“Light Up Orinda” a Perfect Match for Community Foundation

    Carol Brovelli loved the Christmas lights along Lombardy Lane in Sleepy Hollow, and the downtown display in Lafayette – so she thought “Why not Orinda?”
    And when she brought the idea up at the Sleepy Hollow Neighborhood Association meeting, Kim Wirtz quickly jumped on board, and together they came up with the idea for Light Up Orinda.
    But it takes more than an idea and some willing volunteers to decide which trees to light up, where to get the electricity, contact neighbors and, most important, come up with the money to make it work,
    Following the logistics of which trees to light up, access to electricity, touching base with local property owners, how to fundraise for the project and other aspects, the next obstacle for Light Up Orinda was securing the necessary initial support.
    Enter the Orinda Community Foundation.
    Brovelli and Straub came to the OCF board with their vision of providing lights during the holidays, hoping for the financial and the other support they needed.
    “They had done a lot of homework,” said OCF board member Sue Severson. “They had estimates and costs for what it would take to do set-up, they had specific trees in mind that would work, they had talked to vendors … and they were willing to fundraise and help make 
it happen.”
    The OCF’s support of Light Up Orinda extended beyond just financial, said Severson, with the foundation acting as a non-profit to help sponsor the project. In short, OCF will do what it takes to support a project it likes.
    “We’re all about Orinda,” said Jim Keefe, president of the OCF’s board of trustees. “What we do, in terms of how we see ourselves and how we operate, is we try to keep our overhead as low as possible, and we appeal to the community to, frankly, trust us, and give us funds.”
    Severson, a former mayor of Orinda, said the foundation promotes and advertises the grant application for local organizations that need extra assistance. The application period closes in October for review by a board of trustees’ subcommittee, which then makes recommendations to the 
full board.
    Those recommendations are subject to modifications, such as which organizations receive grants, or how much funding they will get, said Severson. The amount of grant applications fluctuates each year, said Severson, as does the amount of money that the OCF has available.
    “There are some things that we tend to fund grant dollars to every year, like the Fourth of July parade, that we feel are big events in Orinda,” said Severson. “And, as they say, either you’re in the parade, or you’re standing on the curb watching the parade.”
    “There’s two things that the OCF does,” Keefe said. “One, in terms of grant-making, it supports other small charities. And then two, it supports community activities.”
    Light Up Orinda falls into that second category, said Keefe. He emphasized that while there are many communities within the state who have a municipal budget to light trees seasonally, Orinda does not, and so the decision to adopt the program was an easy one.
    “I felt like we had a lot of community involvement,” said Brovelli of her idea, “and I’m hoping next year we’ll have even more.”
    Keefe said that while there is a general fund that accounts for most of the sponsorships, donors can specify what they would like their contributions to support, such as the theater groups or even Light Up Orinda.
    The OCF gives as much money as possible to local charities or community activities, Keefe said. The foundation has no paid staff, so it can recycle funds efficiently.
    In addition, the OCF works to foster community spirit and engagement through partnerships with the city and other local groups like the Rotary Club, Chamber of Commerce, schools and businesses.
    In turn, it helps to provide financial assistance for organizations such as The Orinda Association, the Orinda Garden Club, Art in Public Places, Seniors Around Town, the Moraga Adobe, Lamorinda Idol for Youth, Concerts and Movies in the Park and more.
    The OCF also sponsors the annual Orinda Action Day of Community Service and the Orinda Citizen of the Year award banquet.