Please Join the DWMC and our Fabulous Sponsors
for
Our Annual Sustainable Feast:
20 Years of Sustaining Democracy:
It’s All About the Vote!
This promises to be a spectacular event!
Join us at
Hacienda Carmel Valley
(formerly Hacienda Hay & Feed)
TICKETS
INDIVIDUAL TICKET
$150
INDIVIDUAL LOW INCOME/ STUDENT TICKET $50
SPONSOR
LEVELS
BENEFACTOR
$1500 (6-Tickets)
PARTNER
$1000 (4 -Tickets)
ADVOCATE
$750 (2-Tickets & Special Gift)
ENTHUSIAST
$500 (2-Tickets & Gift)
FRIEND
$250 (1-Ticket & Gift)
NO ONE TURNED AWAY—JOIN OUR TEAM AS A VOLUNTEER!
Sustaining Democracy: It’s All About the Vote!
VISIONARY LEADER AWARD:
Sylvia Panetta
This year, the DWMC is thrilled to honor Sylvia Panetta for her outstanding work with Monterey County Reads. Recognizing that reading contributes to young people achieving a happy and productive life as well as being a strong contributor to the prevention of unemployment, incarceration, and poverty, Mrs. Panetta founded this transformational program in 1997. Since that time, Monterey County Reads has taught approximately 100,000 people how to read.
Sylvia Marie Panetta is Co-Chair and CEO of The Panetta Institute for Public Policy. She and her husband, Leon, began the Institute on December 17, 1997, with a mission to encourage young people to pursue lives of public service and to bring discussion of important issues to the community. As CEO of the Panetta Institute, Mrs. Panetta oversees the day-to-day operations of all its programs and projects. She has also served as an advisor to the Chancellor of California State University since March 1997.
In 1995, Mrs. Panetta was appointed Deputy Director for Staff and Finance at the President’s Crime Prevention Council in Washington, D.C. This agency was responsible for coordinating federal programs related to youth development and crime prevention. From 1977 to 1993, she directed five Congressional district offices in the 16th (now 20th) Congressional District as a volunteer for Secretary Panetta, who represented the area for sixteen years. She directed each of his re-election campaigns from 1980 to 1992.
Mrs. Panetta actively supports the Sylvia Panetta Scholarship Fund, a grant program established in her name in 1990 at Monterey Peninsula College that helps financially disadvantaged second-year students to continue their education at a four-year educational institution. She is a past board member of the National Steinbeck Center, where she served as the Vice President for Education and Chair of the Education Committee. She is also a past board member of the Community Foundation for Monterey County and served on the board of directors for the University of California, Santa Cruz Foundation.
Mrs. Panetta’s community involvement has extended to many non-profit organizations with an interest in public education. This began in the mid 1960s when her children attended public schools in Washington, D.C., New York City, and later the Monterey Peninsula. She served on parent advisory committees including ESEA Title I and early childhood education programs. Mrs. Panetta also was the founding executive director of the Foundation to Support the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, a non-profit organization designed to promote and provide grants to programs serving children within that district.
In addition to public education, Mrs. Panetta has a particular interest in healthcare and youth development issues. In past years, she has served as honorary chair for numerous fundraising campaigns for the Hospice of the Central Coast, the Visiting Nurses Associations of Santa Cruz County and the Central Coast, the March of Dimes of the Monterey Peninsula, and the Boy Scouts of America, Monterey Peninsula. She also has taught courses in childbirth and home healthcare for the American Red Cross.
OUTSTANDING DEMOCRATIC LEGISLATOR:
Senator Anna M. Caballero
Serving her second term as a California Senator, Senator Anna M. Caballero is a woman of firsts. The first female Mayor elected in the City of Salinas. The first Latina elected to represent the 28th Assembly District in 2006. In 2011, she served as the Secretary of the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency under Gov. Brown. Caballero’s responsibility as Secretary included the oversight of departments charged with funding affordable housing, civil rights enforcement, banking and financial transactions, consumer protection, and the licensing of three million working professionals.
A graduate of UCLA law school and UC San Diego, Caballero has dedicated her professional life to families in rural California, first representing farm workers as an attorney for California Rural Legal Assistance. She empowers working families and creates opportunities for them and their children to be successful.
Prior to her election to the Assembly, Caballero established a non-profit organization dedicated to youth violence prevention which helped parents and youth develop stronger family bonds and encouraged healthy behavior including supporting literacy, youth employment and high school dropout prevention strategies.
EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNITY SERVICE:
Dr. Laura Solorio
Laura Solorio was born and raised in Hollister and has lived in Salinas for more than 30 years. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Stanford University and received her medical degree from University of California, San Francisco. Her 30-year career as an Internal Medicine physician has included Director of Intensive Care Unit, Chief of Internal Medicine and Medical Director of the Monterey County Health Department Clinics. In 1993, Laura was named an Outstanding Woman of Monterey County by the Monterey County Commission on the Status of Women and was named a Distinguished Fellow of CSUMB in the area of health. She has served on the Boards of the Community Foundation for Monterey County and the Center for Community Advocacy, a Salinas based organization which helps farmworkers improve their health and living conditions. Dr. Solorio currently sits on the Board of Directors for the Elkhorn Slough Foundation and is President of Protect Monterey County (the organization which passed Measure Z in 2016 (no fracking, no wastewater injection and no new oil wells). Hiking and gardening are her favorite pastimes.
EXTRAORDINARY COMMUNITY SERVICE:
Tanya Kosta
Tanya Kosta (Photo by Philip Geiger) (https://www.montereyherald.com/2021/04/10/all-in-monterey-prompted-by-a-pandemic-continued-by-commitment/ )
Tanya Kosta is the founder of ALL IN Monterey, a 100% volunteer organization that provides immediate relief to ever-unfolding community needs. Whether it’s continuing to operate their weekly food drive and clothing donation center at Seaside High School, delivering essentials daily to neighbors without means of transportation, setting up Holiday drive thru events or even COVID-19 vaccination clinics, Tanya and her team are bringing hope, smiles, and rescue to families in our 831 area. With partnerships like the Food Bank for Monterey County and the Monterey Peninsula Unified School District, as well as local family businesses like English Ales brewery in Marina, ALL IN is showing what positive local change can occur when a Central CA community rises to support itself. (bio from: KION News)
EXTRAORDINARY CIVIC LEADER:
Rosalyn Green
Seaside native Rosalyn Green has, for more than 35 years, been a leader of activism, advocacy and organizing to end systemic racism, anti-blackness, and gender inequities. As part of the Seaside Faith-Based Community, she has been unrelenting in building partnerships and pooling resources to strengthen community and decrease economic disparities; to these ends, she founded the Monterey County Black Caucus and co-founded the Monterey County Black and Brown Solidarity Coalition. She serves as Building Healthy Communities (BHC) Director of Regional Black Power Building and Justice Reinvestment.
She was appointed by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors as District 4 Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights Commissioner and as an uncontested candidate to serve as Monterey Peninsula College District Trustee where she currently serves as Chair. Ms. Green is deeply vested in capacity building, youth support, leadership development, and public policy initiatives. She is Vice-Chair of the California Community College Black Caucus, Executive Education Chair for NAACP Monterey County, and is a member of several Statewide Coalitions for Education and Anti-Blackness. She also organized The Village Project, Inc., Parent Advisory Council, Monterey Peninsula Unified School District (MPUSD) African American Parent Advisory Council and SUHSD African American Advisory Council. And she is the Board Chair of Ladies First, a mentoring program for “Girls of Color”.