The Annual Green Gala Hit Different This Year

This year’s Green Gala was different. Federal environmental protections are being actively dismantled, funding for green projects is disappearing, and natural disasters are increasing in frequency due to the climate crisis. 

It all hung over the Community Environmental Council’s fundraising event this week like a weighted blanket.

“Tonight is different, because right out of the gate in January, CEC lost a half million [dollars] in federal funding, with another one and a half million at risk,” said Sigrid Wright, Chief Executive Officer of the CEC. 

“It’s different because disasters like mega fires and heat domes and fear storms are so common that most of us in this room now have a personal climate story,” she continued. “And it’s different, because, as we saw in L.A. earlier this year, it’s increasingly up to local communities to protect ourselves and help each other out when disaster hits.”

But the night was not all doom and gloom. Attendees in cocktail attire complemented the green decorations around the Funk Zone venue. The outdoor space’s gravel crunched beneath the feet of mingling environmental supporters from all walks of life, including personnel of the city and county fire departments, while they snacked on finger foods and sipped signature cocktails. Beautiful performances by aerial dancers and expert piano player Oscar Burton (County Supervisor Laura Capps’s son) set the mood. And British NCIS actor Duane Henry made for a well-dressed and lighthearted emcee.

On each table were white Matilija poppies, emblematic of the night’s theme: resilience after disasters, such as wildfire. The Matilija poppy needs fire to grow, as its seeds only germinate thanks to chemicals in smoke that leach into the soil after a fire.

Just like the flower, the night’s keynote speaker, Captain Sheila Kelliher Berkoh, a 25-year veteran of the Los Angeles County Fire Department, learned how to grow after trauma. As attendees ate a delicious family-style dinner, she offered words of encouragement, drawing on her firsthand experience in the recent L.A. fires. She emphasized resilience: bouncing back after hardship, and bravely pushing through challenges. 

“Our community has been no stranger to the need of resilience,” said S.B. County Fire Deputy Chief Garrett Huff in his introduction of Berkoh. “From all the major wildfires we’ve had, the Montecito debris flow and the Conception boat tragedy, we have learned that we have leaned on our neighbors for support and healing.” 

“Mutual aid is how we endure together here in Santa Barbara County, we’ve taken it one step further. We’ve opened a regional fire dispatch center, where we have dropped all jurisdictional boundaries, and we send the closest, most appropriate resource when help is needed — neighbors helping neighbors. We don’t let the lines on the map get in the way of helping each other.”

Burkoh, glammed up in a dazzling silver jacket — her version of “controlled burn,” she joked — had to work hard to fit in and succeed as a woman in a male-dominated field. But she was resilient. Like the poppy, she has seen herself, her neighbors, and the environment persevere even when circumstances have knocked them down.

“After every fire, flood, or storm, nature can and must recover,” she said.

“I’ve seen hillsides after a massive fire reduced to what looks like a moonscape, like nothing will ever grow here again. But three months later, that same hillside is covered with wildflowers, just beautiful life pushing through blackened soil, reminding us survival is only the beginning, and that’s resilience,” she continued. 

“It’s not about never being tested. It’s about how we rise after the test. It’s about growth after trauma … hardships have a way of strengthening us all like nothing else can.” 

The climate crisis, she noted, is testing resilience in ways humanity has never seen before. But she encouraged the use of four pillars of resilience: preparation, adaptation, connection, and transformation.

“Prepare, adapt, connect, and transform. Build those pillars of resistance in your mindsets, your homes, your neighborhoods, your communities, and the policies you support, because the land is already speaking to us. The question is, will we listen? Will we act like the Matilija poppy? 

“We too can rise for the ashes and together bloom into something stronger, brighter and more resilient than before. It’s a legacy that outlasts us, but it will light the way for future generations.”

After her speech, people bid on getaways, fancy dining experiences, a VIP night with the Santa Barbara–hailing band Rebelution, dinner parties with firefighters, and other generously donated auction items to raise more than $100,000 for the CEC’s multiple efforts as an incubator for ideas to address the climate crisis and its local impacts –– such as accelerating and supporting the creation of resilience hubs where people can go to escape climate consequences such as extreme heat; encouraging electric vehicle infrastructure and empowering consumers to make sustainable choices; and teaching cohorts of influential climate stewards how to drive their own changes. 

“So this moment we’re living through, it matters that we are here, that we show up for each other,” Sigrid Wright said. “There’s literally no other way to ensure our survival, and because there needs to be an end, there are some things we can celebrate real ways we’re changing this region from a place once tied to fossil fuels into a living laboratory for climate innovation.”