Events

Brittney “Bert” Woodrum is a Rotary Peace Fellow Candidate who became a ShelterBox ambassador nearly a year ago when she began her masters in Humanitarian Assistance at the University of Denver. A Kentucky native, she graduated from the University of KY in 2015 with a focus in Nonprofit Administration and Spanish. Over the past four years, she has put her education to good use, working for a variety of NGOs across the globe, including in Mexico, Hong Kong, and Myanmar. In her free time, Bert enjoys studying languages, cycling, and hiking. As an avid thru-hiker, she has completed the entirety of the Appalachian Trail and Camino de Santiago and hopes that before leaving Colorado, she’ll have the opportunity to explore all that the Rockies have to offer. Above all else, however, Bert’s ultimate goal is to be of service to the global community and plans to dedicate her life to solving logistical challenges across the field of Humanitarian Assistance.

ESCOM is a student organization, founded in 1973, that serves the unique needs of older adults who are dedicated to the principles of quality of life, lifelong learning and personal growth. ESCOM is an integral part of the College of Marin. A pioneer in the innovative use of community colleges for adults, the organization enhances the lives of its greater community with a diverse selection of clubs, events and forums offered online or at COM’s Kentfield and Indian Valley campuses.

Luanne Mullin is a Retirement Counselor and has presented career and transition workshops for the past 10 years. After leaving the University of California in San Francisco, where she worked as a Project Manager for 20 years, she was recruited by the Marin Senior Coordinating Council (aka Whistlestop) to work as a project consultant.

Luanne, with Master’s Degrees in Education and Clinical Psychology, has served on the Leadership Counsel of the Business Forum for the American Society on Aging and as a Chair & Co-Chair for The Transition Network, a national organization for professional women over 50. In addition, she is a certified mediator and a prior Commissioner on Aging for the County of Marin. 

The Marin County Office of Education and the Marin YMCA are partnering to addressing the Equity Gap in Education during the COVID-19 school closures.  As the school year begins, Marin students, who struggle with remote instruction and who may not have family support resources at home, are being aided by the creation of the Marin Community Learning Hubs.  The Hubs benefit children in underserved neighborhoods, providing them with access to tutors and support systems at local libraries, churches and community centers.

Ken Lippi, assistant superintendent for the Marin County Office of Education, told the Marin Independent Journal that the hubs especially benefit children struggling to learn from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.The Marin Y will be partnering at 16 of the Marin Learning Hubs, including the Abert J. Boro Community Center.

Joining our speaker, Torrey Kelly, will be Meghan Case, Senior Director of Administration, and Andrew Ward, Senior Executive Director.

There’s been a lot of concern about how to deal with gardens and landscapes in Marin in an increasingly long and intense California fire season.  UCCE Marin Master Gardeners believe that healthy gardens are an important component of a healthy and biodiverse ecology--and of a less fire prone home environment. We have developed fire-smart principles to help reduce landscape fire risk without serious reduction or elimination of garden and landscape plantings. Following these principles can help you deal with fire risk while maintaining a healthy and beautiful landscape.  This presentation will describe Fire-smart principles and tips to reduce fire hazard risk in your landscape while preserving its ecological and esthetic value. 

Before becoming a Marin Master Gardener in 2014, Bob Mauceli was a Master Gardener for nine years in Upstate New York. He lives on a north Novato hillside that has twenty-one Tuscan olive trees and is landscaped using native trees, shrubs, ground covers and perennials. Bob is one of the original members of the Marin Master Gardener Fire-smart Project Team. He has been working for the past two years on applying Fire-smart principles to his native plant garden to reduce its fire hazard risk.Before becoming a Marin Master Gardener in 2014, Bob was a Master Gardener for nine years in Upstate New York. He lives on a north Novato hillside that has twenty-one Tuscan olive trees and is landscaped using native trees, shrubs, ground covers and perennials. Bob is one of the original members of the Marin Master Gardener Fire-smart Project Team. He has been working for the past two years on applying Fire-smart principles to his native plant garden to reduce its fire hazard risk.

Kate represented the condemned on California's death row as a Deputy State Public Defender.She will talk about how San Quentin Prison came about, its early history, and some of the colorful characters from those early years. She is also a docent at Jack London State Historic Park, serves on the Novato Historical Guild Board, and, in non-Covid times, leads free historical walks around Hamilton, Novato, Taylor Park, Sebastopol and elsewhere. 

Richard  Breyer will describe his process of non-fiction filmmaking and how he and his team took on the story of John W. Jones, a fugitive slave who was befriended by Mark Twain’s Family in Elmira, New York. The film’s website is http://300milestofreedom.com/reviews.html.

Richard Breyer has been making documentaries for more than thirty years. His website, http://wandbproductions.com, offers trailers of many of his films. Breyer is also on the faculty of the Newhouse School, Syracuse University and  has worked and taught in India, twice as a Fulbright Scholar.