Ziff

Linda Ziff is a dynamo, a genuine wonder woman! She has all four GreenTown W’s covered:

Linda Ziff, as GreenTown’s Gary Hedden discusses her many accomplishments.

• Water. This is her favorite W. She leads creek cleanups and organized one just last weekend on Permanente Creek. She walks the walk, too. Her house has never had a lawn, instead it has lovely drought tolerant landscaping.
• WoW! That’s our walk or wheel program. While Linda doesn’t ride a bike, she promotes biking by finding good yards for the Lawn-Be-Gone bike tours.
• Waste. Garbage is a pet peeve of Linda’s. Together with Barbara, she has been spending her free time at the Farmers Market, setting an example of how to divert waste form the landfill. And it’s working!

Linda was a founding member of GreenTown and ten years later she is still leading the way and providing inspiration for us all!

Prior years’ Environmental Hero Awards include:

• 2015: Vicki Moore, Founder Living Classroom
• 2016: Mary Clark Bartlett, CEO and Founder, Epicurean Group and Karl Danz, Volunteer with Citizen’s Climate Lobby.

People like Barbara, Linda, Mary, Karl and Vicki inspire us to keep up the good work building a more sustainable community.

A special part of the evening was a presentation by leaders of the Los Altos High School (LAHS) Green Team, Anya Gupta and Sarah Chang. They provided inspiration and hope for the dinner guests, sharing stories of their passion f

Beautiful artwork by GreenTown Los Altos’ Linda Gass were one of many auction items that were met with a wow.

or the environment and how they are helping to create a greener LAHS campus.

Guests enjoyed delicious food prepared by Catered Too, wine from Portola Vineyards and Thomas Fogarty Winery, and beer donated by Laugunitas Brewery. Throughout the evening attendees bid on our incredible silent auction items culminating in a live auction led by Deb Kilpatrick. Many generous donors provided auction items like a dinner at Bumble, a party at Honcho, a cooking class with “Silicon Valley’s Best Personal Chef” Joni Sare, and a beautiful art print by GreenTown member Linda Gass!

Many businesses and community members donated generous gifts from vacations to private parties to gift baskets. A beautiful Northern California raffle basket, donated by Connie Miller of Alain Pinel Real Estate and Jim and Jim from Present of Los Altos, went to Mary Clark Bartlett, a long-time supporter of GreenTown’s work and recipient of last year’s Environmental Hero award!

The Valerie Jay Band played delightful background music throughout the evening.

None of this would have happened without the dedicated work of our organizing committe: Pat Hedden, Jana Schlansker, Margie Suozzo and Deb Torok. We also owe a huge thanks to our event sponsors Epicurean Group, El Camino Hospital, California Water Company, Avalon Enterprises and Mission Trail Waste Systems in addition to our table sponsors.