Sunday was a gorgeous, bright blue day, and the vibe inside the Balletto Center for the Sebastopol West 100 (SW100) Awards Ceremony was just as sunny. Now two years old, SW100, a giving circle dedicated to supporting interesting nonprofit projects in West County, was poised to give away 44% more money than they gave away just a year before. The group handed out $295,000 in grants in last year. This year, they split $425,000 between nine grant winners.
SW100 has also grown in size. Last year, the group had 130 members; it’s now up to 172 members, each of whom pays a minimum of $1,300 a year or $110 a month. Some give considerably more.
SW100 received 64 applications from nonprofits in Sonoma County this year. The group’s Grants Committee winnowed that down to 18 applications. SW100’s membership—now 172 strong—then voted on which of those organizations would be the final winners. Regardless of how much a member donates, he or she still gets only one vote. An organization doesn’t have to be located in West County to apply for a SW100 grant; it just has to do a significant amount of work here.
Here are this year’s grant awardees:
Blue Tailed Skinks — $25,000
This Graton-based nonprofit provides Sonoma County youth with the opportunity to experience the joy of mountain biking alongside peers on trails in Sonoma County’s regional parks. Each spring and fall, the group offers a progression of rides that helps young riders gain confidence while riding with family and friends. They offer summer and afterschool programs, family camps, skills workshops and more. For families that can’t pay, they provide generous scholarships and loaner bikes.
Apis Arborea — $25,000
Apis Arborea was founded to preserve the life and resiliency of honeybees through ‘wilding’, that is, the restoration of bees’ natural nesting habitat. The name of the organization, Apis Arborea, is meant to shift “the focus from thinking in terms of commodities (Apis Mellifera) to that of their natural, historical habitat in trees. In his acceptance speech, Apis Arborea Founder Michael Thiele compared the selflessness and life of service of honey bees to the spirit of local philanthropy embodied by SW100. Learn more at apisarborea.org
Sonoma County Tool Library — $25,000
The Sonoma County Tool Library (SCTL), currently located in Santa Rosa, provides free tool lending to all residents with a focus on low- and moderate-income households and tools required for fire safety work to creating defensible space around homes. SCTL’s Executive Director Martin Reed said the organization will use the money to create a tool library in Sebastopol. Learn more at borrowtools.org.
Vital Immigrant Defense Advocacy and Services — $25,000
VIDAS, which stands for Vital Immigrant Defense Advocacy and Services, provides trauma-informed immigrant legal advocacy and community wellness programs. The organization has offices in Santa Rosa, Petaluma, Napa and Vallejo. Director Monica Julian said, “It’s important to us that we make sure that our services reach every part of West Sonoma County, and through your generosity we’re going to be able to do that.”
Julian told the crowd, “In this time of divisiveness, in this time when people are really being targeted for exclusion, I cannot tell you how powerful and how meaningful it is to have an entire community stand up and say, ‘We are with you. We are for you. And we unequivocally support immigrants.’
She also commented on recent ICE activity in West County. “Some of you may know that ICE was recently in Forestville, and that was very close to home. And VIDAS activated immediately. That gentleman was actually arrested in Santa Rosa. We activated the Bay Area Habeas Network, and he was released by the next morning.” Julian later told the Sebastopol Times that the man was released because he was picked up without a judicial warrant.
Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation — $50,000
Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation’s mission is to restore and conserve the Laguna de Santa Rosa and to inspire appreciation for our local “Wetland of International Importance.” Christine Fontaine, the director of education at the Laguna Foundation, reminded the crowd that the Laguna Foundation was “created by community members in West County, in Sebastopol, who stood up and said, ‘This ecosystem is worth our attention. It’s worth our energy. It’s worth our efforts to protect and conserve.’
Noting that many people in the room had been involved as volunteers and donors over the years, she touted some of the organizations accomplishments: “Just last year alone, we provided Learning Laguna, our elementary school program, for more than 900 elementary school students; we provided summer enrichment at Camp Tule for 120 children plus 25 teens and young adults who are building their job skills.” In addition to hosting more than 165 events for the community, she noted that the Laguna Foundation “grew more than 50,000 native plants in our nursery and produced over a million seeds of endangered vernal pool plants that are going to be installed in our endangered vernal pool ecosystems.”
Ruthless Kindness — $50,000
Started last year by two women veterinarians, Dr. Sarah Reidenbach and Dr. Kate Kuzminski, Ruthless Kindness is a Sebastopol-based nonprofit that supports victims of domestic violence and their pets. In accepting the grant, Reidenbach said, “One in four women experience domestic violence, and yet up to 50% won’t leave their unsafe situation if they can’t take their pet with them. And nobody really knows that…The other half either have to leave their pets behind, or they choose to become homeless with their pets, which is why we get so many calls from women who have just recently become homeless and are living in their cars.”
