Women's History Month

Master Composter Alane O’Rielly Weber is an evangelist for healthier plants and sustainable soil.  She is an indomitable force in support of natural soil health, and has shared her enthusiasm with many students over the years.  From thermal composting, to worm composting, to compost tea we see her spreading compost and spreading the good word about sustainable practices.  She admits, “People who know me call me the Preacher for the Microbes—they can’t get me to shut up about the topic!” Very special thanks to Sustainable San Mateo County and Dr. Elaine Ingham.

Meet Lidia D’Amico, a National Park Service ranger who takes an incredible joy in her job, monitoring the tens of thousands of birds that nest on Alcatraz Island, especially a pair of once-endangered Peregrine Falcons and their fledgling chicks.

Funded by the California Coastal Commission’s WHALE TAIL® Grants Program. 

Support coast & ocean education programs with a Whale Tail License Plate and on your California tax form. coastal.ca.gov/whaletailplate/index.html

coastal.ca.gov/publiced/checkthecoast

Meet Blanca Hernández, Director of Programs & Partnerships for "YES! Nature to Neighborhood" – a non-profit organization that celebrates the benefits that spending time in nature offers for all human beings. An immigrant from Mexico, Blanca was the first in her family to go to college.

The names of eight Black Petalumans, all married couples, were found on a suffrage petition that was presented to the California state legislature in 1870. Some of these individuals were trustees of the African Methodist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Union Church in Petaluma, and some of their grave sites reside in the Cypress Hill Memorial Park in Petaluma. The couples who signed the petition were Alexander and Melvina McFarland, Cooper and Eliza Smith, Thomas and Juliana Johnson, and Charles and Rebecca Montgomery.

Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley is a non-profit organization that has been providing Latinas with civic engagement and leadership development in Silicon Valley since 1999.  Addressing leadership cultivation through a female and Latino/a cultural lens, the group identifies and heightens awareness about issues that disproportionately affect the Latino/a community through educational panels, interactive sessions, hands-on advocacy, workshops and events. 

The Latina Coalition Silicon Valley is a NorCal anchor partner at Open San Jose.  For more information visit:  https://www.latinacoalition.org

As cooperative extension enologist at UC Davis, Prof. Anita Oberholster brings research and developments from the Department of Viticulture and Enology to the wine industry and continually interacts with its vineyard and winery professionals. She has led research efforts on smoke taint and its mitigation in grapes and wine, winery sanitation and Red Blotch Virus. Anita was recognized as a Wine World Game Changer at the NorCal Food & Wine Awards Gala in 2023.

The lives and work of 16 women in the wine industry in Sonoma and Napa counties in California.

Roisin and other young activists with Citizens’ Climate Lobby San Mateo take to the streets to spread their message to the community: It’s time to get loud for the climate! For more information: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/get-loud-take-action/ 

San Francisco photographer and author Josie Iselin helps audiences look at seaweed in a whole new light. Her writing and art focusing on kelp and other marine algae put her at the forefront of ocean activism. She educates the public and works with scientists and environmental groups who seek to preserve the kelp forests of our Pacific Coast. To learn more visit: www.josieiselin.com

Connect the Bay: Needle Felting Non-traditional sculptor Stephanie Metz has her studio at San Jose's Alameda Artworks collective, and fills it with her fantastic, fun, and sometimes downright weird creations. Working primarily in wool and industrial felt, she states "My artwork grows out of a sense of curiosity, play, and the desire to explore meaning. I’m particularly interested in the tension created when opposing qualities coexist." Soft and prickly, imaginary and real, funny and disorienting: welcome to Stephanie's world! For more information visit https://www.stephaniemetz.com

A female marine ecologist (Sarah) mentors a younger woman (also named Sarah) in what was once a male-dominated field. SARAH SQUARED follows them as they monitor humongous elephant seals on a Northern California beach.

Premiered at the 2022 DocLands Documentary Film Festival.

Presented by Northern California Public Media 

Stepping into Alicia N. Ponzio's North Beach, San Francisco studio is a little like time traveling to a renaissance European workshop. With daylight streaming in through high windows, paintings on easels are punctuated everywhere by sculptures, both finished and in progress. Traditionally trained as a sculptress in Florence, Italy, Alicia specializes in the human figure. She explains the process of creating her recent work "The Builder," made during the pandemic, through which she says she "explored her emotions through form." Special thanks to Grant Phelps, Natasha von Kaenel at The Crucible, and for additional footage by Denise Snaer-Gauder and C. J. Vohs. For more information visit https://www.aliciaponzio.com

Anna Morrison Reed was a poet, lecturer, journalist, and publisher from Ukiah -- and she became a leading advocate for women's suffrage in Sonoma County and statewide. Anna's story is a fascinating one, because in her early years as a lecturer, she held anti-suffrage views, but as she got older, her position shifted to pro-suffrage.

Abigail Haskell lived in Petaluma, California in the mid- and late 1800s. She was a champion of women's education and equal pay for equal work, a fierce and opinionated writer, and a leader in the women's suffrage movement in Sonoma County and California.