Tag archives: Community Dividends Awards

It was a spectacular start to Yuletide when Montecito Bank & Trust held its 22nd annual Community Dividends lunch at the Hilton for 300 guests. More than 195 local charities received checks of varying amounts, with two organizations – Casa Pacifica Centers for Children and Families, and the Youth and Family Services YMCA’s Noah’s Anchorage, […]

Santa Barbara author Jeanine Kitchel, who used to live and own a bookstore business in Mexico in the 1990s, has written a very timely new book, Wheels Up – A Novel of Drugs, Cartels and Survival. “Writing non-fiction was good for a travel memoir and my book on the Maya 2012 calendar phenomenon, but when […]

Montecito Bank & Trust celebrated the 16th anniversary of its Community Dividends Awards, with 188 non-profits sharing $1 million, at the Coral Casino. The program, started by the bank’s founder and philanthropist Michael Towbes, has donated $16 million since its inception. Mike, who died two years ago, used to describe it as “my favorite day […]

British singer Cliff Richard was the star of the show in the cavernous ballroom of the Ritz-Carlton Bacara when 400 glamorously garbed guests turned out for the popular charity, the Dream Foundation, which hosted its 16th annual gala, Dreamland. Cliff who, you might ask, but Sir Cliff, 77 – he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth […]