Scene in S.B. Text and photos by Caitlin Fitch
living p. 33
Digital
New Website for S.B. Nonprofits
above: Before opening Handlebar Coffee Roasters two-and-a-half years ago, Aaron Olson and Kim Anderson were professional cyclists traveling the world and spending a lot of time in cafés. “Cafés are an important part of European culture, and we wanted to bring a little of that atmosphere to Santa Barbara,” said Olson, who takes his coffee black. “We are expanding into the building next door soon, as well,” he added while roasting a fresh batch of Costa Rican beans. left: “This is my last day of work before a two-month leave of absence to finish my PhD thesis,” said Ben Best after taking a swig of green tea at The French Press on State Street. Best works at UCSB’s Ocean Health Index, where he and others aim to quantify how sustainably we are using our oceans. “I feel lucky to be gainfully employed and living here in Santa Barbara,” he added.
Education
Aviation Scholarship for Women
Trivia
1 2 HIGH FLYERS: Amelia Earhart (pictured) was just one of 75 founding members of the Ninety-Nines, which supports the advancement of women pilots.
3
Which saint is known for slaying a dragon? ❏ George ❏ Christopher ❏ Francis Which nation’s flag has a red dragon as its symbol? ❏ Iceland ❏ Wales ❏ Belgium Smaug is the name of the dragon in which book? ❏ Game of Thrones ❏ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone ❏ The Hobbit answers: . George; . Wales; . The Hobbit.
Amelia Earhart may be best remembered for her solo flight across the Atlantic — and her mysterious disappearance — but the pioneering pilot contributed many things to aviation. In 1929, she was one of the founding members of the Ninety-Nines, an organization founded to support the advancement of women pilots. The group still functions today with a global membership of more than 5,000 women from more than 30 countries. The Santa Barbara chapter is doing its part to support female pilots and recently announced the C.J. Strawn Aviation Scholarship for Women in honor of California pilot Cheryl Strawn, who perished in a midair collision in 2013. Applicants must be 16 years or older, live in California, and have a desire to be a pilot or airplane mechanic. The winner will receive $2,000, which will go to help defray the costs of flight or mechanic school. Applications are due by July 15. For more information, call Lynn Houston at 698-6784 or email her at Cherub007@cox.net. For more on the Ninety-Nines, visit ninety-nines.org. — Michelle Drown
Santa Barbara’s intense concentration of nonprofit organizations rivals even our staggering tally of restaurants, but since the recession-related closure of the 15-year-old Nonprofit Support Center in 2011, the charity community has been lacking a collective center of gravity. That’s no longer the case, as the Santa Barbara Nonprofit Resource Network is now filling that void, and doing so almost entirely digitally, through the recently relaunched website nprnsb.org. “We’re trying to fill a gap that’s very specific to the nonprofit community,” explained David Fortson, a longtime area nonprofit player whose LoaTree consulting firm designed the site for the Hutton Parker Foundation and the handful of other foundations now funding this initiative. “It’s a two-way communication system between people who want to learn and people who want to share.” And evolving daily, as Pamela Lewis, the network’s director and also head of the Hutton Parker Foundation, said, “We’re constantly asking our members, ‘What information do you want?’” The clean interface — which is open to anyone with an interest in nonprofits and now boasts about 500 registered members with nearly 100 more signing up per month — is a familiar social-media-like feed that blends daily curated job postings, news articles, press releases, and educational pieces from respected nonprofit think tanks like the Stanford Social Innovation Review. There’s also an AskElla function, which is like Google for charities; a weekly email blast to 2,300 people; and, exclusive to this site, ticket sales for the annual Partnership for Excellence Conference and the ability to reserve the Cornerstone Community Room in Santa Maria. The website, said Fortson, who believes other communities may also benefit from such a site, helps organizations learn “how to be a better nonprofit and what the trend lines are in the nonprofit community.” — Matt Kettmann See nprnsb.org.