Photos by Chris Ryan Photography

It was a beautiful night for a wonderful celebration hosted by and benefiting the Museum of Ventura County. 

The Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks served as the perfect setting for “Taste of History 2026: The Silent Movie Era” on Sept. 10. As it always does, the museum created an elegant and exciting atmosphere for the finely dressed crowd, which included me and Jim Harrison. 

The fabulous food, vintage cocktails, live entertainment, dancing and a live auction kept everyone’s spirits high as the museum highlighted the county’s notable role in the glamorous early days of moviemaking in the 1920s. 

The night was also an opportunity to honor Chuck Cohen and Joanie Young with the Museum of Ventura County’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The award is well-deserved as both are extraordinary community leaders whose decades of service and contributions have had a positive impact on Ventura County.

The Museum of Ventura County is such an important community resource and I highly recommend you look into supporting the museum through membership, a donation or attending events like Taste of History.

I was so happy to see Food Share of Ventura County break ground on its new 85,000-square-foot facility on Mariner Drive in Oxnard. This is one of the most important charitable organizations in Ventura County, feeding more than 250,000 people a year and helping address the fact that one in four people in the county are food insecure.

“This day did not happen because of one person,” said Monica White, president and CEO of Food Share, pictured to the right at the event. “It did not happen because of one organization, and it definitely did not happen from one idea. It happened because an entire community believed something better was possible.”  

The new building will help Food Share strengthen its fight against local hunger by moving operations currently spread across three warehouses into a single, central facility. The move will provide more storage space, more refrigerator and freezer space, more loading docks and more space for Food Share’s many volunteers and partners.

While much of the funding for this important $50 million facility has been raised, more funds are still needed and you can help.

You can also attend Food Share’s Fed Up Annual Shindig on Sept.18. There will be delicious appetizers, drinks, dinner and dessert and an exclusive tour of current facilities. You can learn more and buy tickets on the event webpage.

For the third year in a row, Jim and I provided an auction item for the annual Boys & Girls Club of Santa Clara Valley’s auction. 

The prize? The winner and 13 friends and family are invited to our hilltop home for beverages, appetizers and a beautiful sunset view. 

This year’s auction was won by Stephen Wagner, CEO and founder of Integrity Wealth Advisors. Stephen and crew arrived in the late afternoon of Aug. 19 and stayed into the evening as beverages flowed, abundant hors d’oeuvres were served, the sun set and good times were had by all. 

Jan Marholin, director of development for Boys & Girls Club of Santa Clara Valley, runs such a wonderful organization and is such an asset to the community. And we’re already making plans for next year’s auction!

“The Boys & Girls Club of Santa Clara Valley thank both Nan and Jim for such a generous offer to host this event and thank Mr. Stephen Wagner for bidding on this auction item,” Jan wrote of the event. 

Harrison is a longtime supporter of the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Clara Valley and we sponsor many of their events, including their annual auction. The auction raises money for programs that serve the youth of Santa Paula, Fillmore and Piru.

We encourage you to support this organization that is doing so much for our young people. To learn more, call 805-525-7910 or visit bgclubscv.org.

“It’s human nature.” E.J. Harrison & Sons Engineering Manager Mike Harrison is talking about customers trying to get the right trash in the right cart.

“People don’t tend to focus on what material they’re trying to discard and which containers they should be going in,” Harrison said. “For the most part, I think people do a decent job. But it’s not as good as it could be.”

When it comes to sorting trash, it’s vital that we all take the time to get it right. Sort of OK is not OK. 

When you throw your recyclable waste into the trash cart – or vice versa – you GREATLY slow down our complex sorting process and increase the chance of recyclables ending up in landfills. If you toss your food waste into the trash instead of bagging them and adding them to your yard waste cart, you’re increasing methane gas produced in landfills. 

The company collects trash from 100,000 customers, and Harrison uses the collection of organics waste as an example. “We might collect 250 tons a day of green waste cart material residentially,” Harrison said. “Of that 250 tons, there could be up to six or seven or eight tons of trash.”

Regulations make it all the more important that we get it right, Harrison said. “It’s becoming a problem more and more,” he said. “Good faith efforts are no longer enough. You actually have to make more of an effort to get it done.” 

In addition, landfills don’t have infinite capacity. “If we’re filling the landfill up with stuff that’s not compatible with the landfill, that creates a problem,” Harrison said. “To get another landfill in Ventura County is going to be nearly impossible.”

We understand sorting trash isn’t the most glamorous of your daily household tasks. But if you haven’t done so lately, check out the detailed sorting guidelines at ejharrison.com/guidelines/.