Your Westmont

Scott Craig is manager of media relations at Westmont College Donating Food for Toilet Paper by Scott Craig (photography by Brad Elliott) M ontecito community members are joining with Westmont to serve the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, which has distributed 2.25 million pounds of food during the COVID-19 response. Residents can drop off food at the rear parking lot of Montecito Bank & Trust on Coast Village Road on Saturday, May 9, between 9 am and noon or ask that donated food be picked up from their homes by emailing their address to montecitofoodbankdrive@ gmail.com or texting their address to (805) 450-5971. In exchange, donors will receive wrapped rolls of toilet paper. People can also make a monetary gift online at foodbanksbc.org. In the comment field, write “TP” and an address to get TP delivered – or write “93108” to donate TP to the 93108 Fund for laid off hourly workers in Montecito.

“The TP is just a gimmicky hook, but it’s a topical item these days and will, of course, be forever linked in history with the pandemic,” says Montecito resident and organizer David Taylor. “One can find TP a little easier than a month ago when our plan started forming, but ten to twenty rolls is a good addition to any household supply and also handy to share with needier neighbors.”

Scott Lisea, Westmont campus pastor, says he is recruiting Westmont students to help run the touch-free, drop-off line. “We’re trying to work broadly in the Montecito community to serve the Foodbank, which is hard-pressed right now,” he says.

Taylor and fellow Montecito dog-walker Edee Schulze, Westmont vice president for student life, came up with the idea for the event after witnessing the desperate needs of foodbanks across the country. The initiative also received 2,000 rolls of donated toilet paper from the local hotel industry. “Rather than just giving the TP to the Foodbank, we hope to leverage it into a much larger and more needed quantity of food,” Taylor says.

The Foodbank of Santa Barbara County has served 85,000 individuals during the coronavirus pandemic, far more than during the 2019 government shutdown (51,000) and the Thomas Fire/debris flow (37,000).

“It’s deep within our tradition to care for people who need help,” Lisea says. “This volunteer opportunity will help families who need food in this crisis. The Foodbank does beautiful work feeding those in need.”

Taking Quarantine Treats to the Street

gloves, masks, and hair nets, the Whitneys have taken their goodies to the emergency department and critical care units at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital, AMR Ambulance Company, MarBorg Industries, and to each residence hall for the remaining students on campus and the Westmont Executive Team’s daily meetings. “For Easter, we delivered Easter baskets of baked goods to all six of Westmont’s occupied residence halls on campus as well as individual treat bags for the students at Ocean View Apartments,” Mary Pat says.

She also committed to delivering cookies to anyone celebrating a birthday while sheltering at home. “Receiving homemade treats that they can enjoy with their families just makes an otherwise strange birthday a little happier,” she says.

Mary Pat’s cookie craze hit an early snag when the nationwide baking boom sapped the local flour supply. However she sent out a wide-reaching email and Facebook post and the community responded. “I received lots of donations of unopened bags of flour that we went and picked up from people’s front porches,” says Mary Pat. “We bake and package items during the day and make a delivery run after dinner every night. It has been fun and has given us purpose.”

Wickham, Lecrae Perform for Graduating Seniors

Westmont College had to postpone its Commencement ceremony which was scheduled for May 2, but it celebrated its graduating seniors with a virtual concert featuring two popular Christian recording artists, Phil Wickham and Grammy award-winner Lecrae.

The virtual event honored the class of 2020, while also marking the end of a very challenging semester for all Westmont students – both current and future new Warriors. In fact, this graduating class has endured evacuations due to the Thomas Fire, Montecito debris flows, and now the coronavirus. College officials have only postponed, not canceled, Commencement for the class of 2020, which it hopes to hold in October.

Spring Sing Performs Online

More than 500 people watched Emerson Hall win the 59th annual Spring Sing, “In Your Dreams,” live online April 25 for the first time in the event’s history. “Although it was challenging to come up with a format allowing students to participate while complying with social distancing guidelines, this Spring Sing showcased the creativity and resourcefulness of our community,” says Alex Cameron, Associate Director of Campus Life.

