Mar Vistan Innovators Well Represented at Green Festival L.A.

Los Angeles’ first ever l drew thousands of visitors this weekend, and several of the presenters offering up their expertise and tips in sessions came from Mar Vista.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa officially opened the weekend festival with a green ribbon-cutting ceremony, and was introduced by festival co-founders, Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange and Alisa Gravitz of Green America.

Speaking to attendees, Villaraigosa welcomed everyone and touted the city’s successful implementation of several clean air and zero waste projects. He also reiterated his commitment to making Los Angeles the greenest city in the country.

Mar Vista’s was chosen as one of the select food vendors at the festival, and the staff provided delicious raw food and drinks to festival patrons.  Leaf founder and owner Rod Rotundi, who is also an author and teacher spoke on "Raw Food For Real People" at the Good Food stage at the festival.

Chiropractor Dr. Pamela Durgin who has her facility at the in Mar Vista was also at the festival, supporting practitioner Bryan Johnson at his booth. Johnson has a new business - H3Therapy - in the Oasis facility. He practices Mild Hyperbaric Therapy under a doctor's supervision, which involves the customer lying in a chamber and breathing compressed, ambient air. The practice allows the blood to absorb more oxygen to help heal various injuries.

Mar Vista residents were stationed at their Go Solar/ booth. Both are well known in the community; active in neighborhood networking and instrumental in solar initiatives in Mar Vista. However, they have expanded their concepts to the greater Santa Monica and Los Angeles area and have lobbied the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and the City of Los Angeles for a feed in tariff and more distributed solar power to area rooftops, rather than relying on massive concentrated solar in far-away, ecologically-sensitive desert areas.

Brennan and Ayers’ latest project is promoting Community Solar Day/ Occupy Rooftops, which will take place on Nov. 20 and is a meet-up project of Solarmosaic.com. On Nov. 20, photos will be submitted to promote crowd funding one tile at a time to install solar power in community buildings around the world. 

Other local presenters over the weekend included Lisa Cahill of Tree People, who spoke at the Sustainable Home and Garden pavilion on “How to Build a Water wise Garden."  Cahill’s home has appeared on the Mar Vista Community Council’s for two years.

Mar Vista Patch’s “Bounty Hunter” Christy Wilhelmi  - aka the Gardenerd - also spoke at the Sustainable Home and Garden pavilion on "Heirlooms, Open–Pollinated Plants & Seed Saving."

Another local gardener, Michael Lieberman – aka the Urban Organic Gardener  - spoke on the topic of "Container Gardening in the City."  The Mar Vista resident will be an upcoming guest at the Mar Vista Community Council's Green Tent at the Mar Vista Farmers’ Market.

of the Mar Vista-based non-profit conservation organization HoneyLove.org, also spoke at the Sustainable Home and Garden Pavilion on "Urban Beekeeping."

In their presentation they discussed the main reasons for the decline of the honey bee; why the urban environment is the last refuge of the honey bee; solutions on how people can do their part to help the honeybees; and they gave an update on their efforts to legalize beekeeping in Los Angeles through their initiative in Mar Vista. The couple have been working for six months on a to allow beekeeping in R-1 Residential zones in Los Angeles with a possible pilot project in Mar Vista.

The weekend event also offered up a slew of new and exciting ideas and prototypes including a sneak preview by Ford of its first plug-in hybrid vehicle called the C-MAX Energi, which will be officially released at the Los Angeles Auto Show at the Convention Center on Nov. 18.

Ford also presented Homegirl Café with the $5,000 Community Green Grant,

Ford also presented “Homegirl Café” with the $5,000 Community Green Grant and sponsored several resource recovery stations where they sorted recyclables and compostables.

Other highlights of the festival included celebrity panelists including Lisa Ling; Maroon 5’s Jesse Carmichael; CSI:NY’s Hill Harper; and actress Sharon Lawrence.

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