”We work with 30 victim and human service agencies, and our entire job is to remove the pet barrier so that their clients can get safety and stability … We provide emergency pet boarding and emergency foster care for the pets, so that women who need to flee today can get into safety tonight. We work that quickly. We also provide free veterinary care, so we take care of the support and services that the pet needs, so that the client can get support and services for herself and her kids. And then, when she is ready to leave the safe house, we reunite them. In 2025, we received over 1,200 calls from victim service partners and clients asking for support for a pet.”
In the middle of Reidenbach’s speech, a SW100 member raised her hand. “Out of all of the propositions or the grants that we chose between, yours is the only one that literally made me cry. So I’m glad you got selected.”
The Sebastopol Grange — $50,000
The Sebastopol Grange was awarded a $50,000 grant, most of which will go toward repairs and improvements to the Sebastopol Grange Hall, which was built in 1953. Since 1898, the Grange has served as a gathering place for west Sonoma County. They host over 200 events a year—about half of these are private events; the rest are Grange events, the vast majority of which are open to the public.
“I’m continually asked, ‘What is the Grange?’” said Grange President Peter Rogers. “Well, my answer has become, ‘The Grange is what the Grange does.’ So, what does the Grange do?” In answer, he reeled off some of the organization’s accomplishments: These included “a home garden produce exchange throughout the spring and summer, the recent Sebastopol City Council Candidate Forum [co-hosted with the Sebastopol Times]. We have a craft fair in the fall. We have monthly dinners, music, and lectures—you’re all invited—the last Tuesday of every month, and we recently started a series of Wednesday night workshops … We also partner with many other clubs and organizations in West County. We worked together with the Kiwanis in the spring to do a garden box build. We partnered with Slow Food Rush and River recently to do the first in an annual series, Celebrate Sonoma Apples, for the local apple producers, apple growers, and apple products producers. We are hosting the Flynn Creek Circus next week … Over Thanksgiving, we’re going to host—along with the Kiwanis and the Lions Club—a turkey drive. In addition to that, we have clubs that use our hall regularly. We have a ping pong club, the Love Choir, the Sonoma Folk Society, the Sonoma County Mycological Association and California Homemakers Association.”
Sebastopol Community Cultural Center — $75,000
This is the second year in a row that Sebastopol Community Cultural Center has won a large grant from SW100. Executive Director Philena Chantha said, “I just want to say how absolutely thrilled I am that we received this $75,000 grant. As many of you know, it’s been a tough couple of years, and the [$50,000] grant that came from the SW100 last year was critical. It helped us move past the worst of it, and we’re in a place now where we’re growing … We have over 1,500 classes a year, close to 300 private events and concerts sponsored by the community center. There are hundreds of people moving through our doors, and it’s a big responsibility for a very small staff— and so we count on the volunteers that come in and help us get through those events. This year, with the $75,000, it’s going to allow us to continue that work and to grow. We are really proud to announce that we’ll be launching an arts education initiative where we will be bringing cultural assemblies to the schools in our area. Once we’ve got that down, then we’re going to be moving into the rest of the county.”
Career Technical Education Foundation — $100,000
The organization that walked away with the biggest grant this year—$100,000—was the Santa Rosa-based Career Technical Education Foundation. They won for their program called Paths to Purpose, which is a countywide high school internship initiative designed to bridge the gap between classroom learning and real-world experience.
Executive Director Eli Weinzveg, who grew up in Sebastopol, introduced his organization’s mission: “Alongside our education partners, our business community, students and educators, we built an equitable system so that high school juniors and seniors from across the county can spend a semester inside of a real local business, gaining invaluable experience and establishing a deep sense of belonging,” he said. “This year, more than 340 students raised their hands and applied for internships countywide. At CTE Foundation, we believe every student should graduate equipped to keep pace with an unpredictable future. We are not there yet, and we need more internship placements to get us there. So, if you have a business in construction, engineering, healthcare, or advanced manufacturing, or if you are a nonprofit leader, we need you. Open your doors to young people who are craving a real experience.”
“This morning, our community said something about what it values,” he continued. “It said our future isn’t just in our vineyards, on our main streets, or our open spaces. It’s our young people and their chance to build a life and a career that raise them up. This is the investment you’ve made today, and every student who walks to a local business through Path to Purpose will hear the message behind them: ‘We see you. We’re making room for you, and we want you here.’”
Interested in becoming part of Sebastopol West 100? Find out how.