Warriors Claim Eighth Straight GSAC All-Sports Award

• The Voice of the Village • 7 – 14 May 2020 MONTECITO JOURNAL 31

Many Americans have taken to baking while sheltering at home. Mary Pat Whitney, Director of Public and Advancement Events at Westmont, has raised the bar, baking brownie bars and a whopping 12,000 cookies for the Westmont and Santa Barbara communities. This effort started as a way to show gratitude to local first responders and essential businesspeople and grew into a largescale operation for Mary Pat and her twin daughters, Emily and Kate. Donning

For the eighth year in a row, Westmont has won the Golden State Athletic Conference All-Sports Award, given annually to the school with the best overall athletic performance.

Westmont Athletic Director Dave Odell says the award reflects consistent excellence across all sports. “Prior to the suspension of spring sports and the cancellation of the national basketball tournaments, we were experiencing one of our most successful years athletically,” he says.

The award is based on final regular season standings or conference championships. Schools earn 10 points for a first-place finish, nine for second, etc. Each school also receives a point for each GSAC sport the institution sponsors. Dividing the point total by the number of sports determines the score.

“We had our highest overall winning percentage and grabbed at least a share of five out of seven GSAC championships, a phenomenal achievement,” Odell says. •MJ Cookie Queen Mary Pat Whitney delivers her baked goods to President Gayle D. Beebe The Westmont men’s and women’s basketball teams celebrate after winning GSAC Regular Season Championships on February 27

ON THE RECORD (Continued from page 20) remains dedicated to helping families who truly need a home find the right one as quickly as possible.

“People are fleeing big cities to places that are a little more remote,” Hanacek says. “Home has never been so important as now, because you are spending all your time there. We are lucky to have a little bit more elbow room to stay healthy here in Montecito, so our job is to help families who really want that to find a home.”

Santa Barbara Beekeepers Guild Hosts a Bee-Friendly Garden Contest

Ever since 2013, the Santa Barbara Beekeepers Guild, an offshoot of the Santa Barbara Beekeepers Association, has dedicated itself to educating children about bees and other important pollinators by bringing live insects to school. The guild, which has about 85 members, both bee enthusiasts and beekeepers, also provides free bee rescues to local residents, so long as the hive in question is easy to reach. “We are not paid for that, so we take donations,” says beekeeper Ann Dusenberry. “But we refer perilous work to someone else if the hive is up high in a tree or on a building.”

Now, for the second year in a row, the guild is hosting a contest to see who can boast the most bee-friendly garden in Montecito. “We encourage people to plant gardens that are friendly to the bees and other pollinators,” Dusenberry says. “We introduced the honey bees to America, but there are so many other native pollinators and so many kinds of bees, you can just watch the parade go by.”

Many members of the guild who

805 969-1995 Luxury Vacation Rentals

Short or Long Term Coastal Hideaways Inc.

Interior Design Services also available Hire the best in the industry to manage your income property.

Please stop in and visit us 25 years serving the Santa Barbara community

Ten lucky winners will receive this prize

maintain bee colonies keep records on the health of their hives, Dusenberry says. People that keep a lot of bees register that information with the state and county. But bees are still pretty mysterious and hard to gather data about, she adds. “No one has the cure for the really bad diseases that have harmed bees, so we are still treating the disease rather than preventing it.”

Keeping bees is no easy task, Dusenberry says. “It requires stewarding with respect. You don’t go into the hive often. You leave the nursery undisturbed as much as possible. But it is our responsibility to make sure they are healthy and that other bugs don’t take over the hive,” especially beetles and ants. Thankfully, the much-dreaded Asian giant hornet, aka “The Murder Hornet,” which recently turned up in the Pacific Northwest, has not yet arrived in Montecito. “Bees can manage quite a bit on their own, but sometimes they need support from us,” says Dusenberry.

When most people think of bees, they likely imagine the common honeybee. Often overlooked is the humble bumblebee, which unlike the honeybee is a solitary insect that burrows a home underground. By virtue of its sheer size and the intensity of its buzz, the bumblebee is a much more effective pollinator than the average honeybee. “We encourage people to leave dirt patches in their garden for them to use,” Dusenberry says. “Grass is hard for bumblebees, so that’s a reason to consider a native design for your garden, since native plants do well with dirt around. Mulch is also great but if your yard is all cement or

Samples of Montecito poop await testing at the sanitation district’s treatment plant

grass, they can’t live there.”

Dusenberry encourages interested participants to nominate themselves or any neighbor with a pollinator-friendly garden. “We ask them to send in photographs because we can’t go visit their gardens right now,” she says. “We review them and probably will call them to talk about the criteria: Is the garden drought-tolerant and grown without pesticides or herbicides? We would love people to plant for year-round blooms, because we have a great climate. That way, bees can stay year-round in your garden.”

The guild plans to give out ten awards. Each winner will receive a beautiful plaque painted by one of the guild’s members, Raphaela Riparetti, which makes for a perfect garden ornament.

To compete in this year’s contest or to become a guild member (the fee is just $20 per year to join), visit bee guildsb.org.

Montecito Sanitary District Teams with UCSB to Test Feces for COVID-19

Just how many Montecito residents have the dreaded coronavirus, aka COVID-19? Or to put it another way: Just how much COVID-19 is in Montecito’s collective supply of excreta?

Thanks to an ongoing COVID-19 tracing project by Dr. Patricia Holden, a professor of environmental microbiology at UC Santa Barbara, and the Montecito Sanitary District (MSD), we may soon learn the answer. To wit: MSD is providing Dr. Holden with weekly samples of waste water as it enters our town’s treatment plant, which is located at the end of a private road on the beach side of the 101 Freeway. The actual waste that is tested for the virus is referred to as “influent,” meaning it is raw, untreated sewage that has just entered the plant.

MSD collects two types of influent for the study, says Diane Gabriel, MSD’s executive director. “One is a ‘grab’ sample which is as it sounds, a sample taken all at once,” she explains. “The second type is a 24-hour, flow-weighted composite.” This waste is automatically collected after every 10,000 gallons of influent flows past a sensor at the plant. “These small volumes are deposited into one large container where they combine as collection proceeds.”

This container is kept refrigerated throughout the process and a portion of this mixture, or aliquot, is then poured into a smaller container to be analyzed. “The two types of samples are refrigerated to preserve them and then handed off to Dr. Holden via a cooler at the MSD gate, as we are practicing serious physical distancing,” says Gabriel, who adds that MSD is not conducting any of the testing, and exactly when any data will be shared with the public remains unclear.

Here’s hoping Montecito’s waste gets a (relatively) clean bill of health. •MJ Ready for pickup by UCSB’s Dr. Holden

SHOP ONLINE MAISONKSTYLE.COM

GIFT CARDS montecitocashmob.com

We Miss Seeing You

As always, our goal is to Inspire, Delight and Serve our beloved community and friends near and far. We’re here for you. Let us know how we can help you!

CALL US AT 805-969-1676

FOLLOW US @MAISONKSTYLE

COMPLIMENTARY LOCAL DELIVERY

Montecito isn't just where we are, it's who we are. We share our love of this community with the incredible people who both live in and visit our lile paradise. Connecting face to face with our friends and clients both old and new is why we do what we do. Words could never express how grateful we are to those on the front lines sacrificing so very much to restore our community and save lives.

We can’t wait to see you in the store again, but until then to get your fashion fix or to just say “hey” please email kevinfrank@kfrankstyle.com or katiefrank@kfrankstyle.com or call or text 805-722-0194 to shop new Spring and Summer arrivals. Free local delivery, free shipping and curbside pick up available. Shop daily looks on Instagram @kfrankstyle.